Cognitive Development-Piaget PDF

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- As Chugani's research was cross-sectional, it had a large sample size. As it was an independent measures design, the participants may differ in unknown ways as a result of their personal history and environment. Participant variability may affect the reliability of the results. As it was not a longitudinal study, change over time was not observed in any one individual.

- Giedd's research was longitudinal repeated measures design. This means that change in brain structure was measured over time in specific individuals. This rules out the problems of participant variability seen in Chugani's study.

- As the study is biological in nature, there is not a concern about the generalisability of the sample. The brains of people from different cultures should not have different developmental patterns. However, it should be noted that these studies were done on "healthy" children. This is appropriate for the study because the researchers are trying to determine what the normal trajectory of development would be.

1.2 Cognitive Development- Piaget The field of!cognitive development!studies how a child develops over time in terms of thinking, problem-solving, language, perception and information processing.! Like many early theorists, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget believed that physical maturation was an essential component of cognitive development. However, he went further – arguing that children are “active scientists” who learn by interacting with their social and physical environment.! Piaget suggested that children use strategies in thinking and problem solving that reflect different stages of cognitive development. Piaget claimed that children’s development progresses through a series of cognitive stages, with each stage having distinctly different qualities. He saw the stages as a way to describe changes in the logic of thinking.!His view was that the sequence of stages was the same for all humans - that is, the way in which we develop is universal.

Schemas: Accomodation and Assimilation -Schemas are building blocks of knowledge that help us to define, categorise and organise the world around us. -In Piaget's theory, schemas are changed in order to accommodate new experiences. -There are four stages in relation to schemas: Equilibrium - the world around us makes sense. • Disequilibrium - something in our environment does not make sense. We need to change an existing schema. • Accommodation - the process of modifying an existing schema to fit a new experience. • Assimilation - the process whereby a new experience is understood in terms of an existing schema. 6

STAGES: Sensorimotor Stage – (birth – 2 years) At this stage the infant… • Relies on innate reflexes and has limited knowledge. • In the!sensorimotor!stage, the child learns through movements and sensations. Knowledge simply arises from looking, touching, hearing, sucking, grasping and putting things in the mouth. The child gradually comes to have an idea of what different objects are like. • To begin with, the child’s movements are not at all purposeful because he or she has no control over them. However, when children acquire more control over their bodies, they learn that a specific movement – like bashing a toy or pulling the tail of the cat - will have specific consequences. • Around 4 months old, the infant repeats actions, such as dropping something deliberately that s/he first dropped by chance. • At 0-5 months, the infant lacks object permanence*, s/he fails to see or act on ‘hidden’ objects or the hidden object is not searched for. • At around 6 months, the infant develops “object permanence”, which means s/he learns that objects exist even when s/he cannot see them. • At 8 months the infant will search for the object but will tend to search in places it has seen the object hidden before – even though the object is visually moved to a new hiding place. *Object permanence is the idea/understanding that an object still exists even if one cannot physically see it.

Pre-operational Stage (2-7 years old) At this stage the child…

● Continues to add to or create new schemas throughout this stage. ● is still dominated by the sensory information it receives and is thus very influenced by the appearance of things. ● Fails to be able to carry out logical operations and shows centration (only focus on one aspect of an object at a time). ● At this stage reasoning is limited by egocentrism* and centration*. The child lacks of conservation*. ● Uses symbols during this stage (symbolic play) e.g using a bananas a telephone in a game. ● Three Mountains Study is a support for this stage. 7

*Egocentrism is the inability to see from another point of view. This does not mean that the child is selfish or 'big-headed'; it simply means that the child makes sense of the world using their own perspective. Their thinking has not matured sufficiently for them to take on another's point of view. *Centration is whereby the child concentrates on one feature and as a result fails to see the relevance of another. *Lack of Conservation – the inability to realise that some things remain constant or unchanged despite changes in visible appearance. Concrete operational stage (7-12 years) At this stage the child… • Is no longer affected by egocentrism or centration. • Can carry out reversible operations (i.e the child can do the conservation* tasks and complete the three mountains task successfully (overcoming egocentrism). • However these operations cannot be carried out in the child’s head – the physical (concrete) presence of the objects being manipulated is needed. Therefore, the child would be able to conserve if they see the physical transformation of the objects / liquid • The child has difficulty with abstract ideas such as morality. *Conservation: The ability to keep in mind the idea that a material (e.g. liquid, coins, clay) has not increased or decreased in amount simply because its appearance has changed. Formal operational stage (12 years+) At this stage young person… • Can think abstractly, hypothetically and systematically. • Stop using trial and error learning use logical thinking to solve problems. Approach problems in a systematic and organised way. • Ideas can be manipulated in the head and reasoning deductions can be carried out on verbal statements, without the aid of visual / concrete examples. • Has control over thoughts. S/he can think about more than two things, such as thinking about height, age and gender when describing a person. • Have the ability to think how time changes things (e.g. they know that they may not live in the same town as they get older). • Can understand that events have a sequence (e.g. daily routine). • Can see that actions have consequences (e.g. alcohol=car accident) • Piaget did not think everybody reached this stage.

