Intellectual Intellectual DevelopmentDevelopmentIntellectual Intellectual

DevelopmentDevelopmentThe Theories of The Theories of

Jean PiagetJean Piaget

Four Stages of Development

1. Sensorimotor Birth- 2 years2. Preoperational 2-7 years3. Concrete Operations 7-11 years4. Formal Operations 11- adult

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• 1st stage of mental development

•Infants use their senses and motor skills to learn and communicate

•Learning during this period is extremely important- can be the basis for all future mental development! (INFANT SCIENTIST)

•Piaget divided this stage into 6 substages…

Substage One: Birth to 1 month

•Practices reflexes- sucking, grasping, crying

•Egocentric- infants do not understand themselves as a separate person

-- the world revolves around me!!!

Substage Two: 1 to 4 months

•Combine two or more reflexes

- Example: May wave their fists and bring it to their mouths at the same time

•Repeat these new combinations often

Substage Three: 4 to 8 months

•Begin to control their mental world by making connections between what they do and what happens

- Example: touch mobile in crib and make it move

•Intentionally repeat enjoyable activities

Substage Four: 8 to 12 months

•Piaget believed by age one, babies apply learnings to solve problems

- Example: may squeeze, hit, or shake an object to see what it will do

•Start imitating others- important way to learn!

Substage Four Cont’d:

•Learn to follow objects with their eyes

•Love to play peek-a-boo!!

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Substage Four Cont’d:•Begin to understand Object Permanence- objects continue to exist, even when out of sight--infants are able to find partially hidden objects

Substage Five: 12- 18 months

•Infants discover new ways to solve problems

-Example: may push away box to find a toy behind it

•Can find totally hidden object

Substage Six: 18 months- 2 years

•The beginning of thought processes

•Toddlers start to think about what they’re going to do before they do it

•Trial and error exploration- if I do this, what will happen??

• This is the 2nd major stage of development

• Children begin to do some mental thinking rather than solving all problems through physical skills

• Occurs during the preschool years• Ages 2-7

• Believes that there are 11 basic concepts that children must master in order to move on to the next stage

• Conservation, classification, sequencing, reversibility, cause & effect, recall, time, representation, number, spatial relations, and language

• Two sub-stages of preoperational:– Preconceptual: children form a mental

image of what they see around them . . . many of these are incomplete or illogical

• EX: All collies are the dog “Lassie”

– Intuitive: children are sometimes able to grasp a problem’s solution by how they feel about it

• EX: If they are on the stairs and higher than a parent, they will still feel that they are a small person and not really “taller” than the parent

• Still EGOCENTRIC– a belief a person has that everyone

thinks in the same way and has the same ideas as he or she does

• Symbolic play is important in this stage of development– pretend play

• objects stand for something else• change things from the real world or

dreams

• Mental images are symbols of objects and past experiences that are stored in their mind.– Can picture the following in their

heads:• Cat• Thunderstorm• Flower• School

• Logical thinking concepts:Concepts that are not directly experienced through the senses

but are developed through thought.

• These require the thinker to see a relationship between things

• Language development is extremely important in this stage:– Articulation (making the sounds in

language)– Vocabulary (estimations below)

• 900 words at age 3• 1,500 words at age 4• 2,000 words at age 5

– Grammar . . . matures a great deal between ages 3-5 years old