Cognitive Development – Piaget
Sensori-motor period – 0 to 24 mo.
Sensory awareness and motor actions
Prior to the development of language, children’s knowledge is embedded in their
sensory and motor systems. Regularities develop, or sensori-motor schemas
Three things to keep in mind when considering the following 6 stages:
1. Each describes the most advanced level of performance for each stage
2. Age ranges are only approximate. The sequence is more important
3. These stages only represent one way of describing infant cognitive development
The use of locution "circular reactions" here emphasizes that the child is
operating on the world and receives feedback. When a behavior produces an
interesting event, it is repeated. Stumbling onto a new experience caused by
baby’s own motor activity.
Stage 1: Reflexes (birth to 1 month)
"Genetically programmed" reflexes. Minor refinements of these reflexes occurs
in first month. A continuation of what happens in the womb. Behaviors that
were in some sense "available" are now exercised. Eye movements, sucking,
grasping, larger movements of arms and hands.
No truly new behaviors are learned in this period, only minor refinements.
Piaget believed these provide the building blocks for later development.
Stage 2: Simple actions (primary circular reactions, 1 to 4 months)
A circular reaction is a behavior producing an event that leads to the behavior's
being repeated. The end of one sequence triggers the start of another.
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Ex. Malcolm waving his hand…brushing his cheek…movement becomes
abbreviated…hand goes in mouth…sucking occurs.
“One evening when John was putting 2-month-old Malcolm to bed, he noticed
Malcolm moving his arms in a seemingly random but rhythmic up-and-down
pattern. As his right hand brushed against his face, he turned his head to the
right and his arm movements became smaller. The next time his hand brushed
against his face, he opened his mouth and captured it. After sucking for a while
he released the hand, moved it up and down again, and then recaptured it with
his mouth. Over and over Malcolm repeated this sequence. John was observing
a type of sensorimotor scheme Piaget called a primary circular reaction.”
Primary circular reaction involves one's own body.
Thumb sucking. Infants seem to be trying to gain control over events
that originally occurred by accident. Sucking does not continue, but the
child tends to repeat the action that led to getting the thumb in the mouth.
Their own activities seem to generate and select information useful for
development.
Coordinating separate actions, self-interest, reproduction of the actions.
Mouth opens differently for nipple than for spoon.
Begin to anticipate events – hunger cry stops when mom comes in room.
Adaptations oriented towards one’s own body and motivated by basic
needs.
Stage 3: Actions on objects (secondary circular reactions, 4 to 8 months)
At this time, infants sit up and become skilled at reaching for, grasping and
manipulating objects. Turning their attention to the environment.
Infants investigating the effects their actions have on external objects.
Reproduction of interesting external events.
Piaget’s description of his son Laurent and the rattle:
“Piaget tied a string from Laurent’s wrist to a rattle suspended above his
crib. If Laurent moved his arm vigorously, the rattle made a noise. By
randomly waving his arms, Laurent soon caused the rattling sound. At
this point he stopped, listened, and then moved his whole body so the
sound occurred again. Repeating this secondary circular reaction,
Laurent gradually adapted his movements until he moved only the
appropriate arm. The next day Piaget again tied the string from
Laurent’s wrist to the rattle, but Laurent did not spontaneously move his
arm. Only after his father shook the rattle did Laurent revive the
previous day’s circular reaction. On the third day Piaget tied the string
to Laurent’s other wrist. Again Piaget had to reinstate the circular
reaction by shaking the rattle. When Laurent began moving his arm, it
was the one without the string. When no sound resulted, he moved his
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body more extensively until he heard the rattle. As Laurent repeated the
circular reaction, he again adapted his movements until he eventually
moved only the arm connected to the rattle.”
He is learning a connection between a motor movement and a
consequence, but only has a dim cognitive understanding of the
relationship. A sensori-motor pairing.
Child can now initiate behaviors that allow them to learn about their world.
Behaviors appear that are assembled out of two previously present behaviors,
such as visual tracking and hand reaching.
Simple imitation of others occurs if it is a behavior already available. Cannot
imitate new behaviors.
Stage 4: Coordination of Actions (Coordination of Secondary Schemes, 8 to 12
months)
At 7 months, Meryl got very frustrated if she wanted a toy and some
other object was blocking the way. Karen thought it was strange Meryl
made such a fuss instead of moving the unwanted object, but she figured
it was just Meryl’s cranky nature. Two months later, one day Karen saw
Meryl crawling toward the television plug. To distract her, Karen
quickly placed a large toy dog in front of the socket. To her surprise, this
tactic failed completely. With a sweep of her arm, Meryl knocked the dog
out of the way and reached for the cord.
