The thinking patterns of a three-year-old preschooler vary drastically from the thinking patterns of a nine-year-old student. This comes to no surprise if you follow Piaget’s stages of cognitive thinking, it becomes obvious as to why there would be such an apparent difference between the two thinking styles.
What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development? Well, Piaget believed, based on observations that children tend to form mental concepts, or schemes, as they experience new situations. Piaget also believed that children then tried to understand the unknown in a process known as assimilation. In this process, a child will try to understand new things in terms of schemes they already understand. However, when doing this a child might be wrong. If the child is corrected, he or she will alter his or her old schemes to fit new information in a process known as accommodation. Lastly, Piaget proposed that there are four distinct stages of development.
In differentiating the children using Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, one important aspect sticks out. The biggest differences between the two students came at a conceptual level. The 3-year-old is in the Preoperational Stage of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, whereas the nine-year-old is in the Concrete Operations stage. These are two very different stages. In the preoperational stage, a child begins to develop language and concepts. At this point, in their lives the children can now move more freely and not rely on their senses and motor skills. Because of this, they can now ask more questions and explore the new world more fully. Children in this stage can now play make believe because they can understand, through symbolic thinking, that a line of blocks can “be” a train. However, in this stage they still haven’t reached their maximum cognitive development and possess some limitations. Their biggest limitation is that they are not yet capable of logical thought. Yes, they can use mental concepts, but cannot understand them in a more rational, logical sense. Another limitation is that they believe that anything that moves is alive, a phenomenon known as animalism. Children in this stage also tend to believe that what they see is literally true, for example, when a child sees a picture of Santa Clause in a book, he becomes real to them. The thought of how Santa gets to everyone’s house in one night doesn’t ever occur to them. Another important limitation in this stage is a child’s egocentrism. Children are incapable of seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes. Centration …show more content…
The children become able to think about all the relevant features of any given object, because centration no longer occurs. Not only that, but they begin to think more logically about beliefs (like Santa Claus), hey ask questions, and come to much more rational conclusions about the fantasies of their early childhood. In this stage, they begin to dabble in science and math and are convinced they know more than their parents. However, like before, they have some limitations.
The most major limitation in concrete operations is the inability to deal with abstract concepts. Abstract concepts like freedom, people can define it; they can get a good sense of what it means, but there is nothing they can point to and say, “this is freedom." They are more comfortable with concrete objects, things they can hold, touch, or at least picture in their
What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development? Well, Piaget believed, based on observations that children tend to form mental concepts, or schemes, as they experience new situations. Piaget also believed that children then tried to understand the unknown in a process known as assimilation. In this process, a child will try to understand new things in terms of schemes they already understand. However, when doing this a child might be wrong. If the child is corrected, he or she will alter his or her old schemes to fit new information in a process known as accommodation. Lastly, Piaget proposed that there are four distinct stages of development.
In differentiating the children using Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, one important aspect sticks out. The biggest differences between the two students came at a conceptual level. The 3-year-old is in the Preoperational Stage of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, whereas the nine-year-old is in the Concrete Operations stage. These are two very different stages. In the preoperational stage, a child begins to develop language and concepts. At this point, in their lives the children can now move more freely and not rely on their senses and motor skills. Because of this, they can now ask more questions and explore the new world more fully. Children in this stage can now play make believe because they can understand, through symbolic thinking, that a line of blocks can “be” a train. However, in this stage they still haven’t reached their maximum cognitive development and possess some limitations. Their biggest limitation is that they are not yet capable of logical thought. Yes, they can use mental concepts, but cannot understand them in a more rational, logical sense. Another limitation is that they believe that anything that moves is alive, a phenomenon known as animalism. Children in this stage also tend to believe that what they see is literally true, for example, when a child sees a picture of Santa Clause in a book, he becomes real to them. The thought of how Santa gets to everyone’s house in one night doesn’t ever occur to them. Another important limitation in this stage is a child’s egocentrism. Children are incapable of seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes. Centration …show more content…
The children become able to think about all the relevant features of any given object, because centration no longer occurs. Not only that, but they begin to think more logically about beliefs (like Santa Claus), hey ask questions, and come to much more rational conclusions about the fantasies of their early childhood. In this stage, they begin to dabble in science and math and are convinced they know more than their parents. However, like before, they have some limitations.
The most major limitation in concrete operations is the inability to deal with abstract concepts. Abstract concepts like freedom, people can define it; they can get a good sense of what it means, but there is nothing they can point to and say, “this is freedom." They are more comfortable with concrete objects, things they can hold, touch, or at least picture in their