Important stages of cognitive development of the child. Theory of Cognitive Development of Piaget
How is the development of thought processes since childhood to mature age? According to j. Bruner Concepts(1966), the first stage, sensor reflection,our knowledge of the world is primarily sensitive and engineering. In the second stage, iconic display,the child retains the images of the actual objects perceived by him, knows the world with the help of mental images and ideas. During the teenage and youth periods, this world of images is gradually inferior to the concepts - symbolic display objects.The incentive for such a transition to a symbolic representation is mainly speech.
J. Bruner emphasizes that the language is the most important instrument for the development of cognitive processes. The same point of view, according to which the development of cognitive processes is inseparable from the development of speech, was expressed back in 1934 by the Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. The language is not only a means of transmitting the cultural heritage, but also a behavior controller (since the word can cause or suppress this or that action).
According to conceptsJ. Piaget(1966), the development of cognitive processes is resultpermanent attemptsman adapt to environmental changes.External impacts cause the body or modify existing activity structures if they no longer meet the requirements of adaptation, or if it is necessary to develop new structures, i.e. The device is carried out using two mechanisms: 1) assimilationat which a person is trying to adapt a new situation to existing structures and skills; 2) accommodationin which old schemes, response techniques are modified with the aim of their adaptation to the new situation.
Theory of J. Piaget is considering mental development as a continuous and unchanged sequence of stages, each of which prepared by the previous one and in turn prepares the subsequent.
J. Piaget allocates three main stages of the development of cognitive processes.
- 1. Sensotor Stage- the formation and development of sensitive and motor structures (the first two years of the child's life); The sensority stage is characterized by the development of perception, active actions, the formation and functioning of visual-effective thinking, includes six subwords:
- a) from the first hours after birth, children are able to distinguish between the sounds of different intensity, to recognize the voice of the mother, to show unconditional reflexes of sucking, blinking;
- b) A two-month baby has a strong breath, it is still poorly developed, it poorly distinguishes the shades of colors and has low visual sharpness. But he already recognizes the face of the mother, he has conditional reflexes for repeating stimuli;
- c) By four months, the child begins to distinguish between blue, red, yellow and green colors, grabs and feel the objects with hand, the motor skills are formed (from 1 to 4 months) - conditional reflexes as a result of the interaction of the child with the environment (setting the bottle with nipple and t .P.);
- d) Circular reactions are formed (from 4 to 8 months) - the development of coordination between perceptual systems and motor movements (there is a grabbing of a rope that causes the concussion of rattles in order to force it to thunder); By 6 months, the child begins to recognize objects and other people's faces, perceives the depth of space; But until 7 months, the Baby NA will dyate behind the toy if you cover the toy with a blanket: if the subject disappeared from the field of view, it means that it does not exist for the baby;
- e) coordination of funds and purposes (from 8 to 12 months) - the actions of the child are increasingly intentional, aimed at achieving their goal;
- (e) Random opening of new funds (from 12 to 18 months) - (pulling the tablecloth, you can get the objects lying on the table, etc.);
- g) the invention of new funds (from 18 to 24 months) - the search for new solutions to achieve the goals, the delivery of the desired items, the solution of 2-3-phase tasks.
The sensority stage is characterized by the functioning of visual-minded thinking and the formation of visual-shaped thinking.
- 2. Stage of concrete operationsincludes:
- but) preoperative level(from 2 to 5 years) - it is characterized by the formation of visual-shaped thinking, figurative symbolic thinking, allowing the child to imagine objects with the help of mental images and denote by their names or symbols. Thinking the child differs significantly from thinking of an adult and in shape, and in content. For the structure of the child's thinking, the main features are peculiar: egocentrism and syncretism.
Egocentrismthinking is manifested in the fact that the child perceives the world as its continuation that makes sense only in terms of satisfying his needs, it is not able to look at the world from a foreign point of view and to catch a connection between objects (for example, a child calls the phone to grandmother and says: "Grandmother, Look, what is my beautiful doll! ").
Syncretismthinking is manifested in the fact that the child is filled out of the whole details, but they cannot communicate them with a whole, "everything is confused without disaster," cannot establish connections between different elements of the situation, and therefore explain its actions, bring the arguments to The benefit of what claims confuses the causes and effects. According to J. Piaget, the warehouse of the child's thinking is also characterized "Children's Realism"(for example, it does not draw something that he sees, but what knows, hence the "transparency" of children's drawings), animism(Projects his "I" on things, by hanging out the consciousness and life of moving items: cars, sun, clouds, rivers, etc.), artificialism(The child is convinced that everything is created by the will of a person and is intended to serve him: for example, to the question: "What is the sun?" Replies: "It is to shine to us," to the question: "Who is the mother?" - "This is who prepares food. ");
- b) Level of concrete action(from 2 before 11 years): words are increasingly beginning to mean specific items, and the actions are gradually integrated. So develops thinking. Initially, it is only subjective in nature: it is concentrated that the child sees or knows, and not in reality in itself. Thus, the thinking of the child at this stage is egocentric, but allows him to manipulate objects, compare them, classify, carry out specific operations on them;
- in) first level of specific operations(from 5-6 to 7-8 years) - the child acquires the ability to locate objects to reduce dimensions and their classification (for example, poultry pictures - to the group of birds, fish - to the fish), an idea of \u200b\u200bpreserving the material is formed;
- d) second level of specific operations(from 8 to 11 years) - formations of the preservation of mass and volume, the idea of \u200b\u200btime and speed, as well as measurement using the standard are formed. And only by 10 years, the child acquires the ability to objectively interpret specific reality. This ability is finally formed in the third stage - formal operations.
