Describe Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development with Special Regard to the Following: Assimilation and Accommodation, Object Concept in the Sensorimotor Stage, The Symbolic Function in the Pre-Operational Stage, Conservation in the Concrete Operational Stage, and the Use of the Hypothetical-Deductive Method in the Formal Operational Stage
Jean Piaget was one of the world's most famous developmental psychologists. Piaget was fascinated by the intellectual development of children. The main drive of his work was a never ending need to make sense of sensation and perception. To do this our brain builds a scheme. A scheme is a type of frame work that we create in our brains that organizes information. Children give us a great example of schema development. For example when a child discovers what a car is they may begin calling anything that transports them form a place to place a car even though they could actually be riding on a bus, airplane, or a boat.
Obviously as we grow older in life our schema do not stay the same as they were when we were in our toddler years. There are two ways in which we scheme assimilation and accomodation. When we assimilate things we add new knowledge that we have just learned with previous knowledge that we already knew into categories. For example when we see a truck we know that it belongs in the same category as a car. Accommodation is slightly different. When we accommodate we adjust previously learned knowledge to fit or accommodate in with newly learned information.
Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage takes place from an individuals birth to about the age of two. In this stage babies learn touse their senses and that’s how they interpret the world. Babies understand the enviroment around them from things like taste, smell, and sight. Small children also interpret the world through their movements like mouthing, teething, and grasping. Another important idea that infants discover in the Sensorimotor Stage is: Object permanence. Object permanence is defined as: The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived. Object permanence is displayed the sequence of events below. The child first sees the small penguin. The blanket is then placed over the stuffed animal. Notice that after the blanket is placed over the small animal the child still understands it's there.
Obviously as we grow older in life our schema do not stay the same as they were when we were in our toddler years. There are two ways in which we scheme assimilation and accomodation. When we assimilate things we add new knowledge that we have just learned with previous knowledge that we already knew into categories. For example when we see a truck we know that it belongs in the same category as a car. Accommodation is slightly different. When we accommodate we adjust previously learned knowledge to fit or accommodate in with newly learned information.
Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage takes place from an individuals birth to about the age of two. In this stage babies learn touse their senses and that’s how they interpret the world. Babies understand the enviroment around them from things like taste, smell, and sight. Small children also interpret the world through their movements like mouthing, teething, and grasping. Another important idea that infants discover in the Sensorimotor Stage is: Object permanence. Object permanence is defined as: The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived. Object permanence is displayed the sequence of events below. The child first sees the small penguin. The blanket is then placed over the stuffed animal. Notice that after the blanket is placed over the small animal the child still understands it's there.
An important part of Piaget's preoperational stage is symbolic function. In the process of symbolic function children can picture and remember objects that are not directly in front of them. Between the ages of two and four children begin to be able to reacreate things like animals in their heads that are not directly in front of them. Imagine what our lives would be like if we weren't able to do this basic day to day activity. Around the ages of six or seven children begin to transfer from the preoperational stage to the concrete operation stage. In this stage kids start to get a grasp on the idea of conservation. Conservation means that you are able to understand that just because an object changes in form doesn't necessarily mean there is a change in quantity. Piaget demonstrated this in the experiment depicted below. He would first start of with two equally sized containers with an equal amount of water in each. Piaget would then ask a child if the containers had equal amounts of liquid. The child would then answer yes. Piaget would then pour one of the containers into a taller slimmer container. He would then ask the child if the two container possessed the same amount of water. If the child answered yes then they understood conservation. If they answered no they did not yet understand.
Around the age of twelve a child will enter Piaget's final stage of intellectual development: The formal operational stage. In this stage kids are now able to grasp more abstract concepts. The development of deductive reasoning is evident when kids are able to start understanding deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning pretty much means they understand if they do this then that will happen.
Below two links are posted. The first link is to a youtube video that discusses accommodation, assimilation and schema. They provide a good example of when parents read picture books to their children and say things like "look this is a dog." When parents say things like that their children they begin to understand what a dog is. The second link is about Piaget's intellectual development. It talks about each stage in his intellectual development theory and gives examples of each idea associated with the stage such as object permanence is associated with the Sensorimotor stage.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-A9SgbAK5I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRF27F2bn-A
Below two links are posted. The first link is to a youtube video that discusses accommodation, assimilation and schema. They provide a good example of when parents read picture books to their children and say things like "look this is a dog." When parents say things like that their children they begin to understand what a dog is. The second link is about Piaget's intellectual development. It talks about each stage in his intellectual development theory and gives examples of each idea associated with the stage such as object permanence is associated with the Sensorimotor stage.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-A9SgbAK5I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRF27F2bn-A