Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development Paper

Children all over the globe may develop at different rates; however it is believed that, despite rate, they all go through the same stages of cognitive growth. Because there may be some disparities between children and their development, it is possible to test to see approximately where these children are within development. To do this, Piagetian tasks can be used. Within this paper, I will describe the theory, the tasks which I will use to test the child, and the child whom I will be testing. The theory that will provide the framework for my study is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget’s theory is a discontinuous stage theory which proposes that there are four main levels of thought that people move through during development.
The first of these stages is the sensorimotor stage. The sensorimotor is a cognitive stage within the first two years of life that involves learning how to coordinate the activities of the senses with motor activities, such as the assimilating through the use of the grasping schema (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988). Next, the preoperational stage is the cognitive stage from the ages of two to seven during which the child becomes capable of representing the world symbolically (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988). For example, through the use of language. However, they are still very limited in ability to use mental operations. After properational, comes concrete operational. In the concrete operational stage, children from the age of seven to eleven learn to use mental operations, however these operations are still limited to applying them to concrete, observable situations rather than hypothetical situations (Arnett, 2007). Finally, formal operations is the cognitive stage from eleven and up in which people learn to systematically think about possibilities and hypotheses (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988). This is otherwise known as abstract thought. The goal of this investigation is to understand the child’s concept of conservation. Conservation tasks test a child’s ability to see that some properties are conserved or invariant after an object undergoes physical transformation. Conservation itself is defined as the ability to keep in mind what stays the same and what changes in an object after it has changed aesthetically. One who can conserve is able to reverse the transformation mentally and understand compensation (Atherson, 2009). The child whose development I will be attempting to analyze is a four-year-old boy who I have known for a year now. He is the brother of one of my best friend’s boyfriends and, as such, we babysit them frequently, so the boy is very familiar with me. I had to switch what child I was observing because the little girl who I was supposed to work with was unavailable on the day that I needed her. The testing of the boy will take place at Mills campus, but this is a well-known space for the boy, so it should not reflect in his answers that he is not at home. He’s also well-versed with me and most of the girls who live in our hall, so there should not be too much interference with the test results due to outside influences. First, with a graham cracker, you use two whole crackers and ask the child if you have the same amount.
The child should agree since you both have two full graham crackers. Then, you can break one cracker in half, which is why it’s a good idea to use graham crackers since they have the even divider line. After you do this, you again ask the child who has more crackers. Depending on their stage of development, the child will either say you still have the same or the person with two pieces of cracker has more. This will test the child’s capabilities with reversibility. If the child can tell me that the graham cracker split in half is the same as the whole one and tell me it’s because if I put the two pieces back together I’ll have a whole one, then this will prove that the child is capable of understanding reversibility. It will also test the child’s conservation of number skills to see if he will be able to tell that simply because one of the graham crackers was more separated spatially, that it is still one graham cracker. Secondly, with two rows of pennies, you take ten pennies and make two rows of five so that they are even with each other. You ask the child which row has more pennies or if both are the same. Since the rows are even and look exactly the same, the child should answer that they are both the same. Then, you space one row of pennies out so that it appears to be longer than the other. Again, you ask the child which row has more pennies. The child’s answer,
again, will depend on their stage of development. If they are in a higher stage of development, then they will be able to answer that both rows still have the same amount of pennies. If not, however, then again they will answer that the row that is more spaced out has more pennies than the row that remained the same. With this task, you can also take one of the rows of five pennies and move it over so that only one penny is aligned with the other row rather than all five being aligned and ask the child if the rows are the same. This test will also test the conservation of numbers. Finally, I could perform the classic Piagetian conservation task using a form of liquid and two containers that are identical and two other containers that are different shapes. First, you pour the liquids into the containers which are identical to each other and