Normative Cognitive Development

From the age of seven to about eleven, children become capable of performing mental operations or working through problems and ideas in their minds. However, they can perform operations only on tangible objects and real events. Children also achieve conservation, reversibility, and decentration during this stage:

Pre-operational stage (toddler and early childhood) is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language, matures, memory and imagination are developed but thinking is non-logical.

This essay will state Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development. Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Piaget’s hypothesis is that the four stages of cognitive development are; the sensorimotor stage, which ranges from birth to two years old. This essay will discuss aspects of this stage including; Object permanence, Schemas and equilibration and assimilation. The preoperational stage which ranges from two to seven years old. This essay will evaluate Piaget’s hypothesis on conservation and the three mountains and counters task. The concrete

This report looks at cognitive development of an adolescent through the use of Piaget’s pendulum task, and aims to assess the level of cognitive development with comparison to literature in the field and furthermore provide suggestions of how a teacher could enhance the subjects learning in one key learning area.

Cognitively, the way infants process information undergoes rapid changes during the infant’s first year. For instance, the Piagetian theory of cognitive development includes (1) the sensorimotor stage in which infants, through trial an error, build their understanding of things around the world (e.g. imitation of familiar behaviour); (p. 203, Chapter 6); (2) building schemas (e.g. a 5 month old child can move or drop an object fairly rigidly, whereas an older child can do the same action but with more intentional and creative movement);(p. 202, Chapter 6) and (3) the concept of object permanence (e.g. an infant knows that an object exists even though it is hidden encourages the child’s perceptual skills and awareness of the objects ‘realness’ in the world (p.

Children develop cognition through two main stages that Jean Piaget theorized. The stages run from birth and infancy to school age children. Sensorimotor is the first stage and goes from birth to about the age of two. This stage implies that the children learn about the environment they live in and they learn this through the reflexes and movements they produce. They also learn that they are separate people from their parents and they can say goodbye to them and know they will come back. The second stage is called the preoperational stage. During this stage of development, children will learn how to incorporate symbols to represent objects. This is also the beginning of learning the alphabet and speech. The child is still very much egocentric at this point in time, but with the help of understanding educators, the child will grow appropriately onto the next stages of development. Finally, the children need to develop emotionally/socially.

The intelligence of a child is demonstrated by the use of signs, improvement of language, memory and the imagination when articulating in the non-logical and non-reversible way. The child’s sphere of socialization improves when the child is engaged with other people around them; if this does not happen and the child is reserved to itself there is a possibility the child will lack ability to make his/her own decisions in life after (Dodge, 2004).

Piaget, considered the major turning point in a child’s life is between the ages of 7 and 11, referring to this age as the “concrete stage” (Vialle et al., 2008). At this age the child is now mature enough to use logical thought or operations but still not able to think abstractedly or hypothetically (Eggen & Kauchak, 2009). To accommodate these students most of my activities will purposely incorporate objects that student are able to manipulate, see and touch as an aide to their learning and understanding. Therefore, it is imperative that I understand the sequence of a child’s development as understanding theories about how children develop helps form a knowledge base in caring for young children and subsequently will help plan appropriate curriculum (Vialle et al., 2008).

"Normative development" is viewed as events within a children’s development that correlate towards the matching ages, ability or skills known as the 'milestones approach' (Cherry, K (2017)). Within a child’s average development these skills are categorised under four main subtopics 1) Physical Development that includes the large motor skills used for tasks such sitting, walking, and crawling. As well as the fine motor skills that are precise movements such as grasping and picking up smaller objects. 2) Cognitive Milestones that are based around the idea of problem-solving; such as being able to learn and understand the alphabet as well as learning how to react to different situations including the correlation that may be linked to changing facial expression. 3) Social and Emotional development is centred on the basis of being able to gain a better understanding of personal emotions and those of others. Social milestones also help to explain a child’s interactions with others such as learning to play. Finally, 4) Communication milestones that involve non-verbal and verbal communication skills (Cherry, K (2017))

Some of the highlights obtained about the infant’s cognitive development include how psychological processes are involved in the development of thinking and knowing in young children. The cognitive development of children shows how infants acquire information through the senses of sound, sight, touch, smell, taste, and language. Regarding social and emotional development, it shows how infants learn to interact and control their emotions. Interesting theorists such as Piaget provided a basis for the observation of children’s behavior in motor and intellectual development. Also, Erik Erikson is notable for his interests in the emotional development of children (Newman and Newman). Notable milestones in cognitive development include the sensorimotor

In Dr. Columbus Developmental Psychology class during the Spring 2016 semester, we learned several different theories on child development. In the child observation assignment I had the opportunity to put what I learned into action. For this paper we had to choose a child and teach them how to complete a new task or project. While teaching the child this task we had to observe their behavior and then relate it back to several different theories such as, Kohlberg, Piaget’s , Vygostsky and Erikson. This assignment gave me practical knowledge on how these theories played out in the real world. The little girl that I observed and taught for this assignment is a very happy and smart little girl. She truly enjoys learning new things and being

Reflection Journal #1: Chapter Two: Cognitive Development Description: (who, what, when, where, and how) The focus of reading and discussion in EDAT 6115 this week was on cognitive development. Each student develops differently and at different rates. In order to be an effective teacher, we must be able to recognize how students think and develop and understand how they view the world around them.

Vygotsky (1978) suggests that as children communicate with others through their play, they are also developing their cognitive skills. He considers children’s knowledge progresses further when they interact with others, as they are able to transfer their knowledge with one another (Hammersley- Fletcher et al, 2006).

Based on Piaget’s theory, these preschoolers would be in the preoperational stage. This stage is marked by the emergence of language. Children in this stage will be able to form sentences and will be able to establish some concrete ideas. The pursuit of lines of logic will become a main focus, and children begin to use the sentence “Why?” They will be able to communicate more clearly what they want and need. Children at this age will also become more skilled at pretend play. They will also start understand spatial reasoning and to use symbols and “learn to use words and pictures to represent objects” (citation). They will start to understand classification and learn about groups of objects; however this skill will still need to be developed.

In the latter part of the 19th century, psychology began to separate from its previous philosophical standing, emerging more as a scientific discipline. Abstract laws were devised, and objective and quantitative measurements of isolated variables analysed. Theories of development emerged and have continued throughout history, providing organization, and “a lens through which researchers can interpret and explain any number of specific facts or observations” (Sigelman & Rider, 2012, p. 32). In postulating what is seen as ‘normative’ development, these theories provide a model or map from which science and society are largely influenced.