- 3. Stage of formal operations(from 11 - 12 to 15 years). Thinking operations can be carried out without any specific support, conceptual thinking is formed, functioning with the help of concepts, hypotheses and logical deduction rules, abstract thinking develops, allowing a teenager to imagine as far from the specific experience of the number, like a billion, facts from the distant past or absorb Complex classifications on biology, etc.
According to J. Piaget, this stage reaches full development by 14-16 years. However, in many studies it was shown that only part of people (25-50%) can really think abstract.
J. Piaget's work showed that the development of intelligence consists in the transition from egocentrism through the decentration to the objective position of the child in relation to the outside world and himself.
The mental abilities of a person achieve a heyday by 18-20 years and up to 60 years are not significantly reduced. The differences between mental potential in old age and youth are detected if considering the rate of the mental reaction and the level of memory. With age, the speed of thinking decreases, short-term memory, the rate of learning and receiving information is imperative, the process of organizing the material organization is hampered during memorization. A sharp weakening of mental activity is observed in people shortly before death. Violations of cognitive processes can occur as a result of somatic and mental diseases
Last updated: 05/01/2014
Developed by Jean Piaget still in the last century theory still enjoys the approval of many psychologists. What are his ideas wonderful?
According to the Swiss psychologist, children pass four basic stages of cognitive development, each of which has a significant change in their understanding of the world. Piaget believed that children - as "little scientists" - are actively trying to study and comprehend the world around themselves. Thanks to the observation of their own children, Piaget has developed the theory of intellectual development of a person in which he allocated the following stages:
- sensomotor (from birth to 2 years);
- preoperative (from 2 to 7 years);
- stage of specific operations (from 7 to 11 years);
- the stage of formal operations (it begins in adolescence and covers the entire adult life of a person).
Prerequisites for the appearance of the theory of cognitive development Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in the city of Neuchatel (Switzerland). At the age of 22, Piaget received the degree of doctor of philosophy and began his long career, which subsequently had a huge impact on the development of psychology and education. Although at first, Piaget was interested in biology (especially ornithology and malacology), after working with Alfred Bina, he was injecting psychology and, in particular, the intellectual development of children. Based on his observations, he concluded that children are not more stupid adults - they just think differently. "It is so simple that only a genius could think before that," this is how Albert Einstein responded to the opening of Jean Piaget.
The theory of stages of Piaget describes the development of the intellectual sphere of children, which includes changes affecting the knowledge and cognitive abilities of the child. According to Piaget, first, cognitive development implies processes based on actions, and only then manifests itself in the form of changes in the processes of thought.
Briefly about cognitive development
Each of the four stages has its own characteristics from the point of view of changes occurring in the intellectual sphere.
- . At this stage, the kids acquire knowledge through sensual experience and management of objects of surrounding.
- . At this stage, children will know the world through the game. However, for an externally simple game process, there is a complex process of mastering the logic and perception of the point of view of other people.
- . At this stage of development, children begin to think more logical, but their thinking still does not have the flexibility of an adult thinking. They, as a rule, do not understand and do not take abstract and hypothetical concepts.
- . The final stage of the theory of J. Piaget involves the development of logic, the ability to use deductive arguments and understand abstract ideas.
It is important to note that Piaget did not consider the process of mental development of children in a quantitative aspect - that is, as children become older, they, in his opinion, do not just accumulate information and knowledge. Instead, Piaget suggested that with gradual overcoming of these four stages there is a qualitative change in the image of the thinking of the child. At the age of 7 years, the child does not have a large amount of information about the world compared to two-year-old age; The fundamental difference is manifested in how he thinks about the world.
The main concepts of theory of J. Piaget
To better understand some of the processes occurring during cognitive development, it is important to first study several important ideas and concepts introduced by Piaget. Below are some of the factors that influence the training and development of children.
- Scheme of action. This concept describes both mental and physical actions related to the understanding and knowledge of the surrounding world. Schemes - This category of knowledge that help us interpret and understand the world. From the point of view of the Piaget, the scheme includes both the knowledge itself and the process of obtaining it. As soon as the child received a new experience, the new information is used to change, add or replace the previously existing scheme. If you illustrate this concept of an example, you can imagine a child who has a scheme about a certain type of animal - dogs, for example. If until now the only experience of the child was acquaintance with small dogs, then he may believe that dogs are called absolutely small, fluffy four-legged. Suppose now that the child faces a very big dog. The child will perceive this new information by including it in an already existing scheme.
- Assimilation. The process of incorporating new information in previously existing schemes is known as assimilation. This process is somewhat subjective, because we are usually trying to change a little new experience or the information obtained in order to fit it under the already formed beliefs. The perception of the dog by the child of the example above and, in fact, determining it as "dogs" - an example of an animal assimilation with a children's diagram.
- Accommodation. Also, adaptation involves changing or replacing existing schemes in the light of new information - that is, the process known as accommodation. It includes the change in existing schemes or ideas as a result of new information or new impressions. During this process, completely new schemes can be developed.
- Balance. Piaget believed that all children are trying to find a balance between assimilation and accommodation - this is achieved just with the help of a mechanism called with balancing. As the stages of cognitive development passes, it is important to maintain the balance between the use of pre-formed knowledge (that is, as assimilation) and a change in behavior in accordance with the new information (accommodation). Balance helps to explain how children are able to move from one stage of thinking to another.
Behind weight changes and newborn growth to watch easily. But it is not so easy to understand what is happening inside his brain as it is development.
Child's brain departments, controlling the functions of the body, are fully formed and will not change. The baby knows how to breathe, eat, and. But those departments that are responsible for understanding the child of themselves and the surrounding world will change and develop.
The brain of the newborn is not able to fully use such functions as perception, thinking, memorization, speech and physical coordination. The process in which the child gradually learns to use these skills is called cognitive development.
When is cognitive development begins?