make sure that the child agrees that both containers have equal amounts of liquid in both containers. Then, you take one of the identical containers and pour the liquid within it into one of the mismatched containers and ask the child which has more, or if the amounts are equal. Again, their answer will determine their stage of development. Either they will be capable of conservation and will tell you that both containers still have the same amount or that the taller, mismatched container has more liquid. After this, pour the liquid back into the identical containers and make sure the child agrees that the amount of liquid in both containers are the same. Repeat the previous actions and line of questioning with the second mismatched container, which should be shorter than the identical container. If they are able to conserve, they will tell you that the amount of liquid is still the same. If not, then they will answer that the shorter container has less liquid than the identical container. Therefore, the materials that I would need to complete the study would be graham crackers, pennies, water and multiple, different shaped and sized containers. The first two tasks were given to me by a senior in the Child Development program at Mills and the last is classic Piagetian (L. Kelly, personal communication, October 3, 2009). I will ask the child basic questions about whether or not the amount of materials, pennies, of liquid we each have, or are in a certain row or container, are equivalent. Then, after moving around the liquids, spacing out the pennies, and breaking the graham crackers in half, will again ask if the amount are the same. However, it is important, as we have discussed in class, to not use phrases such as, “good boy.” Rather, it is important to say things closer to, “good thinking.” Also, it is possible for me to just say, “okay” or “thank you.” This will make it so there is not a value judgement for the child to deal with so they will not assume that they are right or wrong so that they will answer honestly rather than trying to provide an answer that will appease me as the researcher. It is important to get honest answers so that I can accurately assess where in the stages of development the child is. In order to complete this task successfully, the child must be able to use the concept of conservation in number and volume. He must be able to recognize that simply because the physical shape or context of something can be changed, this doesn’t mean that it cannot be reversed back into the previous state. This would mean that the child is capable of concrete operational mental functions. In conclusion, based on my knowledge of the developmental theory, and of the child that I will be working with, I predict that since the child is only four-years-old, he will not be able to conserve since conservation does not begin to appear until concrete operations and the stage which the child should be in is preoperational. However, I do predict that the boy will be slightly ahead in his development because of the household setup. The boy lives with both of his parents, a brother who is a year older than he is, and a brother who is fifteen years older than him. Due to this influence, I predict that the youngest boy will, through environmental forces such as being teased for not understanding something the older boys do or simply from previously scaffolding with both the boys, that he will be capable of some aspects of the tests. However, I am not predicting what he will be able to do, I just think he’ll be slightly ahead of the ages set out by Piaget.• A summary of the children’s responses to critical questions The first task that I performed with the child was the test with the pennies. First, we picked the boy up from his house and brought him back to Mills. I told him that we were going to play a bunch of games so that he would be in the mood to participate. By the time we got back to the dormitories, the boy was very excited to be there and be playing games. Also, he was excited to help the girls in the hall decorate with Halloween decorations after we were done “playing games.” So, I laid out two rows of pennies for the boy and asked them if they were the same. He responded that they weren’t. Confused because I hadn’t started the task yet and the rows looked exactly the same to me, he told me that in one row, the two pennies weren’t touching and in the other row those pennies were touching, so we fixed that problem and made it so both rows were the same. I then spaced out one row of pennies so that it looked longer, even though there were the same amount of pennies. I then asked him if the two rows were the same, to which the boy responded that they were, but one row was just spaced out and that you could push that row back together and it would be like the other one still. Impressed by this, I had him push the pennies back together again so that the rows were again equivalent. Again, I asked him if the rows were the same, to which he was satisfied they were. Then, I took one of the rows of pennies and slid it over so the only one of the pennies was still lined up with the other row. I then asked the boy if they were the same, to which he answered no and said that the one row, which I had moved, was longer than the other row. Since the boy could, to some point, conserve numbers, I thought it was possible then that he might be close in some of the other tasks, too. The next task that I performed with the boy was the conservation of volume with the water and different containers. I started with two clear glasses and poured what I thought