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The basic components of Piaget's cognitive theory
The basic components of Piaget's cognitive theory
The basic components of Piaget's cognitive theory
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Akejah McLaughlin
Professor Kline
Lifespan Development
19 October 2017
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget pioneered the clinical view of cognitive development, stressing that individuals construct their own knowledge through environmental, biological, and social interactions. To make sense of the world, children attain new information and skills by adapting to changes caused by a disequilibrium in their accustomed knowledge and experiences. Through four overlapping stages of growth, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development emphasizes the role of disequilibrium in infantile schemes, assimilation, and accommodation. Schemes are individual mental representations of the world and one’s understanding of it. Through an organized set of related information stored in long-term memory, a schema arranges cognitive patterns developed from experience into
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An infant uses a schema to do a task (assimilation), encounters new information that cannot be accurately interpreted by current knowledge (disequilibrium), and as a consequence, modifies or forms a new schema to achieve mental balance (accommodation). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development can be exemplified through motor development illustrated in walking stages.
The first stage revolves around a 2-month-old infant learning to lift up their head. Infants do not know how independently lift their heads, resulting in their head always being down (assimilation). When infants hear sounds that are unfamiliar (disequilibrium), they may become curious and will eventually learn to lift their head to notice what is going on (accommodation).
Once an infant can lift their head (assimilation), they may want to move toward new sights, sounds, and events (disequilibrium). With progression an infant will learn how to roll over as a method of locomotion by three months
Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. Piaget placed great importance on the education of children. According to Piaget, children are born with a basic mental structure on which all learning and knowledge is based. They challenge the behaviourist theory as most of their research was done on animals and is missing knowledge. The implications of this theory are that not only should we be interest in the answer the learner gives but also the method of how they got there. I find that due to the gaps in the learner’s education, they may be missing important parts that they have had to find out for themselves these methods are not always the easiest ways of calculating. I try and make it as stress free as possible so will demonstrate other methods that may be easier for them. Piagets theory accepts that children go through the same development stages but that they may go through at different times, I ensure I make effort to cater for these different paces and ensure tasks are differentiated to accommodate this. I am aware however that this theory relates to children’s development, and I work with adults, I can still apply parts of this
Each schema represents a particular concept, such as a specific object, place, or action. These basic units of knowledge are constantly being modified and new ones are added as a child learns more about the world. Schemas are very important to cognitive development as they greatly affect how an individual understands and responds to both new and familiar situations. Piaget believed that even newborn babies have schemas. These few, innate schemas are formed even before a child has had the chance to explore the world. They are the cognitive structures of the basic reflexes a child is born with, such as the grasping reflex or the rooting reflex. According to Piaget, a newborn infant would have a grasping schema and a rooting schema, as well as a sucking
They are categorized into many substages each. The first one is sensorimotor. Babies going through this phase get the knowledge the need through their senses and exploration. They try to use all their senses to get to know the object in their hand. This stage is divided into the following six
Sensorimotor stage that ranges from age birth to two where the baby begins learning through his senses and body control.
begin to repeat actions that bring them pleasure or a desired outcome, but instead of the baby just doing it to themselves the baby will repeat actions onto their environment. They also explore their environment by using their hands,mouths,and other body parts to touch and experiment with toys and other
This cognitive milestone occurs when a child knows to look for something where they have seen it but will continue to look there even if they saw it go somewhere else. According to the text How Children Develop by Siegler, DeLoachhe, Eisenberg, and Saffran, “Not until around their first birthday do infants consistently search first at the objects current location” (Siegler et al., 137). The last cognitive development is deferred imitation. This action occurs toward the end of this stage where a child has the capability to mimic behavior that he or she has seen. This milestone is effectively reached when the child can regurgitate seen behavior after time has passed.
Sensorimotor stage (birth – 2 years old) – Children begin to make sense of the world around them based on their interaction with their physical environment. Reality begins to be defined.
(Presnell, 1999) This mean the infants are only aware of what is in front them and what happen in the close environment. Like they are growing, they are learning constantly by the trial and error, for example when the infants start to roll around their body and holding their head up, or start crawling and move in the space available for them. Later they start to standing up and walking holding their self from furniture and they feel a little freedom and challenge for that new adventure, walk. In addition to that, is also present the beginning of
Infants develop at an astonishing rate in the
This is what you call learning through trial and error. Infants do not know any better, so this is pretty much the only way they learn. Once infants get a little older, about seven to nine months, they begin to realize that even if objects are not seen, they still exist. This means that their memory is starting to develop. Towards the end of the sensorimotor stage, infants start to learn other important things like speaking abilities, understanding language.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development focuses on the concept of schemas and cognitive thought that helps an individual organize knowledge and understand the world in comparison to Erikson’s theory which focuses on conflicts that arise between and within the ego. Accommodation and assimilation occur throughout Piaget’s theory as a result of children
Piaget argued that cognitive development is based on the development of schemas. This refers to a psychological structure representing all of a person’s knowledge of actions or objects. To perform a new skill which the person has no schema, they have to work from previous skills that they have. This is called assimilation, where they have pulled previous schemas together then adapted and changed them to fit their task through accommodation.
The Sensorimotor stage – this stage occurs when the child is born till when he/she is two years old.
During this stage, children will be building up their incidents or encounters through adaptation and slowly move on to the next stage of the development as they are not able to have logical or transformational ideas in the preoperational stage (Mcleod, 2009).
The different stages are based on different types of development such as motor skills, speech, social skills and hearing and vision. When a child is about 1 ½ months old they are able to hold up their own head steady. Of course they aren 't able to talk so the baby just does a lot of cooing and babbling. Even though children are very young they are very selective about who they communicate with. The baby usually will focus on the parents when it comes to who they see and hear, although they love to look at new faces and can even smile at their parents. Babies are often startled by any sudden