APRCx1 – Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Essential understanding *Cognitive egocentrism is a function of age: most 4-year-old children are egocentric while most 7-year-olds are not. 8

Aim: To look at the extent to which children of different ages were able to take the view of another person.To test the theory that pre-operational children are egocentric. Procedure: • 100 children were studied.Children under 4 years old were not involved in the study as they were considered too young for the task. •

In Piaget and Inhelder's classic three mountain task, children were shown a threedimensional display of a mountain scene. These mountains were presented in different!colours, one having snow on top of it, one a house and one a cross. The child was asked to walk around the table and view the scene from all sides and angles.

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In the next part of the experiment, a child was asked to look at the model of three mountains. The researcher then placed a doll in various positions in the model. The child was shown different pictures and asked to choose the one that showed what the doll would see from its position.

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Piaget and Inhelder gathered qualitative data and included observations about individual children in their report.

Results: • 4-year old children almost alwats chose the picture that corresponded to their own (and not the doll’s) viewpoint. Cognitive egocentrism is overcome by 7-8 years of age (children of this age almost always choose the correct picture). • When 4-year-olds were asked to select a picture showing what!a!doll sitting across the table would have observed when looking at the mountain, they chose the image that reflected their own viewpoint. They also couldn’t place the doll in a position where the view matches a picture the child is shown. • Towards the end of the pre-operational stage, the children were more able to think about someone else’s viewpoint. • 4 year-olds could not choose the picture that represented what the doll could see – they were completely hopeless at doing so! They always chose the picture that matched what they could see. Only 7-8 year-olds were able to consistently choose the doll’s view picture. Conclusion: Children under the age of 7 in the pre-operational stage are egocentric. They assume that what they see represents the world as it truly is, rather than simply a version of it. They cannot de-centre, according to Piaget. This demonstrates that the ability to choose the picture corresponding to the doll’s viewpoint is a function of age.

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(+) • Reliability – repeating the study with many children, moving the doll and using different ways of getting the child to show what they saw or what they thought the doll saw • Application to real life – knowing the cognitive development of children can be applied into • They used experimental methods – careful controls were in place, such as the same model and questions. This allowed comparisons to be made between the results from different children – internal validity • Qualitative data-rich in detail and in depth – they looked in detail at the errors and what each child did. This meant they could show that as a child neared the next stage of development, they could achieve elements of that next stage. (-) • Unreliable results – other studies that used more realistic scenarios did not receive the same findings, e.g. Hughes (1975) • Qualitative data-Researchers used qualitative data, and this type of data is more open to researcher bias • Internal validity-culturally biased task: Studies are culturally biased e.g Three Mountains. Children from specific countries would not have been exposed to mountains.

Additional Paragraph/ Limitation for Piaget Challenges to Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development Hughes (1975) argued that the Three Mountain Task did not make sense to children. It was made more difficult by asking the children to think about what the doll saw and to match it to a set of photographs. He wanted to create a task that would be more "age appropriate." He showed children a model comprising two intersecting walls (see image to the left). The researcher placed a policeman doll at one of the points on the "X." The children were asked to place another doll - a "boy doll" - somewhere in the walls so that the policeman couldn't see him. The four-year-olds had no problems with this task. Then Hughes introduced a second policeman doll and placed both dolls at the ends of two walls (see image to the left). The children were then asked to once again hide the boy doll from the policemen. This would require the children to consider two points of view. 90 percent of children age 3.5 to 5 years old were able to do this task without error. When he added more walls and a third policeman, 90 percent of four-year-olds were still 10

able to do the task without any difficulty. Hughes showed that by four years old children have lost their egocentric thinking. He didn't argue that the stages do not exist, but that Piaget overestimated how long it took for this skill to develop.

