Describe in the light of Paget’s theory the cognitive and intellectual development of a child at different levels? | Elementary Education 8623 - AIOU Assignments

 

Paget’s Theory of the Cognitive Development

There are four important stages of cognitive development:

(i)                  Sensorimotor: (birth to about age 2) This is the first stage in Piaget's theory, where infants have the following basic senses: vision, hearing, and motor skills. In this stage, knowledge of the world is limited but is constantly developing due to the child's experiences and interactions. According to Piaget, when an infant reaches about 7–9 months of age they begin to develop object permanence, this means the child now has the ability to understand that objects keep existing even when they cannot be seen. An example of this would be hiding the child’s favorite toy under a blanket, although the child cannot physically see it they still know to look under the blanket.

(ii)         Preoperational Stage: (begins about the time the child starts to talk about) During this stage of development, young children begin analyzing their environment using mental symbols. These symbols often include words and images and the child will begin to apply these various symbols in their everyday lives as they come across different objects, events, and situations. However, Piaget named it “preoperational” stage because children at this point are not able to apply specific cognitive operations, such as mental math. In addition to symbolism, children start to engage in pretend play in which they pretend to be people they are not (teachers, superheroes). Some deficiencies in this stage of development are that children who are about 3–4 years old often display what is called egocentrism. However, at about 7 years, thought processes of children are no longer egocentric and are more intuitive, meaning they now think about the way something looks instead of rational thinking.

(iii)          Concrete: (about first grade to early adolescence) During this stage, children between the age of 7 and 11 use appropriate logic to develop cognitive operations and begin applying this new thinking to different events they may encounter. Children in this stage incorporate inductive reasoning, which involves drawing conclusions from other observations in order to make a generalization. Unlike the preoperational stage, children can now change and rearrange mental images and symbols to form a logical thought; an example of this is reversibility in which the child now has the ability to reverse an action just by doing the opposite.

(iv)             Formal operations: (about early adolescence to mid/late adolescence) The final stage of Piaget’s cognitive development defines a child as now having the ability to “think more hypothetical events”. Some positive aspects during this time is that child or adolescent begins forming their identity and begin understanding why people behave the way they behave. However, there are also some negative aspects which include the child or adolescent developing some egocentric thoughts which include the imaginary audience and the personal fable. An imaginary audience is when an adolescent feels that the world is just as concerned and judgmental of anything the adolescent does as they are, an adolescent may feel as is they are “on stage” and everyone is a critique and they are the ones being critiqued. A personal fable is when the adolescent feels that he or she is a unique person and everything they do is unique. They feel as if they are the only ones that have ever experienced what they are experiencing and that they are invincible and nothing bad will happen to them it will only happen to others. rationally and systematically about abstract concepts and hypothetical events”. Some positive aspects during this time is that child or adolescent begins forming their identity and begin understanding why people behave the way they behave. However, there are also some negative aspects which include the child or adolescent developing some egocentric thoughts which include the imaginary audience and the personal fable. An imaginary audience is when an adolescent feels that the world is just as concerned and judgmental of anything the adolescent does as they are, an adolescent may feel as is they are “on stage” and everyone is a critique and they are the ones being critiqued. A personal fable is when the adolescent feels that he or she is a unique person and everything they do is unique. They feel as if they are the only ones that have ever experienced what they are experiencing and that they are invincible and nothing bad will happen to them it will only happen to others.

 

Paget’s Theory of the Intellectual  Development

This model, conceptualizes children's mental processes through the metaphor of a computer processing, encoding, storing, and decoding data. By 2 to 5 years of age, nearly all children have developed the skills to focus attention for extended periods, recall old information, recognize previously encountered information and recreate it in the present.

 Memory: most children cannot remember anything in their childhood prior to age 2 or 3. A 4-year-old child can remember what he wore at Birthday party and tell his friend about it when he returns to school. Between the ages of 2 and 5, long-term memory begins to form. Part of long-term memory involves storing information about the sequence of events during familiar situations as "scripts". Scripts help children understand, interpret, and predict what will happen in future scenarios. For example, children understand that a visit to the grocery store involves a series of steps: mom enters the store, gets a grocery cart, selects items from the shelves, waits in the check-out line, pays for the groceries, and then loads them into the car.

Attention: Between the ages of 5 and 7, children learn how to focus and use their cognitive abilities for paying attention and memorizing lists of words or facts. This skill is obviously crucial for children starting school who need to learn new information, retain it and produce it for tests and other academic activities. They also develop the capacity to process information. This capacity allows them to make connections between old and new information. For example, children can use their knowledge of the alphabet and letter sounds (phonics) to start sounding out and reading words. During this age, children's knowledge base also continues to grow and become better organized.

 Language: children's use of language also becomes more mature and complicated with age. Between ages 4 -5-children's ability to understand language at a more complicated level also develops. Children develop the ability to understand that a sentence may have meaning beyond the exact words being spoken. They start to understand the use of basic metaphors based on very concrete ideas, tailor their speech to the social situation; for example, children will talk more maturely to adults than to same-age peers.

Factors that Affect Children Cognitive Development

 (1) Biological factors

•  (a) Sense organs: Sense organs are important as they receive stimuli from the environment. Their proper development helps in receiving correct stimuli. Defective sense organs collect defective stimuli and as a result wrong concepts can be formed and the cognitive development will not be perfect.
• (b) Intelligence: Children with low Intelligence Quotient are unable to receive stimuli properly thus their cognitive development lags behind.
•  (c) Heredity: Cognitive development is also influenced by the hereditary traits; one gets from his parents.
•  (d) Maturation: with the maturation child gets more interaction with his environment that is necessary for a good cognitive development.

 (2) Environment factors:

 External influences that affect cognitive development and are mostly controllable.

 They include:

• (а) Learning opportunities: The opportunity a child gets to learn affects the cognitive development. The more opportunities he gets the better is the cognition.
• (b) Economic status: Economic state of the family also helps in the development of cognition. Children from better economic status get more opportunities and better training and it helps in cognitive development. These children also have better nutritional diets as compared to those who come from poor backgrounds.
• (c) Play: Play is very important in developing cognition. Through play activities, the child interacts with the environment, receives stimuli and responds to them. child playing with toys learns many new experiences, becomes imaginative and does drama.
•  (d) Various types of stimuli (TV, books, toys): As child grows, he gets various stimuli from environment through his senses. Stimuli such as books, television, mobile, computer and learning toys are important in developing cognitive abilities. These stimuli form concepts and symbols. Experts recommend that children be exposed to books at an early age and little amounts of television and computer as this tends to reduce cognitive development.
• (e) Family and society: Children who interact frequently with other people tend to become brighter and gain confidence as compared to those who relate with less people. It is important for children to interact with others as this helps them to build their language and speaking skills. They are also likely to be read to which makes them learn faster.