Chapter 6 Cognitive Development Piagetian Core Knowledge and Vygotskian Objective sheet for Exam 2 Perspective 1 Know the key terms introduced in the beginning of the chapter e g the difference between assimilation and accommodation understand the basic ideas of the theory and how it fits into the broader understanding of child development e g stage theory children active participants in their learning Cognition inner processes and products of the mind that lead to knowing o Includes all mental activity attending remembering symbolizing categorizing planning reasoning problem solving creating and fantasizing Jean Piaget influenced contemporary field of child development more than any other individual children construct virtually all knowledge about their world o Constructivist approach through their own activity o Schemes You don t start out as cognitive being adaptation of mind over time There are 4 broad stages that are characterized by qualitatively different ways of thinking stages are invariant they always occur in a specific order no stage skipped and stages are universal they are assumed to characterize children everywhere organized ways of making sense of experience ex the way you behave in internal depictions of information that the mind can class versus out of class manipulate most powerful mental representations are images environment once children form new schemes they rearrange them linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system building schemes through direct interaction with the environment a process that occurs internally apart from direct contact with Assimilation use current schemes to interpret world child has scheme of o Mental representation o Organization o Adaptation eating with hands so she eats by bringing food to mouth Accommodation building new schemes or adjusting old ones to interpret world once introduced with fork child realizes they can still eat food by bringing it towards their mouth but they use the fork to do so Examples adult labels a crayon as orange and a child tries to taste it assimilation child sees shark at aquarium and asks his mother if she saw the fish assimilation child learns that although a dolphin lives in the ocean it is a mammal not a fish accommodation Equilibration movement between equilibrium assimilate more and Basic ideas of Piaget s theory disequilibrium accommodate more o Piaget believed children move through 4 stages sensorimotor preoperational concrete operational and formal operational during which infants exploratory behaviors transform into the abstract logical intelligence of adolescence and adulthood children are active participants in their learning 2 Sensorimotor stage know the key terms you don t need to know the ages of the specific substages e g as listed in Table 6 1 but you should know the difference the circular reactions for example as these are key terms in the text know the violation of expectation method and why it has been important understand what areas Piaget was probably right and what areas research has shown he was probably wrong you don t need to know specifics of each experiment mentioned in the text etc but know at the level of detail we talked about in class infants and toddlers think with their eyes ears hands and other Sensorimotor stage sensorimotor equipment they cannot yet carry out activities mentally stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby s own motor activity provides special means of adapting their first schemes it involves Circular reaction o Reflexive schemes newborn reflexes o Primary circular reactions simple motor habits centered around infants own body limited anticipation of events o Secondary circular reactions actions aimed at repeating interesting effects in the surrounding world imitation of familiar behaviors o Coordination of secondary circular reactions intentional goal directed behavior object permanence them in novel ways Sensorimotor development o Tertiary circular reactions exploration of the properties of objects by acting on o Mental representation internal depictions of objects and events deferred imitation o Intentional behavior goal directed coordinating schemes deliberately Object permanence understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight ability to retrieve hidden objects A not B search error object permanence is incomplete at first babies will still search for an object in the first place it was hidden even after seeing it moved to a different location awareness not complete o Mental representation arriving at solutions rather than trial and error Have a representation of objects even when they re not there Deferred imitation ability to remember and copy behaviors of models who are not present Make believe play children act out every day and imaginary activities they are able to make believe play because they are aware concepts exist Violation of expectation method showing babies an expected event one that follows physical laws and an unexpected event a variation of the first event that violates physical laws Heightened attention to the unexpected event suggests that the infant is surprised by a deviation from physical reality and therefore is aware of that aspect of the physical world o Shows children have object permanence earlier then Piaget thought as early as 2 5 months Development of Categorization o Categorization helps infants make sense of experience reduces amount of new information constantly encountered by grouping similar information o Habituation recovery research shows 6 12 month olds organize objects into meaningful categories Less than 6 months can group objects based on perceptual categorizations all things red all things round etc Older than 6 months can group objects based on conceptual categorizations all things in the kitchen all furniture etc Analogical problem solving applying a solution from one problem to other relevant problems Evaluation of the Sensorimotor Stage o How Piaget was right object search A not B make believe play o How Piaget may have been wrong Timing of solving by analogy these all happen younger then Piaget thought object permanence deferred imitation categorization problem Piaget assumed motor behaviors were necessary before infants could comprehend but follow up research shows their capable comprehension and motor skills do not go hand in hand 3 Preoperational stage know the features of this stage including the limitations of cognitive thinking
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