Piaget Conservation Tasks

“According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, it states that all children go through specific stages as their brain matures. It also stated that these stages are completed in a fixed order within all children, according to their range of age (Atherton).” In other words, one cannot expect a two month old baby to solve simple math problems as that of a five year old. There are four stages in which Piaget grouped the development of a child according to their age groups, in which children interact with people and their environment. The sensorimotor stage (birth until age 2) children use their senses to explore their environment. During this stage, children learn how to control objects, although they fail to understand that these objects if not within their view continue to exist. The preoperational stage (2 until age 7) children are not able to see other's viewpoints other than their own. In other words, if the same amount of water is poured into a short wide glass and then a tall thin glass the child will perceive that the taller glass has more water because of the height. The concrete operational stage (7 until 12) children begin to think logically, but only with a practical aid. The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive theory is the formal operation stage (12 through adulthood) in which children develop abstract thinking and begin to think logically in their minds (Piaget).

In Piaget 's concrete operations period the key development of this is the acquisition of operations, which are mental representations of dynamic and static aspects of the environment. Here children not only master the static states, but also are able to represent transformations. The importance of concrete operations can be identified in understanding of three types of conservation: liquid

Experiments highlighted one of the major flaws in Piagets work – he failed to take notice of the context of the tasks he gives to children. He concentrated on a few tasks which often led to an under-estimation of the

The second and third stage Piaget proposed are the preoperational and concrete stage at this stage children understand object permanence (that objects continue to exist even though they cannot see them) , spatial layouts and also the use of language for problem solving starts during the preoperational stage through constructing existing information and eventually expanding this information. However until the age of seven children still see the world from their egocentric view (i.e. refusing to see the world from a different point of view). At the concrete stage children are able to solve visual problems such as lining in order dolls from the tallest to the shortest, however they are not able to solve mental

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, made substantial findings in intellectual development. His Cognitive Theory influenced both the fields of education and psychology. Piaget identified four major periods of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operations stage, and the stage of formal operations. The preoperational stage includes children two to four years of age and is characterized by the development and refinement of schemes for symbolic representation. During the preoperational stage lies, what Piaget coined, the intuitive period. This phase occurs during the ages of 4-7 and during this time, the child’s thinking is largely centered on the way things appear to be rather than on

Most of the criticism of Piaget’s work is in regards to his research methods. A major source of his inspiration for the theory was based on his observations of his own children. And because of this small sample group, people believe that it is difficult and incorrect to generalise his findings to a larger population. Similarly, many psychologists believe that Piaget underestimated the age which children could accomplish certain tasks and that sometimes children understand a concept before they are able to demonstrate their understanding of it. For example, children in the Sensorimotor stage may not search for a hidden object because their motor skills are not developed, rather than because they lack object permanence. This has been supported by evidence from Bower & Wishart (1972). They found that the way that an object is made to disappear influences the child’s response. As well as this, Piaget’s theory has been said to overestimate that every child and adult reaches the formal operational stage of knowledge development. Dasen (1994) claims that only a third of adults ever reach this stage.

Jean Piaget has introduced theories on child development from 1896-1980. He is the the most cited and most influential on cognitive development. Piaget is the foundation of current child developmental in psychology. His inspiration came from observing children’s as he even used his own. His development of the cognitive deployment focused on mental process, remembering, believing and reasoning. To help explain his theory, Piaget’s came up with Stage-bound cognitive development. “Stage-bound is the development progresses through a series of stages as a result of assimilating (using the environment for already-learned activities)and accommodating (changing behaviors—and mental structure—in the face of environmental demands)” (Lefrancois, G. R. 2012). Piaget’s stage theory makes up four components, Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operations, and Formal operations. With these components a teacher or educator can designs its class room and better understand the deployment a child goes through. Once the knowledge of the theories is understood the teacher can teach the child the correct development that they are in. It’s important to know the characteristics of the development a child is going trough because all different age group have their own development stages.

The first stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is sensorimotor, which begins at birth and last until eighteen months to two years of age. This stage is the use of motor activity without the use of symbols, so when it comes to this stage is based on physical interactions and experiences and knowledge is very limited. Infants cannot predict reactions and therefore must constantly experiment and learn through trial and error (Zhou & Brown, 2015). A good example of this would include shaking a rattle or putting objects in the mouth. As infants become more mobile their ability to develop cognitively increases and early language development begins. Object performance also occurs at seven to nine months, demonstrating that memory is developing.

Jean Piaget had many theories on child development one of which was conservation. He believed that children of certain ages did not understand the concept of conservation, such as children believing that the amount of water changes if poured from a short, wide container into a tall, thin container. Many people criticised Piagets theory because they believed that children actually could conserve at a younger age than Piaget had initially stated. This essay is going to discuss Piaget’s theory of conservation and if this is the case that children of certain ages cannot understand it. First this essay is going to explain Piagetian theory.

The first stage of Piaget’s development theory is the sensorimotor stage which takes place in children most commonly 0 to 2 years old. In this stage, thought is developed through direct physical interactions with the environment. Three major cognitive leaps in this stage are the development of early schemes, the development of goal-oriented behavior, and the development of object permanence. During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of them. They focus on what they

This is one of the most reoccurring criticism that Piaget’s theory faces. (Lourenco, 1996) This is mostly based on the fact that researchers believe that the children competence were not really revealed because Piaget’s experiments did not include the necessary controlling factors as they have implicated in their studies. Some of these controlling factors are questions with better clarity, scoring criteria’s and instructions. But I agree with this because I believe that if you are going to try to justify a concept that is based on the development of a child there be a scoring criteria, and there should be a certain age limit for that concept. For instance Piaget did a formal operational thought experiment where children of various ages were to balance a scale by hooking weights on the scales are. For them to pass all the children had to do was notice that the weight’s heaviness and its distance from the center in the end affected the balance. Children who were three to five years old could not comprehend this concept, however children who were seven could balance the scale. And for the children who had reached the age of ten they thought about the locations but this is because they trial and error, not logical thinking. (Berger, 2010, p. 334) Such a test that is meant to see if a child can accomplish such a task should be for a child who is much more developed such as in the age range of six to eight not a young child who is merely just three or five. Another reason why I feel that Piaget underestimated a child competence is because it has been stated that some children with intellectual disabilities have “a persistent failure of normal synapse pruning”, this causes it to be difficult for them to think. (Berger, 2010, p. 96) In addition a group of researchers redid Piaget’s construction of the object concept and the

Researchers also claim that Piaget’s unsuccessful efforts to teach children developmentally advanced concepts is false. “Researchers have found that in some circumstances, children often learn advanced concepts with brief instruction. All of this research has led up to the belief that children may be more competent that Piaget gives them credit for, especially in their practical knowledge.”

My case subject is Regina Holms, a second grader, from County Elementary School. Before I interviewed the subject, I received permission for her guardian. During the interview, Regina and I conversed while working on one of the seven Piagetian tasks, the volume task. During this task, Regina’s stage of development was determined.

For the purpose of this paper, I will replicate the conservation tasks experiment to test Piaget’s theories. My test subject is a five year old girl named Truphena, she -according to Piaget-is categorized to be in the pre-operational stage of intellectual development. Therefore she wouldn’t be expected to succeed at the conservation tasks that will be presented to her. I also have another subject named Franklin who is nine year old, he