was equal amounts of water in both. I then asked the boy if he thought they were the same. He told me that they weren’t and that his had more and some needed to be poured into mine. However, when I poured some of his into my glass, he then said that mine had more. So I poured the same amount back into his glass and, at this point, he said that the glasses had the same amount of water. So, then I brought over a shallow bowl and poured my water into that container. I, again, asked the boy if they were the same. He told me no, so I asked why not. He then told me that he had more and when I asked him why he thought he had more, he told me that he had more just because his was in a cup and not in a bowl. When I questioned him further, he said nothing about the size or depth of either container. He just said that he had more simply because his was in a cup that he could drink out of and mine was in a bowl that I couldn’t drink out of. However, he also, after the task was over, wanted to know why I could pour my water into a bowl and he couldn’t. So, he pulled over another bowl and poured his glass of water into the bowl. He then told me to watch and that, when he poured the contents of his bowl back into his glass they were the same still. So, in the midst of the task and me asking him questions, he told me that the water levels were different. However, when exploring on his own, he was able to figure out that amount of water was the same, the containers were the only things that were different. Also, during this task, he started poking his fingers in the water, which made me think that he was more interested in playing with the water than performing the task at hand. I was about to move onto the graham cracker test, but, at this point, the boy was looking around the room a little and noticed that his brother, the one who is only a year older, was playing with play-doh and he thought it wasn’t fair that his brother got to play a game that he couldn’t play. So, I brought over some play-doh for him to play with and decided to take advantage of his lack of attentiveness. I told him that we could play together, so we both had a piece of clay. I then asked him if we could roll them into balls and if he knew how to roll clay into a ball. He responded he did and we began to roll the clay. I then put mine down on the table and asked him to put his next to mine. I asked him if they were the same and he said that his was bigger than mine, so I asked him if he could take mine and make it like his, which he did and then agreed that both balls of play-doh were the same. I then told him to watch me as I made my ball flat on the table and asked him if they were still the same. He told me that mine had more because it was flatter and took up more space, but also told me that he could flatten his so that it looked like mine or that he could re-roll mine and make it look like his again, which he started doing. I thought it was very interesting that a four-year-old grasped some concept of reversibility since this concept shouldn’t come until around age seven (Miller, 2002). At this point, I told him we were going to play one more game and that his brother hadn’t played this game and only he got to play it and almost immediately he was re-interested in the tasks.
So, I pulled out the graham crackers and he asked me if we were going to eat it and I told him that he could after we were done playing the game. So I laid two pieces of cracker out on the table and asked him if they were the same and he said yes, that we both had the same amount. Then I took my piece and broke it in half and asked him if we had the same and he said no. Without prompting, he told me that he had more because he had a whole piece of cracker and that I only had pieces of the cracker. I was expecting something like this response, but I was expecting him to tell me that I had more because I had two while he only had one, so this was an interesting take on the results of the
task. Based on the child’s age, four, I had hypothesized that he would not be able to conserve, but because of environmental factors, he would be able to get some aspects of the problems correct. I was impressed with the boy’s capabilities with reversibility. Reversibility is the ability to see physical transformations and then imagine reversing them so that the change is cancelled out (Miller, 2002). This was seen in the task with the pennies, water, and clay. With the pennies, he told me I could push the row back together and it would be the same. With the water, outside of the task, he told me that you could pour the water in one container back into the glass and that it would be the same again. And, finally, with the clay, he told me that I could roll my flat piece back into a ball and it would be like his or that he could make his flat and it would be like mine. I was impressed with this because this concept is not usually seen until concrete operations, approximately ages 7-11. However, the four-year-old boy was able to grasp this concept and apply it to multiple tasks, proving that it wasn’t just a fluke in one area, that it was fairly consistent throughout. I think that my use of the clinical method was fairly efficient and accurate. I know that I have a firm grasp on the theory, the only part that is new to me is the performance of the tasks. However, I think that the tasks went over very well. I never had a negative reaction to the child’s responses or mentioned that he got something ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I simply told him that he was smart, no matter what he did. I think this lead