Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage Theory: Understanding Children's Cognitive Development, Lecture notes of Psychology

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

IN INFANCY

• (^) Poet Nora Perry asks, “Who knows the thoughts of a child?”
• (^) As much as anyone, Piaget knew.
• (^) Through careful observations of his own three children—Laurent,Lucienne, and Jacqueline— and observations of and interviews with other children, Piaget changed perceptions of the way children think about the world

COGNITIVE PROCESSES

• (^) What processes do children use as they construct their knowledge of the world?
• (^) Piaget developed several concepts to answer this question; especially important are schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, equilibrium

• (^) Assimilation and Accommodation:
• (^) To explain how children use and adapt their schemes, Piaget offered two concepts: assimilation and accommodation.
• (^) Assimilation occurs when children use their existing schemes to deal with new information or experiences.
• (^) Accommodation occurs when children adjust their schemes to take new information and experiences into account.

• (^) Think about a toddler who has learned the word car to identify the family’s car.
• (^) The toddler might call all moving vehicles on roads “cars,” including motorcycles and trucks;

Equilibration and Stages of Development

• (^) In trying to understand the world, the child inevitably experiences cognitive confl ict, or disequilibrium.

• (^) That is, the child is constantly faced with counterexamples to his or her existing schemes and with inconsistencies.

• (^) For example, if a child believes that pouring water from a short and wide container into a tall and narrow container changes the amount of water, then the child might be puzzled by where the “extra” water came from and whether there is actually more water to drink.

THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

• (^) The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to about 2 years of age

• (^) Substages Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages:
• (^) (1) simple reflexes;
• (^) (2) first habits and primary circular reactions; (3) secondary circular reactions;
• (^) (4) coordination of secondary circular reactions;
• (^) (5) tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity;
• (^) (6) internalization of schemes

• (^) 2)First habits and primary circular reactions is the second sensorimotor substage
• (^) It develops between 1 and 4 months of age
• (^) In this substage, the infant coordinates sensation and two types of schemes: habits(a scheme based on a reflex) and primary circular reaction (a repetitive action)
• (^) Baby bottle

• (^) 3) Secondary circular reactions is the third sensorimotor substage
• (^) between 4 and 8 months of age
• (^) In this substage, the infant becomes more object-oriented, moving beyond preoccupation with the self
• (^) By chance, an infant might shake a rattle. The infant repeats this action for the sake of its fascination.

• (^) Actions are even more outwardly directed than before.
• (^) Related to this coordination is the second achievement—the presence of intentionality.
• (^) For example, infants might manipulate a stick in order to bring a desired toy within reach or they might knock over one block to reach and play with another one.

• (^) 5) Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity is Piaget’s fifth sensorimotor substage,
• (^) Baby gets confused
• (^) Heyyy heyy much is being done with objects!!
• (^) It develops between 12 and 18 months of age
• (^) İnfants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things that they can make happen to objects.
• (^) A block can be made to fall, spin, hit another object, and slide across the ground.