What's My Child Thinking?: Practical Child Psychology for Modern Parents

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Curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child. For example there is no point in teaching abstract concepts such as algebra or atomic structure to children in primary school.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14-year-old Indigenous Australians. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the Aboriginal children, between ages of 10 and 13 (as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is one of several theories about how children develop. Other contrasting theories include Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, and importantly for this post, Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development. Differences

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The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this – especially those used by infants. He described how – as a child gets older – his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate. Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children’s thought Aim: Piaget and Inhelder (1956) wanted to find out at what age children decenter – i.e. become no longer egocentric.

When a child’s existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance. Debate and Discussion: Provide a topic and let students debate on pros and cons. This promotes abstract thinking and logical reasoning. Additionally, he was the first psychologist to study ‘theory of mind’ in children (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Theory of mind is the understanding or basic sense that each of us has our own consciousness and thoughts. Alternatively, Vygotsky would recommend that teachers assist the child to progress through the zone of proximal development by using scaffolding. During this stage, children typically use their reflexes. They cannot consolidate information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept. 2. Primary circular reactions (1–4 months)Language: Multilingual children might navigate the stages differently, especially if their home language differs from their school language. The way concepts are framed in different languages can influence cognitive processing. Cultural idioms and metaphors can shape a child’s understanding of concepts and their ability to use symbolic representation, especially in the pre-operational stage. Method: A child is shown a display of three mountains; the tallest mountain is covered with snow. On top of another are some trees, and on top of the third is a church. The child stands on one side of the display, and there is a doll on the other side of it.

Gender & Ethics: Discussions about morality and ethics can be influenced by gender norms. For instance, in some cultures, girls might be encouraged to prioritize community harmony, while boys might be encouraged to prioritize individual rights.Object Permanence Games: Play peek-a-boo or hide toys under a blanket to help babies understand that objects still exist even when they can’t see them. Other interesting cognitive advances occur during this phase. For example, children understand causality. Children also understand identities, where items and people remain the same even if they look different. For example, at some point during this stage, a caregiver dressing up as Santa Claus might not be as convincing.

The main achievement during this stage is object permanence– knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object. Adaptation is the process by which the child changes its mental models of the world to match more closely how the world actually is. Hughes” experiment allowed them to demonstrate this because the task made sense to the child, whereas Piaget’s did not. Suggesting that differences in “meaning” children ascribe to situation might cause them to pass or fail task. The ‘Turntable’ TaskJean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. The influence of Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. At the beginning of this stage, you often find children engaging in parallel play. That is to say, they often play in the same room as other children but they play next to others rather than with them.