Piaget

Piaget's (1896-1980) work was based around the way in which children adapted and learnt about the world and how to live. He believed that accommodation, being the theory that the individual changes their ways to adapt to the environment and assimilation, which is the theory that individuals use existing knowledge to deal with the environment, where key contributors to a child's cognitive development.

Some of the main factors of Piaget's theories are that children are active learners, they learn through first hand experiences and prior experiences and that they imitate and convert what they learn into their individual behaviour styles.

Piaget's theory is constructivist because he focused on the intellectual and cognitive development and ignored the importance of social or emotional aspects. Piaget believed that a child's cognitive development happens in stages and that children flow through the stages naturally.

The first stage being the sensorimotor stage, which he stated occurs from birth to two years in a child. During this stage the child is trying to make sense of the world, they use their skills and abilities that they are born with to learn more about the environment e.g. looking grasping and listening. Piaget created sub- stages in the sensorimotor stage, this involved six different developmental stages a child would occur during the time form birth to two years -

1) Reflexes (0-1 month) - child understands environment through reflexes apparent at birth e.g. looking and listening.

2) Primary circular reactions (1-4 months) - child begins to co-ordinate sensations and acquires new schemas e.g. the child may repeat actions intentionally due to the knowledge of the pleasure it will produce.

3) Secondary circular reactions (4-8 months) - child makes determined actions that create a response from the environment.

4) Co-ordination of reactions (8-12 months) - child shows clear logic for actions, begins to explore environment and starts to mimic behaviour of other individuals.

5) Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months) - children progress towards trial and error experiments to determine actions and responses.

6) Early representational thought (18-24 months) children begin to understand logical reasoning for things.

The second stage is the preoperational stage, this occurs in children aged two till six. In the course of this stage a child's language is developed, this being a key stage in a child's development. Piaget believed that children during this stage are unable to take the point of view of any other individual. He called this theory egocentrism. He experimented this theory by showing children a model of mountains. The children were then shown pictures representing different angles of the mountains seen by different people. The children were then asked to pick which picture represented the view the other person would see and most children in this stage would choose the view that they had seen themselves. This showed the child's difficulty to be able to see a different perspective. Piaget also found that children in this stage showed little understanding of conservation. To express this he carried out an experiment in which he showed children two different shaped glasses filled with the same amount of water and he asked the children if the containers had the same amount of water. Children in this stage failed to show conservation, as they believed that one glass contained more water due to the shape of the glass.

The third stage is the concrete operational stage, which occurs from the age of seven until eleven. In this stage Piaget believed that children have a better mental understanding. He believed children in this stage could think rationally (logically) but have little understanding concerning hypothetical concepts. Also in this stage children learn reversibility, reversibility is the ability that will enable children to see a physical change and then visualise that change being cancelled out.

The fourth stage is the operational stage, which occurs form the age of twelve to adult years. Piaget believed that children and adults in this stage should be able to think about theoretical concepts and engage in logical thought, deductive reasoning and methodical planning. These skills would assist the individual to develop knowledge in areas such as maths, science and problem solving. Individuals