In the last weeks of pregnancy, did you rest for watching your favorite TV show? Do you now seem to have a child soothes at the first sounds of a musical screensaver to this transmission? If so, then he shows you that he could recognize and memorize before was born.
A few weeks after birth, the child begins to realize that certain actions lead to a certain result. But the ability, what action and to which result will develop later.
Try to tie a child to the leg of a tape so that, pulling her, he led to Mobile traffic. In the kid will start more actively to pull the leg, but after a couple of days he will forget that you need to do that the Mobile moves. In Link 721\u003e Six months, the kid, most likely, will remember what to do, for a couple of weeks.
The ability of a child to establish a connection between their actions and the fact that they should be called recognition. A more complex skill associated with memory is called playback. It is the ability to think about something outside the context. An example is the situation in which a child thinks about his crib, sitting in a car chair.
The ability to reproduce rarely appears in children before six months. After six months, the child will start using actions in quality. The gesture that the child shows his desire to take him to hand, is one of the very first such actions.
At about six months, the child will most likely cease to pull the toys in her mouth or knock on them and starts showing that he understands that you can contact them differently: you need to carry the machine, and hug a teddy bear.
How to promote the cognitive development of the child?
Most of the cognitive development of the child occurs naturally, but you can help the baby in this process. Over the past 100 years, parents have become more consciously approach to the development of children. Now they try to take into account the physiological features of the development of the child's brain and in accordance with this help the child to know the world. As a result, more cleaned children grow.
Therefore, it is very important exactly how you communicate with the child.
The child begins to study the world around him immediately after birth. The newborn learns your smell and voice. He likes to consider your face. He moves to the tact of your speech and repeats the movements of the lips. If you watch the child carefully, you will understand when it gives you signals requiring your reaction.
Children learn to be new through multiple repetitions. So play with your baby in simple<игры. Дайте ему возможность освоить игру и не жалейте времени, чтобы играть с ним вместе.
Also useful toys, correctly selected by the age of the child. Nevertheless, try not to buy too many toys, otherwise they will distract the child. Distracting, the child will not be able to concentrate on something one.
When does the child develop an understanding skill?
Each child has its own pace of development. We provide general information about stages in the development of understanding.
From birth to three months
Baby like your voice voice, so he turns on his sound. If you show his tongue, he will repeat you.
The child does not realize that certain actions lead to a certain result. At six weeks, he still does not understand what you exist even when you are not near him. Seeing you every time, he does not even realize that you are the same person. He is not afraid of unfamiliar people and with joy goes to all in hand.
From three to six months
Now the child understands what can take action and get the result. He knows how to separate himself from the surrounding world. He realizes that even if two toys come into contact with each other, they are not one.
The child learns to classify. Show the child six pictures with cats and see how it is surprised when a dog will be on the seventh picture. Put two or three mirrors and sit with the child opposite them. He will like to look at a few of your reflections. However, by five months it may, on the contrary, upset it, because at this age he will already understand that Mom is only alone.
By six months, the kid will happily reach to toys, keep them, knocking them and. It distinguishes toys in shape, material and color. He understands that the toy he is holding in his hands, he has already seen before.
From seven to nine months
The child knows his name. He begins to shy strangers and places.
The child knows how to build plans. For example, he can decide to crawl into his teddy bear or see what is under the table. Most likely, he is already correctly drawn with toys: knocking on the drum and folds cubes.
You may notice that the child repeats the actions that you made the day before. If he learns something, for example, throw away a rattle out of the bed, he wants to try to do it somewhere else. Pay attention - he will certainly start throwing a spoon sitting in a feeding chair. He still does not know what hide and seek are, so if you hide a spoon, most likely, he will not look for her.
From nine to 12 months
The child reaches you, wants your caress and. He is frustrated because of this, as now understands that you exist, even when he does not see you. But if the child sees himself in the mirror, he does not understand that this is his own reflection.
The child makes sounds with meaning, which will then turn into his first words. His behavior seems more conscious and logical. And he is gradually everything is better managed to guess what will happen on.
From 12 to 18 months
With the help of words and actions, the child tries to inform you what he wants. He can also repeat someone actions, especially yours. He can even imitate the acts that watched a week ago. The child seeks to participate in everything, for example, open the closet and empty the trash can. His mission is to know the world around!
Faced with the problem, the child is trying to solve it first alone, and then in another way. If something has lost or hidden, it is able to look for it methodically.
From 18 to 24 months
Now that the child is almost two years old, he begins to combine words. Sometimes he can think about something and solve the problem without resorting to the method of trial and errors. The child is looking for things where he left them. He pretends and imites.
Gentle and loving, your child can also show stubbornness and inadequate in assessing their skills. From the disorder it can roll.
In situations, when it is scary, he can cling to you.
In he, it does not object to other children playing in his toys, but in two years he already selected them. The child likes to be among other children, but he does not play with them, if only they are not older. The child can not put himself in place of another.
If he does not hurt from a slap or hit, he will think that others do not hurt when they hit them. If he hit the chair, he will say that the chair hit him.
If at 18 months you will leave the lipstick's imprint on the forehead and sit opposite the mirror with him, he will start wipe it from the mirror. At 21 months, the child will understand that the reflection in the mirror belongs to him, and in a situation with the lipstick will wipe their forehead, and not reflection. The child's memory is also developing, so it will definitely notice if you skip the page from his favorite book.
How to help the child develop?
From the very beginning you are your beloved toy your baby. Try to do so that the child laughed and goule, and then you will be on the right track. Keep in mind that the child is easily distracted. Too many classes means that he will not be able to deal with any of them.
No need to overload it, getting all the toys immediately. He will like it if you choose one toy that is most suitable for its age. The development of the child is unlikely to help toys designed for older children, since benefits brings only what matches current needs.