to him feeling good about what he was doing and lead to more honest answers from him since he felt that he was doing well. However, I think that it’s very difficult to perform tasks like this and accurately describe their development. At some point, there might be a miscommunication by the observer or by the child. For instance, if you were performing the task with the pennies and spaced out the row of pennies and asked if they were the same and the child simply answered no, technically he would be right, they aren’t the same, one is spaced out. However, they still have the same number of pennies. This is why it’s important to task follow up questions as an observer and make sure that you’re asking questions in a manner to get the answers you’re looking for. Yet, it’s still important to make sure that you are avoiding leading questions so that you don’t scaffold with the child. If you start out scaffolding, you won’t be able to accurately determine what stage of development the child is in. However, once you have established their level of development, it is possible to go through and repeat the tasks using scaffolding where the zone of proximal development is visible through certain cues and see what the child can understand with your help. However, as with this boy, there are many different things that might call into question the results of the tasks. If the boy had a stressful day and wound up crying at school, it might tire him out and make him feel vulnerable the rest of the day, which might lend to him being shy and slightly reserved, holding back in the tasks. It is also possible that what he had eaten prior to the tasks would effect the outcome. In this case, he had just had ice cream with cookies and sprinkles in it prior to the tasks, so it is possible that he was affected by the sugar from the food. Also, while he was very attentive for the first task, as said earlier, he lost this attentiveness in the middle of a few tasks, first wanting to play with the play-doh like his brother was and then dipping his fingers in the water during the conservation of volume task. So, from the looks of this behavior, it could be assumed that he wasn’t fully involved in the tasks. To ensure that he was paying attention and get more accurate results, I think it would be better the be able to test the child in a laboratory, or somewhere where there aren’t too many distractions. Because even though the hall was quiet at the time he was performing the tasks, he knew that girls were going to be coming soon to make Halloween decorations and as soon as the tasks were over with, he asked to go draw a picture so that he could hang it on the wall, which points to the idea that his mind was in more than one place at once during the tasks. Also, with children this age, their parents play a very large role. And, when we took the children home to their mother, the first thing she asked about was if they boy was on target for his development or if he was behind. Therefore, I would assume that pressure from his parents also played a role in how he performed on his tasks since his mother was also the one who got him ready to come to Mills. However, seeing as I don’t know exactly what the mother said to him, I cannot say for certain that this is true. Yet, I’m assuming that she told him it was important to do his best, or something of the sort. I also think that the fact the boy had older brothers helped to explain why he was able to reverse some of the actions. Here, Vygotsky would apply when he says that things children learn start in the culture and move into the individual (Miller, 2002). So, the boy could learn from interdependent relationships specific ideas and then translate them into intradependent contexts. In this same regard, I think it is important to note that he goes to daycare at a school all day and has frequent interactions with other kids his age and, therefore, plays a lot. This could lend to him being ahead of the mark socially and cognitively dependent on what they teach him in daycare and how he plays. I think statements like the one made by his mother, as to if he was ahead or behind in his development, are examples of why it is so important for this method to exist. I say this, first, because it can determine where children are in their development, but really because then it can help to educate parents on how to handle their children and to not get frustrated when they are dealing with their children and the child does not understand something that the parent thinks is a simple task. In conclusion, I think that it is important to perform these kinds of tasks and assess where a child is in their development, but I also think that it’s very important, as an observer to be unbiased and make sure questions are not misconceived by the child and are also not leading the child to the ‘right’ answer. This ensures accurate test results. Also, from my study of the four-year-old boy, I would theorize that he is in the preoperational stage of development, which is about where he should be. But, I would also say that he has some characteristics of concrete operations, such as reversibility, which can be attributed to environmental factors.

References
ATHERTON J S (2009) Learning and Teaching; Piaget 's developmental theory [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Accessed: 6 October 2009
Ginsberg, H. P., & Opper, S. (1988). Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Development, 3, 113-179.
Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology, 4, 25-103 &369-419.

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