Week 4: Cognitive Development Piaget

Question 1

What is myelination? What is a condition in which myelination is affected?

Answer 1

-Myelin is a fatty substance that insulates axons and speeds up transmission

-Myelination of axons continues until about age 20

-> Multiple sclerosis causes demyelination and this results in electrical impulses jumping -> motor difficulties

Question 2

What differences would you see in an image looking at brain tissue of a neonate versus 6 months versus 2 years

Answer 2

You would see a lot more dendrites i.e. the tissue would get more and more dense with dendrites

Question 3

Why is Piaget a constructivist?

Answer 3

-Children develop knowledge of the world through the child’s own activity

-Inbuilt tendency to adapt to new experiences

-Learn through active self-discovery

Question 4

What 4 stages does piaget believe a child goes through in terms of cognitive development and what ages do they correspond with?

Answer 4

Sensorimotor: Birth – 2 years
Preoperational: 2–7 years
Concrete operational: 7–11 years
Formal operational: 11+

Question 5

Is Piaget’s theory invariant ? What does this imply about discontinuity ?

Answer 5

Invariant: they always occur in a fixed order,
and no stage can be skipped.

Stages are discontinuous

Question 6

Does piaget believe in one course of development?

Answer 6

Yes, he assumes that every child goes through the same stages

BUT the speed that the child moves through the stages is affected by genetic and environmental factors

Question 7

Does piaget believe in nature or nurture ?

Answer 7

Both, says the speed which children move through the stages can be affected by both

Question 8

Schemes

Answer 8

An organised way of making
sense of experience
* Cognitive structures:
* Organised patterns of action or
thought that people construct to interpret their experiences

Question 9

Do schemes change with age? If so, how ?

Answer 9

Yes
-Action-based (motor patterns) at
first (e.g. grasping is a way to make sense of a toy)
-Later move to a mental (thinking) level

Question 10

Adaptation… what is it? What two complementary processes does it contain?

Answer 10

The process of adjusting to the demands of the
environment.

• Adaptation involves building schemes through
  direct interaction with the environment.

Involves two complementary processes:
* Assimilation
* Accommodation

Question 11

Assimilation

Answer 11

The process by which children interpret new
experiences in terms of their existing schemes.

Question 12

Accommodation

Answer 12

The process of creating new schemes
or adjusting old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely.

Question 13

Disequilibrium

Answer 13

The cognitive discomfort that occurs when you encounter new information that does not align with current schema

Question 14

Equilibration

Answer 14

Piaget’s term for the back-and-forth
movement between equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Question 15

Organisation

Answer 15

A process that occurs internally and does not
involve direct contact with the environment.

• Once children form new schemes, they rearrange
  them and link them with other schemes to create
  a strongly interconnected cognitive system

Question 16

Equilibrium

Answer 16

Current understanding of the world i.e. no current challenges to it

-Exists before disequilibrium and then after assimilation/ accommodation processes that form a new equilibrium/ understanding of the world

Question 17

Sensori motor stage

Answer 17

-Birth–2
* Building schemes through sensory and motor
exploration

-Includes 6 substages:
① Reflexive Schemes: Birth–1 month
② Primary circular reactions: 1–4 months
③ Secondary circular reactions: 4–8 months
④ Coordination of secondary circular reactions: 8–12 months
⑤ Tertiary circular reactions: 12–18 months
⑥ Mental representation: 18 months–2 years

Question 18

1. Reflexive Schemes: Birth–1 month

Answer 18

Newborn Reflexes
① Breathing reflex
② Eye blink/Blinking reflex
③ Rooting reflex
④ Sucking reflex
⑤ Swallowing reflex
⑥ Stepping reflex
⑦ Babinski reflex
⑧ Grasping reflex (or Palmer grasp)
⑨ Moro reflex

Question 19

② Primary Circular Reactions: 1–4 months

Answer 19

• Babies engage in repetitive actions that are
  centred on their own bodies
• E.g. Repeatedly suck a thumb, kick legs or blow
  bubbles

Usually happens by chance first and then is repeated because it’s pleasant

Question 20

3. Secondary Circular Reactions: 4–8 months

Answer 20

• Involves repetition of interesting acts on objects (i.e. focus on external things rather than on own bodies like primary circular reactions)
• E.g. Repeatedly shaking a rattle to make an interesting noise

Usually happens by chance first and then is repeated because it’s pleasant

Question 21

4. Coordination of Secondary Circular
   Actions: 8–12 months

Answer 21

• Babies display intentional, goal-directed behavior and are combining schemas to solve more complex problems
• Babies begin to develop object permanence = The understanding that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight
• Babies will still make the A-not-B search error (i.e. object permanence is not yet perfect)
  = According to Piaget, this error occurs because infants cannot yet separate an object from the actions that they use to find it

Question 22

⑤ Tertiary Circular Reactions: 12–18 months

Answer 22

• Babies explore properties of objects by acting on them in novel ways.-> e.g. throwing plate on floor to investigate what will happen

-Able to engage properly with these types of toys : were you put the blocks through the different shaped holes. Can do this because has ability to repeat actions and vary the way they position the blocks

-Will start to look in multiple places for an object -> pass the A not B test

Question 23

⑥ Mental Representation: 18 months–2 years

Answer 23

Toddlers:
* Arrive at solutions suddenly rather than through trial and error
* Are capable of deferred imitation (copying someone who is not right there)
* Begin to engage in make-believe play

Question 24

Are piaget’s claims about the sensorimotor stage generally well accepted?