In the interruptions between active games, offer a child quiet classes. Let the child himself decides when to stop. If you see that he is losing interest in the game or toy, let him relax. Sometimes the baby needs time and effort to achieve something. Give him the opportunity to first try myself without your help, but help him when he is ready to surrender.
Trust yourself. Carefully watch the child, and then you will understand what you need in order to help him develop. If you thought: "My child would like it," most likely you are right. After all, you are an expert in everything that concerns your child.
What if the child is developing not as fast as it should?
All children are different, so the development process is also occurring differently. If the child is premature, he can master some kind of skills later than his peers.
If the child had health problems, he can also lag in development. Nevertheless, do not worry and be sure that the child will be able to catch up, if it gives it enough time to it.
On average, the child begins to sit without the support of seven months. By nine months, 90% can sit on their own. If by 10 months the child will not learn to sit, consult your doctor.
At 13 months, the child will most likely be able to pronounce 10 sounds or words. By 18 months, their number will increase to 50. But this is also individually, since all children are different. Sometimes boys who already understand many words, it is difficult to reproduce them. If it seems to you that the child does not understand many words, ask the doctor to check his hearing.
Try not to stimulate the child too active. He can block in herself, if it felt overloaded. Suggest baby simple games, and toys - one.
Cut with a child more comfortable. Look into his eyes and talk to him. Give him time, encourage it. At the same time, remember that the child needs to try to do anything on their own. The best lessons are those that he learned himself.
Memory, perception, formation of concepts, solving problems, logic and imagination - all this mental processes that help us interact with the outside world.
These processes function unequal at different stages of the cultivation of the body. Their change occurring as the child grows, and is called cognitive (from Lat. Cognitio - "Knowledge", "Cognition") development. The theory of cognitive development belongs to the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
As, according to this theory, the ability of the child is formed to reflect, what stages of cognitive development takes every child? Why did the children's and teenage view of the world look like a vision of an adult?
The main features of children's thinking
These processes are multidirectional, but often carried out simultaneously and are equally important for the development of the psyche. As Piaget believed, optimally for the psyche state of equilibrium between accommodation and assimilation.
Development Stages
The cognitive development of the child at the first stage lasts about two years. It is called a period of sensing engine (that is, the perception and movement under construction) is intelligent. The main way to get knowledge for the baby is movement in space and interaction with objects (feeling, grabbing, throwing, and so on).
Preoperative stage lasts from two to seven years. The child takes the speech, learns to use the names of objects, and not denote them by action. Cognitive development at this stage carries a bright imprint of the egocentricity of thinking.
Widely known believes with three slides. The child shows the bulk layout where three slides of different height are depicted. Then the experimenter brings a doll and has it so that she "see" these slides from an angle distinguished from the child's angle.
Another feature of cognitive development at the preoperative stage is the ability of the child to see only one side of the situation. It illustrates another well-known experience of biased. The child shows two glasses with the same amount of liquid. Then, in his eyes, the liquid is transfused into a higher glass. The child will say that now liquids are more in this second cup, because it is higher or in the first, because it is wider. It is not capable of considering simultaneously and the height and width.
Following the stage of specific operations (lasts from seven to eleven years). Thinking acquires independence from, but still does not go beyond concrete situations (hence the name), the ability to abstraction will come later.
The cognitive development of a teenager 12-15 years is under formal operations. Thinking becomes abstract, systemic, person is able to form and express assumptions, confirm or refute them. That is, in youth (or rather, even at the stage of transition to it from childhood), the person already has all the possibilities of an adult intelligence.
It should be noted: Piaget did not argue that intellectual development stops after 15 years, but the features of the functioning of thinking in youth and maturity in their works did not consider in detail, focusing on children's intellect. Author: Evgenia Bessonova
Although parents understand that the physical growth of their child is accompanied by changes in its intelligence, it is often difficult for them to imagine what changes are for changes. In the opinions of modern psychologists about these changes, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was enormous, widely recognized by the most influential thinker of our century. Before the Piaget in the psychological ideas about the cognitive development of the child, two approaches were dominated: in one, based on the principle of biological ripening, the exceptional role belonged to the "natural" component of development; In another, based on the principle of learningand the effects of the medium, almost exceptional preference was given to the "acquired" component. Piaget approached the problem otherwise, focusing on the interaction between naturally ripening the abilities of the child and its relationships with the environment. In this section we will give a brief overview of the theory of development stages proposed by Piaget, and then consider criticism of this theory and some later approaches. We will also discuss the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky, whose ideas about cognitive development, first published in the 1930s, again attracted the attention of scientists in recent years.
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Stages of development according to Piaget
Partly, as a result of observations of their own children, Piaget showed interest in the relationship between naturally ripening the abilities of the child and its interactions with the medium. Piaget saw an active participant in the child of this process, and not a passive "recipient" of biological development and imposed in the outside of incentives. In particular, according to Piaget, the child should be considered as a scientist researcher who conducts experiments over the world to see what happens ("What can I feel if you suck the ear of a teddy bear?"; "And what will happen if I move my plate. Over the edge of the table? ").
As a result of these mini-experiments, the child builds "theories" - Piaget called them schemes - about how physical and social worlds are arranged. Meeting with a new object or event, the child is trying to understand him in the language of the already existing scheme (the Piaget called this process of assimilation: the child is trying to like a new event by the preexisting scheme). If the old scheme turns out to be inadequate to assimilating it a new event, then the child, like a good scientist, modifies it and thus expands its theory of the world (this process of alteration of the Piaget scheme called accommodation) (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969).