Actions put together in goal-directed chains. Behaving not for itself but
in order to obtain something. (child can now knock something out of the
way to get to something else) This is a form of anticipating
consequences. First sign of purposefulness. "Coordination of Secondary
Schemes" because child is coordinating schemes applied to external
objects to achieve some goal. e.g. baby can now learn to use a spoon to
transport food to mouth.
Child now anticipates consequences of action. Intentional, goaldirected behavior.
Piaget argues that infants now understand their own behavior enough to
imitate actions they seldom perform spontaneously. Can imitate without
seeing their own behavior.
Babies now appreciate physical causality. Some object permanence –
they will search for objects but in a previous hiding place.
Stage 5: Exploration by Variations of Actions (Tertiary Circular Reactions, 12 to
18 months)
Circular reaction now becomes experimental and creative.
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“(Piaget’s 1 ½ year-old daughter) Jacqueline had a visit from a little boy
of 18 months whom she used to see from time to time, and who, in the
course of the afternoon, got into a terrible temper. He screamed as he
tried to get out of a playpen and pushed it backward, stamping his feet.
Jacqueline stood watching him in amazement, never having witnessed
such a scene before. The next day, she herself screamed in her playpen
and tried to move it, stamping her foot lightly several times in
succession.”
Also begins when some action accidentally leads to an interesting
sensory consequence. Rather than leading to a more or less exact
repetition, child begins to experiment. Discovery of new means and
qualities of objects. (ex. Child throwing a ball, then a doll, then a shoe
down the stairs). Can now twist and turn an object to fit in a hole.
Infants now get into everything in their exploration. Learning new
means for reaching goals (means-ends relationships). Children around
18 months of age rapidly acquire tool-using skills. Trial and error
approach (pulling a blanket to get a toy on it).
More advanced understanding of object permanence. Will look in several
places to find an object.
Will imitate many more behaviors like stacking blocks, scribbling on
paper and making funny faces.
Stage 6: Beginnings of Representational Thought (18 to 24 mo.)
The forming of mental representations - indicated in such actions as
deferred imitation. The ability to make one thing stand for something
else. Pretend play.
Children also start to solve problems "in their heads" apart from physical
action. Inventions of new means through mental combinations.
Limited to sensorimotor schemes the child could act out.
Challenges to Piaget’s Theory
Description considered to be accurate, but explanations have been questioned in the
following areas:
 The timetable for the emergence of cognitive skills
 The existence of qualitatively distinct developmental stages
 The range of innate abilities
 The source of infants’ cognitive limitations
Reassessing the Timetable for Infant Development
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Piaget seemed to underestimate the skills of infants. We can find skills much
earlier. Perhaps because he only credited infants with a skill when it was well
developed and could be used in a variety of situations.
Reassessing the Concept of Stages
Stage – infants who are at a particular stage with respect to one task should be at
the same stage for other major tasks. Certain general cognitive advances
characterize each stage, and these general advances should produce simultaneous
progress in a number of different areas.
Researchers find a great deal of inconsistency in each baby’s achievements. An
infant may be at one stage on one task, but show evidence of another. Piaget had
used the term horizontal decalage to refer to the lack of simultaneous
development in different areas.
Some have suggested that cognitive development is the acquisition of separate
specific skills and understandings, rather than progress through global stages.
Progress on one particular cognitive task may be to some degree independent of
their progress in mastering other tasks.
Reassessing Infants’ Inborn Abilities
Babies may be born with an understanding of many basic properties of the
physical world (Spelke) or with fairly specific learning mechanisms that guide the
development of their understanding (Baillargeon)
Reassessing Infants’ Cognitive Constraints
For Piaget, cognitive development was constrained by their sensori-motor
cognitive structures and lack of mental representation. Some argue that there are
constraints or limits on information-processing capacity, or working memory. An
infant must use this memory to remember things, initiate actions, and control
behavior. Development involves expanding capacity due perhaps to brain
development or development of habits.
Causality and Other Relations Between Objects
To what extent can babies understand relations between objects? Needed to make
sense of the stream of perceptual information from the world around them. How
do they understand causality?
Studies of moving objects, impossible situations of things suspended in midair. A rudimentary understanding of the relations between objects appears
between 4 and 8 months, applied I simple situations. Complexity and
flexibility of understanding increases between 8 and 12 months.
Number
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Starkey and Cooper (1980) – habituated 4-7 mo. olds to either two or three dots.
Could distinguish when either another dot was added to 2 or taken away from 3.
Could not work with larger numbers.
Starkey, Spelke, Gelman (1983) – 6-8 mo. olds would look at arrays of two or
three objects depending on how many drum beats there were. Interpreted as
meaning that they have an abstract concept of number.
Categorization
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