Answer 24

• More recent research suggests that infants display a variety of understanding earlier than Piaget believed.
  i.e.
  Deferred imitation could be present earlier than 18-2 years
  8-11 months rarely make A not B errors

Question 25

Preoperational Stage: 2 to 7 Years

Answer 25

Symbolic or Mental Representation The cognitive capacity to: * Use one object to stand for another * Use symbols, such as words, images or actions to represent or stand in for objects and experiences

Question 26

Make-Believe Play

Answer 26

Piaget maintained that make-believe play provided an opportunity for children to practice their representational schemes. With age, make-believe play gradually becomes: * More detached from real-life conditions * Less self-centered * More complex combinations of schemes * Sociodramatic play or make believe with others It is now understood that make-believe play: * Not only reflects but also contributes to children’s cognitive and social skills, * Strengthens a variety of mental abilities

Question 27

What is a limitation of the pre-operational stage of thought?

Answer 27

Conservation: The idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same even when their outward appearance changes e.g. video of toddler not understanding same amount of liquid in two different shaped glasses is still the SAME or conservation of mass in different shapes Unable to do this at the pre-operational stage because of centration (only being able to focus on one thing at a time)

Question 28

Centration

Answer 28

The process of only being able to focus on one aspect of a problem at a time, and ignoring other relevant parts of the problem

Question 29

Reversibility

Answer 29

The ability to imagine what would happen if an observed sequence of events was reversed

Question 30

Egocentrism

Answer 30

The failure to distinguish others’ symbolic viewpoints from one’s own or assuming that the view point of others is same as your own

Question 31

Piaget's three mountain problem

Answer 31

A-symmetrical model of three mountains which is presented to children Children are asked which one of 4 views (pictures to represent) the experimenter can see Piaget said that when children are in the pre-operational stage (2-7) they will chose their own view as opposed to the experimenters demonstrating ego-centrism (a fundamental deficiency of pre-operational thinking).

Question 32

What has followed up research on piaget's three mountain problem revealed about pre-operational thought?

Answer 32

* Researchers have since challenged some of Piaget’s claims about the capabilities of children in the 2–7 year age band (his preoperational stage). * Questions have been asked about whether a number of his classic tests actually measured the conceptual ability that they were intended to assess. * Studies have shown that when pre-schoolers are given simplified tasks that are made relevant to their own lives, they do not display the illogical characteristics that Piaget saw in the preoperational stage. * E.g. The adapted “Three Mountains Problem where use shapes known to the child (bowls) they are able to do it

Question 33

What are some key features of Piaget's concrete operational stage (7-11 years)

Answer 33

Overall thought becomes more logically flexible and organised than in the pre-operational stage * Conservation -Decentration (focus on several aspects of a problem at own and relate them to each other) -Reversibility (think of the water glass example, being able to picture the process in reverse and recognise that it must be the same amount of water in both glasses even if they are different shapes) * Classification -Pass Piaget’s Class Inclusion Test -Collections become common * Seriation -Transitive inference *Spatial reasoning -Cognitive maps -Map skills

Question 34

What is Piaget's class inclusion test - what do children show when they are in the pre-operational stage versus operational stage when it comes to this test?

Answer 34

Image shown of a number of dogs and cats -Child is asked is there are more dogs or animals in the picture? A child in the pre-operational stage will reply that there are more dogs because they will fail to realize that both the dogs and the cats are included in the category animals. A child in the concrete operational stage will not make that mistake.

Question 35

What is transfer inference?

Answer 35

The ability to seriate mentally example = If John is taller than Mark, and Mark is taller than Sam, who is taller? A. John B. Sam -> most of us would be able to think this through and say that A. John is the tallest. At the concrete operational stage is where piaget say children become capable of this. Pre-operational children might have to physically line the people up to determine answer (i.e. cannot perform the task mentally)

Question 36

What is seriation?

Answer 36

ordering along a quantative measure e.g. by height or weight

Question 37

What is a limitation of concrete operational thought?

Answer 37

Operations work best with concrete objects * While the child can apply logical thought to concrete, tangible objects and events they may have problems applying the same thinking to abstract ideas Continuum of acquisition * Master concrete operational tasks gradually rather than all at once

Question 38

How does the environment effect concrete operational thought?

Answer 38

Culture and teaching practices affect performance on tasks * Conservation often delayed in tribal societies * Going to school gives experience on Piagetian tasks * Relevant non-school experiences can assist with certain forms of tasks i.e. school is not the only thing that can aid concrete operational thought

Question 39

Evaluation of Piaget's theory

Answer 39

* Piaget’s contributions to the field of child development are greater than those of any other theorist….BUT * Although his theory offers a useful “roadmap” of cognitive development it contains inaccuracies * Cognition is not as broadly stage-like as Piaget believed * Piaget’s theory still inspires research.

Question 40

What are cognitive maps ? At what stage do children start using them

Answer 40

A cognitive map is a mental representation of familiar spaces, such as their home, school, or neighborhood. Piaget's Concrete operations = Around this stage, children can mentally picture and navigate places they know, even without physically being there.