The first work of Piaget as a psychological graduate student was the "Tester" of the intellect created by Alfred Bina, the inventor of the test testIQ. (first letters of wordsintellectual Quitient. - Intelligence coefficient. -Approx. Transl.) (see ch. 12). But then the Piaget discovered that he was more interested in the wrong answers of children than their indicators in the intelligence test. Why do children are mistaken exactly? What are their thinking different from adults? He became closely watching his own children during the game; At the same time, often asked them simple scientific and moral questions and asked to explain how they came to their answers. Based on his observations, Piaget was convinced that the development of the ability of children to think and argued through a number of qualitatively differing stages of children's growth. He allocated 4 basic stages in cognitive development and a number of subbands in each of them. The main stages and their main characteristics are given in Table. 3.1.
Table 3.1. Stages of Cognitive Development on Piaget
|
Stage |
Characteristic |
|
1. Sensor (from birth to 2 years old) |
Distinguished by items. Realizes itself as a carrier of action and begins to act arbitrarily; For example, he pulls over the rope to bring a toy in motion, or shakes a rattle to hang. |
|
2. Preoperative (2-7 years) |
Learn to use the speech and submit objects with words and in images. Thinking is still egocentric: hardly takes the point of view of others. Classifies objects one sign; For example, all red blocks are grouped together regardless of the shape or all square blocks regardless of color. |
|
3. Specific operations (7-11 years) |
Can think logically about objects and events. Comprehensies the preservation of quantity (6 years), volume (7 years) and weight (9 years). Classifies objects in several features and can arrange them into the ranks in one parameter, such as a magnitude. |
|
It may think logically on abstract statements and systematically checks the hypotheses. It begins to be interested in hypothetical and ideological problems, the future. |
Age is indicated on average. It can vary significantly depending on the intelligence, cultural background and socioeconomic factors, but the order of their follows is supposed to be the same in all children. Here only the overall characteristics of the stages are given, and in each of them, the Piaget described a number of more detailed support.
Sensor stage. Noting the close relationship between the motor activity and the perception of infants, the Piaget designated the first two years of life as a sensorotor stage. During this period, babies are busy with the fact that they discover the relationship between their actions and their consequences. They recognize, for example, how much should I pull up to take the subject; What happens if you challenge a plate with food for the edge of the table; And also the fact that the hand is part of the body, and the railing is no. By countless "experiments", babies begin to form a concept about themselves as something separate from the outside world.
At this stage, an important discovery is the concept of the constancy of the object - the realization that the object continues to exist, even when it is not available to feelings. If you cover the toy with a cloth to which an 8-month-old child stretches, he immediately ceases to stretch and loses interest. He is not surprised and not upset, does not try to find a toy - in general, it acts as if it stopped exist (Fig. 3.3).
Fig. 3.3. Constancy of the object.If the toy is hidden behind the screen, the baby acts as if it no longer exists. From this observation, the Piaget concludes that the child has not yet mastered the concept of constancy of the object.
Unlike him, a 10-month-old child is actively looking for an item hidden under a rag or behind the screen. This older child understands that the subject exists, although it is not visible, that is, he has comprehended the concept of the constancy of the object. But even at this age, the search is limited. If such a child once was already able to find a toy hidden in some specific place, he will continue to look for her there, even if he saw an adult hides her in a new place. This child simply repeats the action, one day already leading it to getting a toy, and not looking for it where he saw her for the last time. Approximately up to the year, the child cannot consistently search for the item where he disappeared on his eyes for the last time - no matter what was in previous attempts.
Preoperative stage. At the age of about 1.5 to 2 years, children begin to use a speech. Words, like symbols, can represent objects or groups of items, and one object may represent (symbolize) another. So, during the game, a 3-year-old child can handle sticks, as if it is a horse, and ride on her room; A wooden cube can be a car for him, one doll - dad, and the other is a child.
Although children aged 3-4 years can think symbolically, their words and images still do not have a logical organization. The stage of cognitive development coming to age from 2 to 7 years old, Piaget calls a preoperative, since the child does not yet understand certain rules, or operations. Operation is a procedure for mental separation, association or other information conversion in a logical way. For example, if the water is overflowing from a high narrow glass into low and wide, adults know that the amount of water has not changed, because they can do inverse operation: they can imagine how water is overflowing from a low glass back to high, thereby coming to initial state. The child at the preoperative stage of cognitive development is a fairness of reversibility and other mental operations or absent. Therefore, considers Piaget, children at the preoperative stage have not yet comprehected the principle of preservation - an understanding of the fact that the amount of substance remains constant, even if its form changes. They cannot understand that when overflowing water from a high glass into a low amount of water is saved, that is, it remains the same when it is overflowing from a high glass into low.
The lack of submission of preservation illustrates an experiment in which the child is given by plasticine so that it makes it a ball equal to another ball from the same material. Having done it, the child says they are "the same." Then the experimenter leaves one ball as a standard, and the other rolls into the extended shape of the type of sausages, and the child is watching all this. A child can easily see that plasticine at the same time has fallen or gained. In such a situation, children aged about 4 years say that in these two items there is no longer the same amount of plasticine: "Long more," they say (Fig. 3.4). Most children under 7 years of age do not believe that in a long subject, and in the first ball equal to the amount of plasticine.
Fig. 3.4. Conservation concept.A four-year-old girl acknowledges that both plasticine balls are the same magnitude. But when one of the balls rolling into an extended thin shape, she says that plasticine is more in it. And until she is 7 years old, she will not say that in these objects of different shapes the same amount of plasticine.
Piaget believed that the main feature of the preoperative stage is the inability of the child to hold attention to more than one aspect of the situation at the same time. So, in the task of preserving the amount of plasticine, the child located on the preoperative stage cannot focus simultaneously at the length and thickness of the piece of clay. Similarly, Piaget believed that visual impressions were dominated in preoperative thinking. Changing the appearance of a piece of plasticine affects the child more than less obvious, but more significant characteristics are mass and weight.