Baillargeon (1986) – study looks at the question of when children develop object permanence One of the challenges to Piaget's theory is that the stages may not be as rigid as he believed.!Researchers like Baillergeon wanted to see if children actually developed object permanence earlier than Piaget claimed. Aim: Baillargeon (1986) wanted to test Piaget's claim that children do not demonstrate object permanence until around 6 - 8 months. To do this, she used her!impossible situation test. Procedure: The sample was made up of 40 healthy, full-term infants. 20 were 5.5 to 6months-old and 20 were 7 to 8-months-old. The sample was obtained by reading birth announcements in the local paper and then contacting the parents by letters and follow-up phone calls. The infants sat in front of a small screen; to the left of this screen was a long, inclined ramp. Before the experiment began, the infants watched as the screen was raised to show them that there was nothing behind it – and then lowered again. A toy car then rolled down the ramp, passing behind the screen and exiting on the other side. The infants watched this twice. The infants were then shown one of two conditions.! Condition 1: The situation was the same, but when the screen was raised, a box had been placed behind the screen but not on the ramp. This was the "possible event.” Condition 2: In this condition, the box stood on top of the ramp, blocking the car's path.! This was the "impossible event."

Results: The infants looked longer at the impossible event than the possible event, suggesting that they were surprised to see the car emerge on the other side when the box was clearly blocking the car's path. This indicates that the infants realized that the box and car continued to exist behind the screen and understood that the car could not pass through the box. This means that the infants understood that: -the box continued to exist, in its same location, after it was hidden by the screen -the car continued to exist and followed a certain path -the car should have been blocked by the box when it was sitting on the ramp Conclusion: This study indicates that by 6 months of age, infants understand that objects continue to exist when hidden. In addition, they understand that moving objects follow a 11

trajectory. And lastly, they recognize that solid objects cannot pass through other solid objects. These findings challenge Piaget's theory that object permanence is not developed until the infant is 8 - 9 months old. (+) • Reliable – it has standardised procedure. Baillargeon and her team have done several versions of this study which have yielded the same results - in some cases, showing children as young as 4.5 months showing surprise at the impossible situation test. This means that the results of the study have been shown to be reliable • Application to real life – High internal validity: the results of the study can be applied to educational settings. The study is well controlled and has high internal validity. • Ethical – The sample was obtained by reading birth announcements in the local paper and then contacting the parents by letters and follow-up phone calls. • Participant variability is controlled – The study was a repeated measures design; each infant was exposed to both conditions. This controls for individual difference/participant variability. (-) • Low Internal validity (face validity-construct validity): The study of infants is difficult because they are not able to communicate verbally with us what they are actually thinking. Baillargeon used the length of a child's gaze to measure their level of surprise and understanding of the actual situation. There is some debate as to whether this is a valid measure of their understanding of object permanence. • Low Ecological validity: Lab experiment • Cross-seactional design: The disadvantages of cross-sectional study include: Cannot be used to analyze behavior over a period to time. Does not help determine cause and effect. The timing of the snapshot is not guaranteed to be representative (However, this was not necessary for this experiment.)

Global Evaluation: (+) • Application to Real Life-The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous.For example, he has influenced early education i.e the existence of ‘discovery play’.This changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. 12

• Theory Is Universal + Takes A Nomothetic Approach- The term “nomothetic” comes from the Greek word “nomos” meaning “law”. Psychologists who adopt this approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others. That is to say in establishing laws or generalizations. In his theory, he came up with stages that are significant aspects – what each child goes through within each stage. • Validity- Cognitive development itself has good temporal validity as it will not change. • Qualitative-Detailed Data- Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations. (-) • REDUCTIONIST- An important limitation of Piaget’s theory is that he underestimated the role of social learning - for example, instruction by adults or other children. He claimed that children acquire knowledge by exploring and acting in the world in a process of selfdiscovery. He studied individual children and did not pay much attention to the social and cultural context of cognitive development. It was Vygotsky who was to consider these issues. • Researcher Bias – Questions Were Not Standardised- Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget conducted the observations alone and the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterwards to check if they are similar (i.e. have inter-rater reliability). • Sampling Bias And Low Population Validity- Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva in order to deduce general principles about the intellectual development of all children. Not only was his sample very small, but it was composed solely of European children from families of high socio-economic status.This raises questions about the the generalisability of his data.

1.3 Cognitive Development- Vygotsky The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky argued that it is not possible to describe the process by which children cognitively develop without taking into account the child’s social environment or culture. Culture provides knowledge, and it teaches children!what!to think and!how!to think.

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