Unit 1: Cognitive Development and Learning
1.1. Piaget’s Constructivist Approach
Action=Knowledge; Knowledge is the product of direct motor behaviour.
Movement from one stage to next occurs after appropriate physical maturation and
exposure to relevant experiences.
Qualitative changes in cognition.
Core Concepts
Schema basic building blocks of cognition; organised patterns of functioning that
adapt and change with mental development. Direct and determine how data from the
world is considered and dealt with (schema shifts from body oriented to mental
actions with age)
Assimilation ways in which people understand their experiences in terms of current
stage of cognitive development and ways of thinking. Occurs when a stimulus or
event is acted upon, perceived and understood in accordance with existing patterns of
thought
Accommodation changes in existing ways of thinking that occur in response to
encounters with new stimuli or events
Sensorimotor Stage:
Simple Reflexes first month of life
Inborn reflexes are at the centre of the baby’s cognitive and physical life, used as
means to assimilate information about the world and themselves.
First Habits & Primary Circular Reactions 1 to 4 months of age
Infants begin to coordinate separate actions into single, integrated motor activities.
Repetition of chance motor events allows the child to build cognitive schemas through
circular reactions.
Primary Circular Reactions are schemas reflecting an infant’s repetition of
interesting or enjoyable actions that focus on infant’s own body.
Secondary Circular Reactions 4 to 8 months of age
Actions become more purposeful, child begins to act upon the outside world and
repeat enjoyable chance events in their environment.
Secondary Circular Reactions are schemes regarding repeated actions that bring
about desired consequences. Vocalization and tendency to repeat others increases
drastically in this stage.
Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions 8 to 12 months age
Infants begin to display goal-oriented behaviour, combining various schemas and
coordinating them to generate a single act for problem-solving.
They begin to anticipate events, develop object permanence (realization that people
and objects exist even when they cannot be seen).
Tertiary Circular Reactions 12 to 18 months of age
Schemes regarding the deliberate variation of actions that bring about the desirable
consequences.
Unanticipated events are treated as something to be understood, which may lead to
skill development.
Emergence of Thought 18 months to 2 years
Develop capacity for mental representations or symbolic thought, which permits
deferred imitation.
Mental Representation internal image of a past event or object. Allows infants to
imagine where objects that cannot be seen might be, also allows them to plot the
unseen trajectories of objects; understanding of causality becomes sophisticated.
Deferred Imitation a person who is no longer present is imitated later.
Preoperational Stage: 2 to 7 years of age
Use of symbolic thought and mental reasoning emerges, use of concepts increases.
Better at representing events internally and less dependent on external sensorimotor
cues to make sense of the world, yet lacking in ability to carry out operations
(organised, formal, logical mental processes).
Key Aspects
Symbolic Function ability to use a mental symbol, word or object to represent
something not physically present.
Centration process of concentrating on one limited aspect of a stimulus and ignoring
other aspects; tend to focus on superficial, obvious elements that are within their
sight.
(Lack of) Conservation knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and
physical appearance of objects; don’t understand that change in one dimension does
not necessarily indicate change in other dimensions.
(Incomplete understanding of) Transformation process in which one state is changed
into another.
Egocentrism thinking that does not take into account the viewpoint of others;
two forms –
i. Lack of awareness that others see things from different physical perspectives
ii. Failure to realize that others might hold thoughts, feelings and point of views
differing from theirs
Emergence of Intuitive Thought
Refers to preschoolers’ use of primitive reasoning and avid acquisition of knowledge
about the world. (May continuously ask “why” questions or act like experts on certain
topics).
By the end of this stage, preschoolers understand functionality and identity
(understanding that certain things stay the same regardless of change in shape, size
and appearance; important for conservation, which marks transition into next stage).
Concrete Operational Stage: 7 to 12 years
Application of logic to solve concrete problems;
Decentering ability to take multiple aspects of the situation into account;
Attain the concept of reversibility, notion that processes transforming objects can be
reversed, restoring original form;
Ability to understand time-speed relations;
Remain tied to concrete reality and can’t comprehend abstract situations or
hypothetical questions.
Formal Operational Stage: 12 years throughout adulthood
Understand abstract reasoning; able to come up with own theories and deduce
explanations for specific outcomes and situations; can carry out rudimentary
experiments to test own understanding.
Able to employ propositional thought, reasoning that uses abstract logic in absence
of concrete examples. (if premise is true then conclusion also must be true)