The fact that a small child relies on visual impressions becomes clear from the experiment to preserve the quantity. If there are two rows of checkers in parallel, one opposite the other, the small child correctly responds that in these rows the same amount of checkers (Fig. 3.5). If the checkers of one row gather in a bunch, a five-year-old child says that there is a straight line, checkers are larger, although not a single checkers were taken away. A visual impression of a long row of checkers outweighs the quantitative equality, which was obvious when the checkers stood in the rows against each other. In contrast, a 7-year-old child believes that if before that the number of objects was equal, it should remain equal. At this age, quantitative equality becomes more significant than a visual impression.
Fig. 3.5. Saving quantity.When the checkers are correctly located in two rows of seven pieces, most children answer that and there they are equal. When after that one row is collected in a compact handheld, the children of 6-7 years old say that there were more of them in the initial row.
Another key characteristic of the preoperative stage of child development, according to Piaget, is egocentrism. Children at the preoperative stage of development are not aware of other points of view, besides their own, - they believe that everyone else perceive the world around the same way as they (Piaget. 1950). In order to demonstrate this fact, Piaget came up with the "task of three slides." The child allows walking around the table on which three slides of different heights are constructed. When a child becomes on one side of the table, a doll is placed on the other side of the table in different places (so she sees three slides other than a child). The child is asked to choose a photo corresponding to what the doll sees. Children under 6-7 years old choose a photo that corresponds to their own vision of three slides (Piaget & Inhelder, 1948/1956).
Piage believed that egocentrism explains the rigidity of thinking at the preoperative stage. Since small children cannot evaluate other points of view than their own, they are not able to reconsider their schemes, taking into account the changes in the environment. Hence their inability to produce backup operations or take into account the preservation of the quantity.
Stages of operations. Between 7 and 12, children master the various concepts of preservation, and also begin to perform other logical manipulations. They can position objects one characteristic, for example in height or weight. They also have a mental idea of \u200b\u200bthe sequence of actions. A five-year-old child can find the road to the house of a friend, but will not be able to tell you how to get there, and will not be able to portray it with a pencil on paper. He finds the road because he knows where it is necessary to turn, but he does not have a common picture of the route. In contrast, 8-year-old children easily draw a path map. Piaget this period is called the stage of specific operations: although children use abstract terms, they can do it only in relation to specific objects, i.e., to those subjects that are directly available to their sense authorities.
At about the same time, the third stage of understanding the morality of the Piaget begins. The child begins to realize that some of the rules are social conventions, collective agreements and that they can be arbitrarily taken or change if everyone agrees. The moral realism of the child also undergoes changes: now, making a moral judgment, it gives the weight and "subjective" factors, such as human intentions, and considers punishment as a human choice, and not as an inevitable, divine cara.
Approximately aged 11-12 years, children come to the forms of thinking adults, they become capable of purely symbolic thinking. Piaget called this stage of formal operations. In one of the tests of formal operational thinking, the child must be determined from which it depends on how long the pendulum swings back-forward (i.e., the period of its oscillations). The child gives a cut of a rope, suspended by the hook, and a few cargo that can be attached to the bottom end. It can change the length of the rope, change the weight of the connected cargo and the height from which it releases the cargo. Unlike children who are still at the stage of specific operations and, when experimenting, change some variables, but without a system, teenagers even with average abilities put forward a number of hypotheses and begin to systematically check them. They reason this: if a certain variable (weight) affects the period of oscillations, the result of its influence will be visible, only if you change one variable, and all other leave unchanged. If this variable does not affect the time of swing, they exclude it and try another. Consideration of all the possibilities - the development of concluding on each hypothesis and its confirmation or refutation is that the essence of the fact that Piaget called thinking at the stage of formal operations.
Criticism of the theory of Piaget
Piaget theory is a huge intellectual achievement; She made a revolution in the ideas about the cognitive development of children and in the decades inspired a huge number of researchers. Piage observations relative to the sequence of cognitive development are confirmed by many studies. However, newer and sophisticated methods for testing mental activities of babies and preschoolers show that Piaget underestimated their abilities. As we noted above, in order for the child to successfully solve many of the tasks created to verify the theory of stages, it actually needs to be possessing several basic information processing skills: attention, memory and knowledge of specific facts. And it may turn out that the child actually has the ability required from him, but cannot solve the task, because it does not have other skills, also necessary, but insignificant for this task.
These moments manifested themselves with very evidence in the study of the constancy of the object - awareness that the object continues to exist, even when it is outside the sensual perception field. We have already spoken above that if the baby at the age of 8 months shows a toy and then he hides her or covered with her eyes, he behaves as if she no longer exists, does not try to look for her. But after 8 months of age, the child, who already managed to repeatedly find a toy hidden in some one place, continues to look for her in the same place, even after he saw that adult hid it in a new place.
Note, however, that for the successful implementation of this test, the child needs not only to understand that this subject still exists (i.e., to know about the constancy of the object), but also remember where he was hidden, and show some physical action that would show that he is looking for it. Since the Piaget believed that early cognitive development was determined by sensor activity, he did not consider seriously the possibility that the child knows that the object still exists, but it is not able to express it in search behavior, - that is, that the development of the mind may be ahead of motor abilities .
Such an opportunity was studied in a number of studies, where the child did not need to actively look for the hidden object. As shown in Fig. 3.6, the device consisted of a screen attached by one end to the table lid. In the initial position screen, the entire plane was lying on the table. In front of the child, the screen was slowly turned into an opposite side of it, as a recovery bridge, to a vertical position of 90 degrees, then rotated further to a complete semicircle of 180 degrees and again put the plane on the table. Then the screen was rotated in the opposite direction - towards the child.
