Cognitive DevelopmentBy Alexandra Rodriguez
Cognitive development is the construction of thought and information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development, and memory. Those thought processes include memory, problem solving, and decision-making. The process occurs from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Two theorists, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, have the biggest impact on cognitive development. The differences of the theories will be elaborated.
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Lev Vygotsky1896- 1934
Russian Psychologist developed social cognition Vygotsky believed children's learning was influenced by social development and culture. He advocated children should work together, collaborate, and share their ideas and perspectives. He also felt children learned from adults the way in which their culture understands the world. One method of culture understanding was through meditation and also passing along cognitive tools, culturally constructed mechanisms that help children think more effectively. Vygotsky proposed children learned in their zone of proximal development.
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Zone of Proximal Development - Also known as ZPD
Vygotsky believed children learned by attempting tasks beyond their abilities
with the guidance of a more competent individual. He felt children learn very little from performing tasks they can independently do. Those individuals,
who provide the guidance to the children to successfully perform the task,
are scaffolding. Scaffolding is used to help children succeed in their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
Vygotsky believed children learned by attempting tasks beyond their abilities
with the guidance of a more competent individual. He felt children learn very little from performing tasks they can independently do. Those individuals,
who provide the guidance to the children to successfully perform the task,
are scaffolding. Scaffolding is used to help children succeed in their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
"Whenever there is an Imaginary situation in play, there are rules..."
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Vygotsky felt effective understanding could increase through sociodramtic play. He stated play allows the child to stretch their mind cognitively. Vygotsky advocated play because it allowed children to self-regulate while play encouraging communication skills and social interaction. He also believed skill-building and sometimes learning in ZPD occurs during play.
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Jean Piaget1896- 1980
Swiss Psychologist who developed the cognitive learning theory Piaget believed children were active and self-motivated learners. Some key ideas to his theory were children would organize their learning from past experiences. They uses schemes, similar actions that are used to respond to environment. He felt children would adapted to their environment with the processes of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the response to a new event in a way that's correlating to existing scheme. As accommodation is the process of response to new event by forming new scheme or modify existing. Piaget strongly felt children think in distinct ways at different age levels.
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Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor StageBirth to 2 years old
Preoperational Stage2 years to 6 years old
Concrete Operations6 years to 11 years old
Formal Operations11 years - adolescents
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Child is shows goal-directed behavior, behavior intentionally used to acquire a certain outcome. Also realizing an object still exists even when not in eye sight, known as object permanence.
Child can now express and analyze things that are past their immediate experience. Logic reasoning is still not developed.
Child's adult-like logic develops but, it is limited. They still can't reason about real-life situations. Child is understanding people have different feelings and perceptions than you. Also conservation is appearing, this is the understanding something stays the same in quantity even though it's appearances changes.
Child is reasoning logically with abstract and concrete situations. Adolescents enter this stage, gaining the ability to think in an abstract manner and, reason and though capacity increases.
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