PSYCHOLOGY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING :: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

“A gift you are from heaven above, a perfect example of God’s precious love.”

Babies truly are a gift from the heaven above. They are the bundle of joy which God gifts us and soon in a blink of eye they grow.

It was once believed that infants lacked the ability to think or form complex ideas and remained without cognition until they learned language. Due to the research done and waste knowledge explosion, it is now known that babies are aware of their surroundings and are interested in exploring from the time they are born. From birth, babies begin to actively learn. They have the powerful senses to recognise the voices and have an enhanced sense of smell, through which they even find their mother. They gather, sort, and process information from around them, using the data to develop perception and thinking skills. Today through this blog of ours we are going to learn about Cognitive development and Jean Piaget.

Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. Among the areas of cognitive development are information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development and memory.

 Historically, the cognitive development of children has been studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests, such as the widely used Stanford Binet ‘Intelligence Quotient’ (IQ) test.

In contrast to the emphasis placed on a child's native abilities by intelligence testing, learning theory grew out of work by behaviorist researchers such as John Watson (1878–1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), who argued that children are completely malleable. Learning theory focuses on the role of environmental factors in shaping the intelligence of children, especially on a child's ability to learn by having certain behaviors rewarded and others discouraged.

Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.

The most well-known and influential theory of cognitive development is that of French psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). He offers a rich information regarding the development of child’s thinking over the ages of life. This is called as ‘Genetic Epistemology’.

Piaget's theory, first published in 1952, grew out of decades of extensive observation of children, including his own, in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how children reacted to their environment, he proposed a more active role for them than that suggested by learning theory. He envisioned a child's knowledge as composed of schemas, basic units of knowledge used to organize past experiences and serve as a basis for understanding new ones. He believed in the interaction between the heredity and environment.

Schemas are continually being modified by two complementary processes that Piaget termed assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the process of taking in new information by incorporating it into an existing schema. In other words, people assimilate new experiences by relating them to things they already know. On the other hand, accommodation is what happens when the schema itself changes to accommodate new knowledge. According to Piaget, cognitive development involves an ongoing attempt to achieve a balance between assimilation and accommodation that he termed equilibration. The adjustment to the environment is nothing but adaptation.

At the centre of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and abstract levels of thought. These stages always occur in the same order, and each build on what was learned in the previous stage. Cognitive development is the successive growth and development of an individual over the age. It is for the children throughout the world and occurs in a fixed order.

They are as follows:

I. Sensorimotor stage (infancy): According to Piaget’s Sensorimotor stage, it is from the birth of an infant till 2 years. In this stage the infant is completely unaware of the environment. He/she used the senses and actions. Instead of thinking infants discover by sensing and doing. Sensory and motor in function.

In this period, intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited, but developing, because it is based on physical interactions and experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about seven months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbolic (language) abilities are developed at the end of this stage.

1. Coordinating Reflexes: The reflexes not coordinated from birth are coordinated from 4 months of age.

2. Objectified Causality: Infants learn about relationship between actions and the external world.

3. Object Permanence: Post the age of 8 months, the infants understand that the objects around them are permanent. They try to get attached to parents or the care taker and often cry when are with others.

4. Imitation: Infants try to imitate the actions or facial expressions of an older person.

At 12 months of age, babies can follow a fast-moving object; can speak two to four words, including "mama" and "papa"; imitate animal sounds; associate names with objects; develop attachments to objects, such as a toy or blanket; and experience separation anxiety when away from their parents. By 18 months of age, babies can understand about 10–50 words; identify body parts; feel a sense of ownership by using the word "my" with certain people or objects; and can follow directions that involve two different tasks, such as picking up toys and putting them in a box.

II. Pre-operational stage (toddlerhood and early childhood): In this period, which has two sub stages, intelligence is demonstrated using symbols, language use matures and there is lot of development, memory enhances, and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a non-logical, non-reversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates.

A. Pre-conceptual phase (2 to 4 years): This is the period of rudimentary concept formation. During this period, the child develops the ability to identify and classify objects.

Two-year-olds should be able to understand 100 to 150 words and start adding about ten new words per day. Toddlers also have a better understanding of emotions, such as love, trust, and fear. They begin to understand some of the ordinary aspects of everyday life, such as shopping for food, telling time, and being read to.

1.   Representational Thought: The child develops the ability to form mental symbols to represent objects or events that are not present.

a. Differed Imitation: Ability to imitate actions of adults.

b. Symbolic Play: The child demonstrates make-believe play in which he uses signs and symbols in place of real objects.

2.   Transductive Reasoning: Reasoning is from particular to general in nature.

3.  Ego-Centrism: The child at Pre-conceptual phase cannot think beyond his own view. He assumes that what others see is the same as he/she himself or herself.

4.   Animistic Thinking: The kid thinks in an animistic way. He/she attributes human feelings and motives to non-living objects.   

   B. The Intuitive Phase (4-7 years): The behaviour is still controlled by perception. Reasoning is based on intuition rather than systemic thinking or logic.

III. Concrete operational stage (elementary and early adolescence): In this stage, characterized by seven types of conservation (number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, and volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

1.     Inductive- Deductive Reasoning: Thinking is not based upon small bit of knowledge, but he/she makes use of inductive deductive approaches to get to conclusions.

2.   Flexibility in Thinking: Loss of ego-centrism and take views of others.

3.   Understanding the ‘Principle of Conservation’: Now he/she understands that the change in appearance of an object does not alter its quality or its number.

4.  Classification and Serialization: He/ she develops the ability to classify and serialize things.

5.    Reversibility of Thoughts: He/she can go back or forward with thought in time.

IV. Formal operational stage (adolescence and adulthood): In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. This stage invokes abstract thinking, logical thinking in a systematic and reasonably well integrated way.

1.     Abstract Thinking: Logic and abstract thinking by an individual.

2.   Hypothetical Reasoning: Systematic assumption of possible solutions (hypothesis is derived by the child for the problem).

3.   Problem- Solving: Using proper solutions (hypothesis), he/she tests it to get the correct solution.

4.   Transfer of Knowledge: Able to transfer the learnt knowledge from one situation to the other.

The most significant alternative to the work of Piaget has been the information-processing approach, which uses the computer as a model to provide new insight into how the human mind receives, stores, retrieves, and uses information. Researchers using information-processing theory to study cognitive development in children have focused on areas such as the gradual improvements in children's ability to take in information and focus selectively on certain parts of it and their increasing attention spans and capacity for memory storage. 
Every experience and interaction has an impact on development in early childhood. Importance of early childhood development. The emotional, social and physical development of young children has a direct effect on their overall development and on the adult they will become. That is why understanding the need to invest in very young children is so important, so as to maximize their future well-being.Hence, while developing curriculum or making lesson plans or any educational aspect, things has to be done in a certain manner so as to get maximum results. 

"We can teach anything to any age group of children, it just depends on the right experience that we choose for creating an impact!"