Fig. 3.6. Testing the constancy of the object.Children show the rotating screen until they stop looking at it. The box is set to where the screen can hide it, and then the children see either a possible event (the screen turns until it faces the box, and then returns to its original position), or the impossible event (the screen seems to pass through the box). Children paid more attention to the impossible event, showing that they know about the existence of a hidden box (adapted from: Baillargeon, 1987).
When this rotating screen was shown by babies for the first time, they looked at him for almost a minute, but after repeated attempts lost interest and paid their attention somewhere else. At this moment on the table, behind the screen fastening the screen, a brightly colored box appeared; It would not be seen if the screen was raised vertically (in fact, the children saw a real box, but its reflection). After that, as shown in Fig. 3.6, children demonstrated either a possible event or impossible. One group of babies saw how the screen turns from the initial position to the place in which he would have to face the box; In this place the screen stopped and moving back, at the starting position. The other group saw how the screen turns to a vertical position and then continues to turn further on the other side of the 180-degree arc, as if no box was on the way.
Experimentants reasoned like this: if children believe that the box still exists, even when it hides the screen, they should be surprised that the screen passes through it - the impossible event, and then, therefore, they will look at the screen longer than in the event When the screen is faced with the box before returning to the original position. That is what happened. Despite the fact that the impossible event was perceptibly identical to the event that they have already seen interest many times and lost interest to him, they found it more interesting than the event is physically possible, but which they never seen before, - how the screen stops halfway another end of the arc and then changes the direction (Baillargeon, Spelke & Wasserman, 1985).
It should be noted that children in this experiment were only 4.5 months; They, thus, demonstrated the presence of knowledge about the constancy of the object for 4-5 months earlier than predicts the theory of Piaget. When repeating this study, it was found that some babies at the age of only 3.5 months also have knowledge about the constancy of the object (Baillargeon, 1987; Baillargeon & Devos, 1991).
The tasks of the Piaget on the preservation are another example of how with a more attentive analysis of the complex skills necessary for the successful solution of the problem, it turns out that the competence in children comes earlier than predicts its theory. For example, if the experimental conditions in the test test are selected carefully so that the children's responses do not depend on their speech abilities (that is, on how well they understand what the experimental is under the words "more" and "Longer"), then even 3- and 4-year-old children detects knowledge about the preservation of the number, i.e. they can distinguish between the essential feature (the number of elements in the set) and insignificant (features of the spatial location of the elements) (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978).
In one of the studies of saving the number, two sets of toys were located in line, one to another (as in Fig. 3.5). The experimenter told the child that one row is His, and the other - she, and then asked the child to speak out about the ratio of their quantity. For example: "Here are your soldiers, and this is my soldiers. What more: your or mine - or their equal? \u200b\u200b" After receiving the initial judgment of the child, she put one row of toys freer and repeated the question.
At first, 5-year-old children did not cope with the task of saving the quantity and, as predicted before the Piaget, said that in the long row "soldiers more". But then the experimenter introduced other conditions. She did not talk about these toys like some individual soldiers and instead said: "Here is my army, but your army. Whose army is more: yours or mine - or are they the same? " And after this simple change, the majority of children were capable of preserving the number and decided that the army of the same value, although one of them was stretched. When children were offered to interpret what they see, as something whole, collected together, and not as a set of individual elements, insignificant perceptual transformations began to influence their equality on their judgments (Markman, 1979).
During other studies, other various factors were discovered that could affect the development of specific operational thinking. For example, some cultural traditions can influence the mastery of the tasks developed by Piaget (Rogoff. , 1990). In addition, the creation of a school visit may contribute to the development of these tasks (ARTMAN & CANAN. , 1993). These and other evidence suggests that a specific operational reasoning may not be a universal development stage characteristic of middle-day children, but a product of cultural environment, schooling, as well as specific formulation of issues and instructions (Gellatly, 1987; Light & Perrett - Clermont, 1989; Robern, 1989).
Alternatives to the theory of Piaget
All development psychology professionals agree that the results we now met, challenging the theory of Piaget and indicate the underestimation of children's abilities. However, there is no agreement on how an alternative to give preference.
Information approach. As we have already noted, many of the experiments who question the views of the Piaget were conducted by researchers who consider cognitive development as the process of acquiring several separate information processing skills. Accordingly, they believe that the standard tasks of the Piaget do not allow separating these several skills from the critical skill, for the sake of identifying which these tasks seem to be created. But further supporters of the information approach disagree among themselves about the fact that they are not satisfied with the Piaget.
For example, they did not agree on the main issue: whether the development is as a sequence of qualitatively different stages or as a continuous change process. Some believe that from the principle of staging it is necessary to refuse completely (eg:Klahr. , 1982). Such scientists believe that high-quality races in development are an illusion that occurs because in tasks that assess different stages, information processing skills were casually mixed; Separate skills develop smoothly and continuously.
But some representatives of the information approach seem to be upgraded and expanded by the stadium model of the Piaget itself; They believe that gradual changes in the skills of information processing in fact lead to hopping, phased changes in the thinking of children (see, eg:Case , 1985). Such theorists are sometimes called "non-sources". Another group of non-eaglers agree that there are real stages in development, but they arise only within the narrower areas of knowledge. For example, speech skills of a child, understanding of mathematics, social thinking, etc. - All this can develop stadium, but the development of each such sphere is in its step, relatively independent of other areas (see, for example:Mandler, 1983).
Cognitive approach. Some specialists in the psychology of development, doubting the existence of qualitatively different stages of cognitive development, believe that, after infant age, children and adults cognitive processes and abilities are the same, and their distinction is primarily in the fact that adults have a more extensive base Knowledge. Under the knowledge here is meant not just a meeting of the facts, but a deep understanding of the organization of these facts in specific areas.
