Starter
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What is a schema?
Name the 3 processes involved in
adapting a schema.
Name the method of Piaget’s
study.
Name 3 features of a stage theory.
What role does biology play in
cognitive development?
Piaget’s stage theory of
Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor stage
 Preoperational stage
 Concrete operations
stage
 Formal operations stage
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The Sensorimotor StageBirth- 2 years
First 3 sub stages
 Birth to 8 months
 Child deals with the
world through
sensations.
 Little evidence of what
we would call thinking.
 Child’s experience is
limited to the here and
now.
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The child only responds
to objects that are present
at the time, shows little
awareness of past or
future, or objects which
are not present anymore.
Child has no self-concept
Child has no idea that
objects can exist
independently of them.
Second 3 sub stages
8 to 24 months
Child’s actions become more intentional (e.g.) moving a
chair away to get to another object.
Trial and error behaviour becomes more apparent. If the
child has a toy that squeaks when it is squeezed they may
squeeze other objects to see if it is the same.
The child begins to show signs of simple pretend play.
Language development also occurs at this stage.
The child also develops self-concept and object-concept.
Object-concept can be defined as the awareness that
objects exist independently of us in the world, and continue
to exist even if we are not observing them. Piaget devised a
simple test to investigate this called the test of object
permanence
Piaget’s test of object permanence
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Object permanence means knowing that an object
exists, even if it is hidden.
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It requires the ability to form a mental
representation of the object. Alternatively it can be
defined as the ability to react to the disappearance
of a previously present object, for example by
searching for it.
Watch the demo
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Aim: (Piaget 1963) wanted to find out at what age children
acquire object permanence.
Method: Piaget hid a toy under a blanket, while the child was
watching, and observed whether or not the child searched for
the hidden toy. Searching for the toy was evidence of object
permanence. Piaget assumed the child would only search if
they had a mental representation of the toy.
Results: Piaget found that infants searched for the hidden
toy when they were around 8 months old. However if the toy
was removed from under the blanket and then hidden in
another place, the infant continued to search for the toy in it’s
first hiding place - under the blanket.
Piaget found that around 12 months this changed and they
searched in the most recent hiding place.
Conclusion: Object permanence develops around 8 months
Plenary
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What problems arise from Piaget’s
test of object permanence?
What criticisms can be made?