Cognitive development stages

Cognitive development stages

1. Process of development of the ability to think

   • birth
     • childhood
       • adolescence
         • adulthood
   • Sternberg 2003
     • percieve
       • learn
         • remember
           • think about information
   • Matlin 2005
     • also how the information is used
   • Child gains understanding of the world through the interaction of genetic and learnt factors
   • information processing
     • intelligence
       • reasoning
         • language development
           • memory
   • Intelligence tests
     • Stanford Binet Intelligence Quotient (IQ test)
       • the average scores within similar age group
     • Lewis Terman (1877-1956)
   • Learning theory
     • John Watson (1878-1958)
     • B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
     • children are capable of being shaped
       • environmental factors play part in shaping intelligence
       • ability to learn is by having certain behaviours rewarded, while others discouraged
   • Piaget's theory
     • Schema
       • assimilation
         • accomodation
           • schema itself changes to accommodate new knowledge
         • taking a new information by incorporating it into an existing schema
     • Equilibration
       • outgoing effort to achieve a balance between assimilation and accomodation
       • Disequilibrium
         • driving force for adaptation

2. Piaget's stages of development

   • Formal operational
     • Concrete operational
       • Preoperational
         • Sensorimotor
           • 0-2 years
             • explores thrugh direct sensory and motor contact. Object permanence and seperation anxiety developes at this stage
           • Simple reflexes
             • Primary circular reactions
               • Secondary circular reactions
                 • Coordination of secondary circular reactions
                   • Tertiary circular reactions
                     • Internalisation of schemes
                       • 12-24 months
                         • A shift to symbolic thinking
                     • 12-18 months
                       • start to explore new possibilities of objects
                   • 8-12 months
                     • starts to show intentionality
                 • 4-8 months
                   • Aware of things beyond their own body and become more object oriented
               • 1-4 months
                 • learns to coordinate sensations, primary circular reaction is when he tries to reproduce an event that happened by accident
             • birth- 1 month
               • reflexes: rooting and sucking
         • 2-6 years
           • uses symbols (words and images) to represent objects but doesn't reason logically, has ability to pretend. Egocentric
         • symbolic function
         • intuitive thought
         • Intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed but thinking is done in non-logical, non-reversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates
           • inability to conserve
       • 7-12 years
         • can think logically about concrete objects and can thus add and subtract and understands conservation
       • intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects
         • number, lenght, liquid, mass weight, area and volume
           • ability to conserve
     • 12 years- adult
       • reason abstractly and think in hypothetical therms
     • Logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts
       • Only 35% of high school graduates obtain formal concepts
   • Clinical methods used
     • different questions and materials were presented
   • Bower and Wishart 1972- Evaluation of the theory
     • investigate the age at which children acquire object permanence
     • found that it occurs earlier than Piaget thought
   • Piaget and Inhelder 1956
     • found that at age 7, thinking is no longer egocentric
   • Policeman Doll study 1975
     • proves Piaget not quite right
     • lack of understanding not egocentricism
   • Limitation of Piaget's stages
     • overly difficult tasks described in confusing and abstract terms
     • predicts that thinking within a particular stage would be the same across tasks.
     • attempts to teach children developmentally advanced concepts would be ineffective
     • ignores cultural and social background
     • very small samples
     • absence of statistical analysis
     • lack of controls
   • Strengths of Piaget's stages
     • consistent, coherent and comprehensive
     • highly influential
   • Applying it to education
     • individual attention for each child
     • only learn the information at the level in which they are able to learn
     • children mature at different rates. teachers need to be educated on that

3. Vygotsky's theory

   • Berk 1994
     • 'private speech' helps children studying
   • The zone proximal development
     • The present level of development
       • describes what the child is capable of doing without help
     • The potential level of development
       • describes what the child could be potentially capable of doing with help of others
     • anything that is too complicated at that stage cannot be learn with or without help
   • Scaffolding
     • asking child to point a cat in the middle of reading a story
     • assistance in learning
       • Wood et al 1976
         • recruitment and maintaining learner interest in the task
           • simplification of the task
             • making critical features that will help solution
               • controlling levels of frustration
                 • demonstration of the task
         • matching levels of assistance according to the child's capability of learning the task
     • Ragoff 1995
       • Learning doesn't only involve the collect of stored knowledge . activities, events with other's support transformed children's abilities to learn

4. Information processing theories

   • How children process information
     • Siegler's balance problem
       • Conflict weight problem
         • Conflict distance problem
           • Conflict balance
             • different weights at different distance
           • more weights close to fulcrum
         • more weights close to fulcrum
     • Siegler 1976
       • There is a relation between encoding difficulties and children's use of rules.
   • Burner's model
     • Three models of representation
       • Enactive
         • Iconic
           • Symbolic
             • language based
               • 7 years +
             • Takes images from the second one and represents them using words and symbols
           • image based
             • 1-6 years
           • Involves images to represent the concrete situation
         • action based
           • 0-1 years
         • Hands on method of learning
   • Mathematics teachers
     • they benefit from Burner's theory
   • Task analysis to identify separate parts of thinking
     • Consideration of the information processing over time and sequence of operations
       • The similarity between information processing theories and the processes involved in the operation of computer.
         • The assumption that children are problem solvers