The difference between the facts themselves and their organization is well illustrated by the study, where a group of decades who competed in a chess tournament, compared with a group of college students who were chess lovers. When they were asked to remember and reproduce a list of random numbers, the students were far exceeded decident. But when they began to test the ability to reproduce the real positions of chess figures on the board, it turned out that the 10-year chess masters cope better than 18-year-old lovers (Chi. , 1978). Thus, a significant difference between these groups was not in various stages of cognitive development and not in the difference in the ability to process information (such as the amount of memory), but in the knowledge of a particular area. Since the decades deeper understood the chess composition, they could organize and reproduce the position of memory by combining reinforcement information into larger significant units (for example, the attack by white royal flank) and exceptions from considering the incredible locations of the figures. In an earlier study, which compared adult masters Chess and adult lovers, the results were similar. Solving chess tasks by masters and lovers, we will discuss in chapter 9.
What is happening with age improved ability of children to solve the tasks of the Piaget to preserve may be due to the expansion of their knowledge of the world, and not with a qualitative shift in cognitive development. If, for example, the child does not know that the mass or quantity is the main characteristic and what exactly it is in mind when "more plasticine" or "more checkers" say, then when changing the appearance only, it is likely to decide What changed the quantity. It is possible that the older child simply has already learned that it is essential when determining the "more" property. If this hypothesis is true, then the child demonstrating the lack of understanding of the preservation on one material can manifest it on the other - depending on how much it works in the dinous area.
This is confirmed by the study in which kindergarten children told about a number of "operations" conducted by doctors or scientists. Some operations changed the animal so that it became like another animal, and some - so that it became like a plant (see photo of incentives in Fig. 3.7). The child was told, for example, that "the doctors took a horse [show the child an image of a horse] and made an operation after which black and white stripes appeared on the whole horse. They shrugged her mane and worked the tail. They taught her not to laugh like a horse, and there are wild grass instead of oats and hay. They taught her to live not on the stable, but in the wilds of Africa. When they did everything, the animal looked like this [show the image of the zebra]. When they all finished, what did they do: a horse or zebra? " (Keil, 1989, r. 307).
Fig. 3.7. Testing to understand the principle of preservation at an early age.Children say that the doctors or scientists worked on the animals until it looks like a different animal (moving from a horse to zebra) or as a plant (from the dickery to the cactus). If the child agrees that the animal "really" became another animal or became a plant, it means that he has not yet learned the principle of conservation; If the child says that the animal "actually" remains the same as it was in the original, it means that it is comprehended by the principle of preservation.
With regard to the transformation of one animal to another, most children showed the preservation principle of them; Approximately 65% \u200b\u200bcounted that the horse actually turned into zebra. But when it came to turning an animal into a plant, only about 25% decided that the dikiform really became a cactus (Keil. , 1989). Special variations of this experiment showed that such a result cannot be explained only by the fact that the animal looks like an animal than on the plant.
From such studies it can be seen that in some situations, the children of the preoperative age can ignore the most dramatic changes in the appearance and follow the principle of preservation, because they know that the invisible, but the essential property of the object remains unchanged. With a similar experiment, we will get acquainted in the next section dedicated to sex identity and sexual behavior, where we learn whether preoperative children believe that the girl can be turned into a boy or vice versa.
Socio-cultural approaches. Piaget emphasized the role of the interaction of the child with the medium, but under the medium he meant the immediate physical environment. The child was considered by him as a natural scientist, in front of which the task is to reveal the true essence of the world and the general rules of logical and scientific thinking. Finding a child in a wider social and cultural context is actually not taken into account by the theory of Piaget. Even in his arguments about social and moral rules, it is implied that there is a universal, logically "correct" way of understanding such rules that a child seeks to open.
But not all knowledge is. Much of the fact that the developing child has to be recognized is special and conditional views on reality adopted in its culture; These are the alleged roles of various people and different floors; This is finally the rules and norms of social relations adopted in its culture. In such spheres, there simply do not exist neither absolutely reliable facts, nor "correct" views on the reality that need to be comprehended. Thus, representatives of cultural anthropology and other social sciences, which adhere to the socio-cultural approach to development, are considering a child not as a natural scientist who is looking for a "true" knowledge, but as a recruit of culture that wants to become "His", having learned to look at social reality through the prism of this culture (BEM, 1993, 1987; Shweder, 1984).
The origins of this look for cognitive development can be discovered in the works of the Russian school of Lion Vogensky (1934-1986). Vygotsky believed that we are developing our understanding and practical skills through the process that can be called students: We are sent more knowledgeable individuals that help us more and more understand the world around and develop new skills. He also distinguished two levels of cognitive development: the actual level of child's development, manifested in the ability to solve problems, and the level of potential development, determined by the type of tasks that the child can decide under the guidance of an adult or more knowledgeable peer. According to Vygotsky, we must know both the actual and potential level of development of a particular child, if we want to determine its level of cognitive development and ensure adequate forms of teaching.
<Рис. Согласно Выготскому, понимание и опыт детей развиваются благодаря своего рода ученичеству, когда ими руководят более знающие индивидуумы. Например, ребенок более старшего возраста может помочь более младшему развить новые навыки.>
Since it is a major means of sharing social meanings (meanings) between people, Vygotsky considered the development of speech as a central aspect of cognitive development; In fact, he considered a speech mastery as the most important aspect of child development (Blanc , 1990). Speech plays an important role in the development of new skills and acquisition of knowledge. When adults or peers helps children to master the solution of new tasks, communication between them becomes part of children's thinking. Later, children use their speech skills to direct their actions, practicing new skills. Thus, the fact that Piaget called the egocentric speech, Vygotsky considered as the most important component of cognitive development: children talk to themselves to direct and lead their own actions. This type of self-integrated was called personal (internal) speech. You can observe this process in children who give yourself instructions, how to perform this or that task, for example, the covers of the shoelaces that they previously heard of adults (Berk., 1997).