FLCT- Midterm

• Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory


  Theory that children's cognitive development is influenced by biological maturation and their interaction with the environment
• Jean Piaget


  The first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development
• Cognitive learning


  The mental process of acquiring knowledge
• Schema


  An individual's way to understand or create meaning about a thing or experience
• Assimilation


  The process of fitting a new experience into an existing or previously created cognitive structure or schema
• Accommodation


  The process of creating a new schema
• Equilibration


  Achieving proper balance between assimilation and accommodation
• Stages of Cognitive Development

  • Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
  • Preoperational (2-7 years)
  • Concrete Operational (8-11 years)
  • Formal Operational (12 years and up)
• Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)


  • Children think through what they see, hear, move, touch, and taste
  • Develop object permanence
  • Develop goal-directed actions
• Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)


  • Children have not yet mastered mental operations, use action schemes connected to physical manipulations, not logical reasoning
  • Develop the ability to form and use symbols to represent a physical action or reality
• Concrete Operational Stage (8-11 years)


  • Develop the ability to engage in "hands-on thinking" characterized by organized and rational thinking
  • Develop reversible thinking, conservation, decentration, classification, and seriation
• Formal Operational Stage (12 years and up)


  • Develop the ability to engage in mental processes involving abstract thinking and coordination of some variables
  • Develop hypothetico-deductive reasoning and overcome egocentrism