Give an overview of intellectual Development?
Course: Introduction to Growth and Development
Course code 8610
Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment
ANSWER
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT FROM INFANCY TO
CHILDHOOD
Children gain cognitive maturity
as they age. With time and experience, they advance their thinking skills and
make transitions from simple to complex cognitive processes which add to their
intelligence as well. This section emphasizes the processes (cognition) rather
than the products of mental activities (intelligence). It examines how do
children make cognitive and intellectual advancements from infancy to
childhood. In doing so, it also highlights the cognitive characteristics of
learners at different periods.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
Piaget believed those children’s
cognitive development progresses through four stages which involve
sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational
periods. These stages are treated as fixed and universal and represent a
general sequence that is observable in all types of cognitive change. Piaget
argued that children's thinking and the ways through which they make sense of
their experiences (schemes) change with age. The infancy period is marked by
sensorimotor action patterns during which a child acts on the objects around
him/her to form schemes. Soon, he/she
begins to form mental images that help to transform thinking and experiences
into meaningful, manageable, and memorable patterns. This transformation in
thinking is supported by two critical processes including adaptation and organization.
Adaptation involves the process
of developing schemes by directly working on the environment through assimilation or accommodation. However, if the
balance between these two is disturbed, it causes a cognitive conflict or disequilibrium within the minds of children. It is important
to resolve the conflict through either assimilation or accommodation to bring
the mind back to the equilibrium state. These resulted in developing more
effective schemes that help the child to advance his/her thinking.
i. The
sensorimotor stage.
The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the first two years of life during which
infants think through their five senses. At the beginning of this stage, the
sensory reflexes of the child serve to make up for his/her intelligence. The
child engages in circular reactions (repeating chance behaviors) which help
him/her to adapt to his/her surroundings. Later, the child deliberately employs
intentional or goal-directed behaviors by coordinating different schemes to
solve simple problems. Object permanence (the ability to understand that
objects exist even when they are not seen) emerges towards the end of this
period which helps to set the stage for mental representations and engage the
child in make-believe play.
ii. The
preoperational stage.
As children grow, they enter the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years)
which characterizes their immense representational or symbolic capacities. Children make advancements in their mental representations
as they develop more effective schemes. For example, as they get past the first
two years of their life, their make-believe play gets more sophisticated.
This cognitive change is seen
when a child older than 2 years of age pretends to use an object (cup) in
different ways, for example, using it to drink water as well as using it as a
hat. Similarly, children's drawings get more mature, realistic, and detailed
during the preschool years. However, their expanding cognitive capacities are
limited by their inability to take into account someone else's perspective,
referred to as egocentrism.
iii. The
concrete operational stage.
The concrete operational stage extends from 7 to 11 years. As children
enter middle childhood, they accomplish several cognitive advancements.
For example, children at this stage
perform mental operations that follow logical rules. They are capable of
thinking in more than one direction and are capable of seeing a problem from
different angles (decentration). Consequently, they understand that certain
characteristics remain the same even if they change their outward appearance
(conservation).
Their understanding of space is
more precise when compared with preschool children. They are capable of
developing logical hierarchies and classification systems and can perform
reversible actions which demonstrates that the children have now developed
logical, flexible, and organized schemes than before.
iv. The
formal operational stage.
Children develop the capacity for abstract and systematic thinking around 11 years of age. Piaget referred to
this stage as a formal operational stage.
While the children can perform operations with real objects at the concrete
operational stage, they are now ready to perform mental, abstract operations
without any concrete things or events. The main features of this stage
include hypothetical-deductive reasoning and propositional thought. These abilities refer to the children's capacity
to form and evaluate logical propositions without referring to real-world
circumstances and systematically reaching a conclusion. Accompanying this
stage, comes the individual's desire to get noticed, often referred to as adolescent egocentrism. This is a heightened
self-consciousness phase in which the growing adolescents tend to believe that
others are interested in them in the same way as they are themselves. This
state causes irresponsible and uncontrolled behaviors often leading to suicide
attempts, negative thoughts, drug use, etc.
Although Piaget's theory presents
a comprehensive explanation of how cognitive development occurs in children as well as highlights the
characteristics of learners at different stages of cognitive development, it
has not gone without criticism. One of the major arguments raised against
Piaget's theory is that he underestimated the role of culture, language,
and environmental influences while explaining children's cognitive development.
The next section presents Vygotsky's socio-cultural approach which takes into
account these important influences.
Vygotsky's sociocultural theory
Lev Vygotsky's socio-cultural
approach builds upon the role of language and cultural tools in shaping human cognition and development. He believed that cultural influences, such
as language, instruction, social
interactions, etc have a profound influence on children's cognitive advancements.
He introduced the concepts of the zone
of proximal development (ZPD) and scaffolding to demonstrate how do children move from one level of
cognitive progress. ZPD refers to certain cognitive abilities that are in the
process of developing, and that can be achieved with support from an adult or a
capable peer. Whereas, scaffolding allows for adjustment of the level of support according
to the learner's needs and performance. While Piaget focused on individual learners with a
strong emphasis on the stages through which they pass during cognitive
development, Vygotsky argued that social interactions, cultural tools, and
collaborative processes set the stage for higher-level cognitive processes.
Information processing approach
The information processing approach
presents another major perspective that helps us to understand cognitive
development. This approach views the human brain as an active information
processing system, like a computer machine. It examines how information
enters the human mind, and how is it stored, processed, and retrieved when needed.
It emphasizes two major cognitive processes including memory and thinking.
Overall, it is argued that
children develop and refine their mechanisms to acquire, process, store and
work with increasingly complex information and skills over time. In doing so,
they develop improved cognitive
resources, that is, the capacity and speed of processing information. This
improved ability is further linked to better memory and problem-solving skills.
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