piagets stages of intellectual development

• key term - stages of intellectual development

  Piaget identified 4 stages of intellectual development. Each stage is characterised by a different level of reasoning ability. Although the exact ages vary from child to child, the key point is that all children develop through the same sequence of stages.
• key term - object permanence

  the ability to realise that an object still exists when it passes out of the visual field. Piaget believed that this ability appears at around 8 months of age. Prior to this, children lose interest in an object once they can’t see it and presumably are no longer are aware of its existence.
• key term - conservation

  the ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or group of objects changes. For example, the volume of liquid stays the same when poured between vessels of different shapes.
• key term - egocentrism

  the child’s tendency to only be able to see the world from their own point of view. This applied to both physical object – demonstrated in the 3 mountains task – and arguments in which the child can only appreciate their own perspective.
• key term - class inclusion

  an advanced classification skill in which we recognise that classes of objects have subsets and are themselves subsets of larger classes. Pre-operational children usually struggle to place things in more than one class.
• sensorimotor age (0-2 years) includes object permanence

  
  

  A baby’s early focus is on physical sensation and on developing basic physical co-ordination. They learn by trial and error that they can deliberately move their body in particular ways and eventually they can move other objects.

  Babies also come to understand that other people are separate objects and they acquire some basic language.
• sensorimotor pt 2 object permanence

  They also develop object permanence at around 8 months (understanding objects still exist even when out of sight). Piaget observed babies look at objects and watched as the object was removed from sight.

  •Before 8 months, children immediately switch their attention away from the object once its out of sight.

  •After 8 months children continue to look for it. This suggests that children then understand that objects continue to exist when removed from view.
• pre-operational stage

  By the age of 2 a toddler is mobile and can use language but still lacks adult reasoning ability – they display some characteristic errors in reasoning.
• pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - conservation 


  Conservation – the basic mathematic understanding that quantity remains constant even when the appearance of the object changed. Piaget demonstrated this through his number conservation experiments and his liquid conservation experiment.
• pre operational stage (2-7 years) - egocentrism 


  Egocentrism – this means to see the world only from ones own point of view. Piaget & Inhelder 1956 tested this in the 3 mountains task -> children were shown 3 model mountains each with a different feature: a cross, a house, or snow. A doll was placed at the side of the model so facing it from a different angle than the  child. Pre-operational children tended to find it difficult to select a picture that showed a view other than their own.
• pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - class inclusion 


  Class inclusion – this is the idea that objects fall into categories. Most pre-operational children can classify pugs, bull terriers and retrievers as dogs. Class inclusion is tested for example, using a picture of 5 dogs and 2 cats and asking are there more dogs or animals? Children under 8 tend to answer that there are more dogs (Piaget & Inhelder 1964). Younger children cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class – struggle with the idea classifications have subsets.
• concrete operations (7-11 years) 


  Piaget found by around age 7 most children can conserve and perform much better on tasks of egocentrism and class inclusion.

   However, although children now have better externally verifiable reasoning abilities – Piaget called operations – they are concrete operations i.e. they can only be applied to physical objects in child’s presence they struggle to reason about abstract ideas and struggle to imagine objects/situations they cannot see.
• stage of formal operation (11+) includes syllogisms 


  Children are capable of formal reasoning – they can focus on the form of an argument not be distracted by its content.

  Abstract reasoning develops – being able to think beyond the here and now. Children can now focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content.
• how formal reasoning is tested (stage of formal operation 11+)


  Formal reasoning is tested by using the pendulum task and also by means of syllogisms -> For example: ‘All yellow cats have 2 heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have? – correct answer = 2.

  Piaget found that younger children became distracted by the content and answered that cats do not really have 2 heads. Piaget believed that once children can reason formally they are capable of scientific reasoning and become able to appreciate abstract ideas.
• one limitation is that the theory was based on tests that may lack validity 


  McGarrigle and Donaldson 1974 found that in a conservation of number task, if the counters were moved accidentally by a ‘naughty teddy’, 72% of children under 7 correctly said the number was the same as before. This suggests that Piaget underestimated the conservation ability of children ages 4-6. Piaget’s method may have led the children to think something must have changed. This is a limitation because it calls into question the nature of the pre-operational stage of intellectual development.
• another limitation is that lack of class inclusion ability is questioned 


  Siegler and Svetina 2006 found that when 5 year olds received feedback that pointed out subsets, they did develop an understanding of class inclusion. This was contrary to Piaget’s belief that class inclusion was not possible until a child has reached the necessary age of intellectual development. This again calls into question the validity of Piaget’s stages.
• a further limitation is that the assertions about egocentrism are not supported 


  Hughes 1975 found that even at 3 ½ years a child could position a boy doll in a model building with 2 intersecting walls so that the doll could not be seen by a policeman doll. This suggests that children are able to decentre and imagine other perspectives much earlier than Piaget proposed. This again suggest the manner of Piaget’s studies and tasks led him to underestimate children’s actual intellectual abilities and that the resultant stages were incorrect.
• a limitation is that childrens abilities were both over and underestimated 


  As well as underestimating what young children can do, Piaget may have overestimated other abilities such as achieving formal operations such as abstract reasoning. In addition there is evidence that, with practice, children can achieve logical thinking earlier than Piaget suggested. This challenged some of the basic principles of his theory if some stages are not universal and progression is not due to maturation.
• a final limitation is his view that intellectual development is a single process is incorrect 


  Studies of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggest that intellectual abilities may develop independently as such children are typically very egocentric but develop normal reasoning and language. This evidence supports a domain-specific rather than domain-general view of intellectual development. This suggests that basic assumptions of Piaget’s theory (that cognitive development is domain-general) may not be valid for all examples of development