Development

• Piaget's theory suggests that children develop through four stages of cognitive development
• Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, etc.
• The first stage is the sensorimotor period, from birth to two years old.
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): Children explore objects using senses and motor skills
• During this time, infants explore their environment using all five senses (sensorimotor). They begin to understand cause-and-effect relationships between actions and events.
• In Piaget’s second stage, called preoperational thinking, children are able to use language but still have difficulty understanding other people’s perspectives or reasoning about abstract concepts.
• Age three - four: Children can identify emotions but not yet intentions (e.g., they know someone might be happy because they are smiling)
• During this time, babies are only able to perceive things directly through their senses (touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing). They cannot represent objects or events mentally.
• Preoperational stage (2-7 years): Children can use symbols but cannot think logically about them
• Around five years old: Children start to understand false belief (i.e., what others believe) and pretend play becomes more sophisticated
• Pre-natal


  From when a baby is conceived to when a baby is born. affected by alcohol, smoking, drugs, quality of sperm and egg.
• Childhood


  0-12 years. rapid development, new skills acquired, totally reliant on parents/carers.
• Adolescence


  13-19 years. puberty, independence, sense of identity.
• Adulthood


  20-death. continual development. new responsibilities eg. parenthood.
• What does the nervous system act as? What is its function?

  - A network of nerve cells and fibres that transmits impulses between parts of the body

  - Acts as the body's control centre

  - Interprets sensory information that enter body via senses (e.g. touch) and sends info through to glands + muscles with orders for how they should react
• The Central Nervous system


  Brain and spinal cord.
• The Peripheral Nervous system


  Nerves branching out to rest of body from brain and spinal cord.
• Cerebellum


  Controls co-ordination and posture, some types of memory and influences musical and mathematical skills.
• Brain stem


  Connects the brain to the spinal chord. for muscle control via pathways from brain to spinal cord.
• Spinal cord


  Surrounded by vertebrae, made of nerve cells, controls important reflexes, muscle movement and sends messages to the rest of the body (from the brain), conveys sensory info to the brain.
• Frontal lobe


  Reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving.
• Pareital lobe


  Senses touch, pressure, temperature and pain.
• Occipital lobe


  Controls vision.
• Temporal lobe


  Recognition of memory and hearing.
• Cerebral cortex


  The outer layer of the cerebrum (the cerebral cortex ), composed of folded grey matter and playing an important role in consciousness.
• Hippocampus


  Involved with memory
• Piaget's stages of cognitive development

  Sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational.
• Sensori-motor stage


  0-2 years.

  - Develops object permanence: ability to understand objects exist even when not present

  - Develops motor movement

  - Learns through the senses
• Pre-operational stage


  2-7 years.

  Animism: treat inanimate objects as if they are alive.

  Egocentrism: child can only see the world from their point of view - don't understand others see or think differently.

  Reversibility: unable to work backwards in their thinking.
• Concrete operational stage


  7-11 years.

  - Decentration: can consider multiple aspects of a situation.

  - Conservation: the ability to understand that properties of objects remain (e.g. volume, mass) the same even when changed in shape/ appearance.

  - Seriation: ability to put things into rank order

  - Linguistic humour: ability to use language to create jokes
• Formal operational stage


  11+ years.

  - hypothetical thinking: think about abstract ideas more

  - capable of forming and testing hypothesis

  - can think logically
• Criticisms of Piaget's theory

  - criticised for underestimating the age at which children can achieve different parts of the stages.

  - reductionist - doesn't take into account the role teachers play in children's learning and development.

  - Piaget describes the stages but doesn't explain how they occur and what prompts the changes in thinking.

  - some of his experiments have been criticised for being too hard for children to understand.

  - research shows only around 1/2 adults actually reach formal operational stage with many incapable of abstract thinking (so Piaget fails to understand not everyone reaches final stages of development, so theory isn't universal)
• Piaget research study (1952) aim

  To demonstrate that children in the concrete operational stage are more able to conserve number than those in the pre-operational stage.
• Piaget research study (1952) sample

  Sample size unknown. consisted of a small group of Swiss children in Geneva, including Piaget's 3 children.
• Piaget research (1952) method

  - Natural experiment (IV was naturally occurring - age)

  - DV was ability to conserve number

  - Cross-sectional study as he tested children at different ages

  - Independent measures (each age group represented a different condition of IV)
• Piaget research (1952) results

  3-4 year olds stated that the row of counters that had been moved had more counters. most kids at the end of the pre-op stage gave correct answer but couldn't justify it. many kids in concrete op stage gave correct answer and could justify it.
• Piaget research (1952) conclusions


  His hypothesis was correct (children in the concrete operational stage were more likely to conserve number than children in pre-op stage). They were also more likely to be able to justify their answer
• Piaget research (1952) criticisms

  Methodological problems - children asked same questions twice before and after transformation, so could be showing demand characteristics (they might've thought they had to give a different answer)

  too artificial - adult deliberately moving counters may make children believe something has changed because of them

  Culturally biased - based in Switzerland, results can't be applied to other school systems.
• Dweck's theory


  - learning theory that focuses on how children learn in the classroom and what influences their ability to succeed

  - children should be praised for effort as it leads to growth mindset; praise for intelligence leads to fixed mindset
• Growth mindset


  Intelligence can develop over time. Everyone has the same potential but dedication, practising and challenging can result in improvement. Setbacks are challenges and opportunities rather than failures.