DEVELOPMENT

• MATURATION – the unfolding of behaviours

that are genetically programmed

• LEARNING – systematic changes in behaviour,

thoughts and feelings as a result of

experiences

What is the most important

factor in development?

GENETIC PREDISPOSITIONor

ENVIROMENT

Nature or nurture

Life Span Development

Stage Approximate Age

Prenatal Conception to birthInfancy Birth to 18 monthsEarly childhood 18 mo. to 6 yearsMiddle childhood 6-12 yearsAdolescence 12-20 yearsYoung adulthood 20-45 yearsMiddle adulthood 45-60 yearsLater adulthood from 60 years

Research methodologies in developmental psychology

Research methodologies

in developmental psychology

Limitations of longitudinal reserach:

•Time-consuming

•Participants may leave the study

Limitations of cross-sectional research

•We can’t be absolutely sure that the differences found are

not due to participant variables

• Acording to Piaget children

are „little scientist” –

who come to know about

world by physical and

mental manipulation of

objects.

JEAN PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• SCHEMAS – mental representation of how to deal with the world.

Schemas may develop or change. Child’s experiences are based on

limited innate repertoire of schemas: sucking, reaching, grasping

which are modified as a resulat of experience – this is

ADAPTATION.

• ADAPTATION:

• ASSIMILATION – new information can be integrated into existing

cognitive schemas.

• ACCOMODATION – existing cognitive schemas have to be altered

because they no longer match new experiences.

Try to draw the shape, which you will see for a while. You have 30 seconds to look at it.

ASSIMILATION

MAMMALSZEBRA

ASSIMILATION

MAMMALS

ZEBRA IS A MAMMAL

ACCOMMODATION

HORSES

ACCOMMODATION

THIS IS ZEBRA

ACCOMMODATION

HORSES ZEBRA

• Work in pairs. Choose the person with whom you’ve never

work with.

• Give examples of two processes of adaptation: assimilation

and accomodation.

• Create a story (if you create unusual, surprising and even

overdraw story you will never forget those two processes :)

Piaget claimed that:

1. children’s intelligence progresses through a series of

cognitive stages

2. Each stage different in quality from the next

3. Each stage is described as changes in logic of thinking

PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

• THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

• THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE

• THE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE

THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (AGE 0-2 YEARS)

• Newborn baby relies on innate reflexes

• Knowledge of the world is gain by sensory perceptions and

motor activities

• Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses

caused by sensory stimulation

• Children use skills and abilities they were born

with, such as looking, sucking, grasping, and

listening, to learn more about the environment

Object permanence

• Object permanence develop at

around 8 months old

• This is an idea that object exist even

when they can no longer be seen

• 4 months old will not look for an

object if it is hidden

• 8 – 12 months child will keep looking

for the object in the place where he

or she found it the last time

THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (AGE 2 – 7 YEARS)

• Child learns to speak

• Child become capable of thinking in symbolic

terms – they can form ideas but they can only

focus on one aspect of object, they can’t

transform knowledge from one situation to

another

• EGOCENTRISM – children can’t understand

that others might have another point of view,

they see world only from their own point of

view – this is a cognitive limitation

The three-mountain task

(Piaget and Inhelder 1956)

• Classic demontration of

egocentrism

• From around nine years

children can adopt the

doll’s perspectiv

Hughes’ task (1975)

• Children are able to take another

person perspective if material is

more familiar

• Nearly all children from age

of three and a half to five

could perform the task

(more meanigful and interesting)

THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (AGE 2 – 7 YEARS)

• Children can not understand the concept

of CONSERVATION – that is, that physical

properties remain the same even if the

object’s appearance is changed.

• Children can not mentally reverse the

operation, they focus on the most visible

change – they cannot conserve the

property of liquid by mentally reversing

the pouring.

Li et al. (1999)

• Tested 486 Chinese primary children on the classic liquid

conservation task

• Resercher found that children from schools with a good

academic reputation generally achieved better results than

those less privileged schools

Diffrences in cognitive development

are not only related to brain maturation,

but also to quality of education

Piaget didn’t include this in his theory

1. Look critically at Piaget’s three mountain task. Can you

imagine countries where such a task would be difficult to

deal with? Why?

2. To what extent does a study like Li et al. (1999), using

Chinese children in primary school, contradict the claim of

cultural bias?

THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (AGE 7-12 YEARS)

• Children begin school education

• They start to use some rules of logic in problem solving – but

only on concrete task

• Task: „House A is more expensive than House B. Hause C is

more expensive than House A. Which is the most expensive?”

– to solve this problem, children need some images

• Understanding of CONSERVATION

THE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (FROM AGE 12)

• Ability to use abstract reasoning and logic

• People can mentally manipulate ideas, concepts and numbers

• Hypothetical thinking

EVALUATION of PIAGET’S THEORY

• Very comprehensive

• Very influential (expecially in primary schools)

• Child-centered learning – children learn best when the

teacher sets up situations where the child can discover ideas

for themselves

• Children are active in searching out knowledge

• Piaget suggested research methods to investigate the way

children think

EVALUATION of PIAGET’S THEORY

• Piaget’s sample was small – his own children

• Cultural bias

• Piaget’s underestimated children’s cognitive capabilities

• Baillargeon and DeVos (1991) argue that object permanence appears in

three month babies – children are aware that objects they cannot see

continue to exist

• Infants look longer at the „impossible event”

• Piaget underestimated the role of social learning, he didn’t pay to much

attention to the social and cultural context of cognitive development

Baillargeon and DeVos (1991)

argue that object permanence appears in three-month babies

Лев Семёнович Выготский,

17 November 1896 - 10 June 1934

VYGOTSKY SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY

• It`s not possible to describe the process by

which children acquire knowledge without

taking into account the child`s social

enviroment or culture.

• Culture teaches WHAT and HOW to think .

Child`s cognitive development is based on:

• INTERACTION WITH OTHER PEOPLE

• CULTURAL TOOLS

• Knowledge is transfered via imitation, instruction or

collaborative learning

• Language is the primary form of interaction that adults use

to transmit the knowledge that exist in the culture,

• and as the child grows older, language is the most

important tool of learning

VYGOTSKY SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY

• An important elemnt in sociocultural theory is ZONE

OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT , which refres to

differences between what a child can do on his/her

own and what he/she can accomplish with help.

• SCAFFOLDING - a child can increase in competence if

he/she receive assitance to perform task that is just

slightly beyond her/his current ability

ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

WHAT I CAN NOT DO

WHAT I CAN DO WITH HELP

WHAT I CAN DO

ZONE OF

PROXIMAL

DEVELOPMENT

Vygotski versus Piaget

• They both agreed that children actively construct

knowledge and children learn best if new knowlegde is

related to existing knowledge and abilities.

• Wygotski claimed that most of what children learn

comes from the culture in which they live, so it is wrong

to focus on the child in isolation – he suggested

COOPERATIVE LEARNING instead of child – centered

learning.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT OFTEN OCCURES BEST WHEN

CHILDREN COLLABORATE WITH MORE SKILLED

OTHERS

Consider following:

1. How could a culture influence what a child should learn?

2. Give some exemples from your own culture of „tools” you

need to learn to use. Why is that and what does this say

about your culture?

3. Do people need to go to school to learn what is necessery

in their culture? Why or why not?