Learning about Piaget”s Theory really hit home for me. I am the oldest child of three and have witnessed all the stages that Piaget describes. The first stage from birth to two years of age is considered the Sensory Motor Stage. At this point in time children take in the world through their senses along with gaining object permanence. Object permanence is the knowledge that things exist even when they can not be seen. I can remember my brother always wanting to play with the pendant on my moms necklace. To get him to stop she would just put the pendant inside her shirt so he couldn’t see it. Even though my brother saw her tuck it away, since it was no longer visible he completely forgot about it. As time went on and he got older this stopped working, because he gained object permanence, so she would have to take it off completely. The second stage from ages two to seven is called the Pre-Operational Stage. In this time period children learn language but do not understand logic. They are also starting to form a theory of mind but lack concept of conservation. Concept of conversation is the understanding that quantity remains the same despite the change in shape. At this time in my brothers life i can remember unevenly splitting candy with my brother and lying about the quantities (so I could have more) and he would believe me. The third stage is called Concrete Operational Stage which is during ages seven to eleven. At this stage children can now think logistically and understand conservation. This was the turning point in brothers life where i could no longer trick or lie to him because he could now independently think about if i was being fair to him. The last stage called the Formal Operational Stage is from ages eleven and up. During this time period children can think logically about abstract concepts. This stage is thought to being earlier than Piaget believed. Piaget’s Theory is still very influential today and holds a lot of empirical support.
Tag: Childhood
Blog #2 | PSY 100
How to raise a child and have some fun?
Childhood is one of the best times in our lives. Even if I can’t recall a lot of memories from back then, I am still sure that I was happy and I enjoyed every second of it, because I didn’t have any responsibilities in my life and I was a “free man”. Additionally, I think that childhood is a perfect period in our lives because this is the time when kids grow physically, develop different skills, mature, learn how to talk, walk, and manipulate their parents. While being the happiest period, it is also one of the saddest ones, because sometimes these changes occur too quickly and you don’t understand how this little cute alien became a real human with its own life, opinions, and manners.
But this doesn’t happen overnight. As we learned in class, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget realized that there are some patterns in kids’ behaviors. It was more of a pattern of what kids can and can’t do during certain ages. Therefore, Piaget came up to a conclusion that kids gain their cognitive ability in a developmental order, which basically means that kids at different ages think in fundamentally different ways. This led Piaget to create a Stage Model of Cognitive Development.
The first development stage in his model is the Sensorimotor Stage. It begins at birth and lasts until around the age of two. Kids at this stage explore the world by the direct physical interactions and through the fundamental senses of seeing, hearing, and tasting. That’s the reason why kids at this age are putting everything in their mouths. During this stage, kids’ use of their senses to explore the world is central, and that’s why whenever kids don’t directly see or feel objects, the objects don’t exist for them. You can use it to have a little fun – play peek-a-boo with a child. I don’t have to tell you what a peek-a-boo is, but now you know how it works. Simply, because a kid doesn’t see you behind your hands he thinks that you disappeared, and as soon as you reveal your face, you back again. If it’s not magic, then I don’t know what is!