Discuss piagets of stages of cognitive development.

Sensory motor stage

Pre- operational

Concrete operational stage

Formal operational stage

SENSORY MOTOR STAGE [0-2 years]

It’s characterized by the following;
Manipulates objects through the use of senses. There is absence of language. They only do understand their perceptions. The infant lives in the present i.e what is out of sight is out of mind.

-The infant displays uncoordinated reflexes eg sucking, grasping etc
Sub- stages of sensory motor stage

Reflexive- Reflexes are inbuilt or automatic ways in which infants respond to situations.
Primary circular reactions [1-4 month]- There’s a repetition of a single action over and over for no reason. Eg sucking anything or starring at one object.

Secondary circular reactions [5-8 month]
The baby repeats an action in order to reproduce interesting results eg shaking a rattle/ toy to hear the voice, waving the arm to see it moving.
Coordination of secondary circular reactions [8-12 month]
The baby doesn’t repeat an action in order to get simply an interesting result but to produce a novel end eg pulling a blanket to uncover a toy.

A skill known as object permanency develops in this stage.

Tertiary circular reactions [12-18 months]

The child starts to perform his first experiments by varying his actions in order to vary the results.
Implications of sensory motor stage

Provide a variety of materials for children to handle

There’s need to talk to them to stimulate their language development

PRE- OPERATIONAL STAGE [2-7 years]

Here the child begins to replace the right action in form of sensory or motor exploration with symbols eg a piece of wood becomes a train.
The child begins to speak.
It’s subdivided into two;

Pre-conceptual stage [2-4yrs]

Rudimentary concept formation develops ie the child seems to identify objects by names and putting them in certain classes eg all men are daddies and all women are mummies.
Their mode of thinking and reasoning is illogical.
Their thinking is sometimes too imaginative and far removed from reality. Eg a doll becomes a baby.
The child is egocentric ie sees the world from his/her own stand point eg the sun and the moon keep on following them and things should remain the way they are.
They learn sex roles. They are creative and constructive in his play. Teachers should provide a lot of drawing materials, correct speech and encourage them to express their feelings.
Intuitive stage [4-7yrs]
The child forms various concepts at a more advanced level eg he will agree that all apples oranges and bananas are fruits despite their differences in their shapes, colour and taste.
Their thinking is illogical and full of contradictions
They lack too many cognitive skills eg lack reversibility or conservation in their thinking.
They have a problem of course and effect relationships.
They lack conservation skills

Educational implications

Teachers should allow them to carry out various activities to learn actively eg modeling.
Emphasize on classification and ordering in order to develop concepts.
Make use of stories to arouse their interests.

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE [7-11YRS]

The child learns to deal with concepts & ideas that exist only in mental terms .e.g. can figure out relationships & differences among things and human beings.

His thinking is logical & systematic.

His thinking is flexible & reversible.

He develops the ability to conserve both in terms of quantity &number of objects.

He’s not ego-centric or self centered in thinking.

He can carry out complex operations.

He can compare and contrast things and situations.

Teachers should stress on activity work, e.g. creativity, experimentation and reasoning.

FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
The final stage is known as Formal operational stage (adolescence and into adulthood, roughly ages 11 to approximately 15-20): Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. At this point, the person is capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts.
Piaget believed that hypothetical-deductive reasoning becomes important during the formal operational stage. This type of thinking involves hypothetical situations and is often required in science and mathematics.

Abstract thought emerges during the formal operational stage. Children tend to think very concretely and specifically in earlier stages. Children begin to consider possible outcomes and consequences of actions. Situations. The abstract quality of the adolescent's thought at the formal operational level is evident in the adolescent's verbal problem solving ability. The logical quality of the adolescent's thought is when children are more likely to solve problems in a trial-and-error fashion. Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically test opinions.

They use hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses or best guesses, and systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem. During this stage the adolescent is able to understand such things as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs and values. During this stage the young person begins to entertain possibilities for the future and is fascinated with what they can be.

Adolescents are changing cognitively also by the way that they think about social matters. Adolescent Egocentrism governs the way that adolescents think about social matters and is the heightened self-consciousness in them as they are which is reflected in their sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility. Adolescent egocentrism can be dissected into two types of social thinking, imaginary audience that involves attention getting behavior, and personal fable which involves an adolescent's sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility. These two types of social thinking begin to affect a child's egocentrism in the concrete stage however carry over to the Formal operational stage when they are then face with abstract thought, and fully logical thinking.

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marto answered the question on April 23, 2019 at 12:38