cognitive development in early childhood essay

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Child cognitive development is a fascinating and complex process that entails the growth of a child’s mental abilities, including their ability to think, learn, and solve problems. This development occurs through a series of stages that can vary among individuals. As children progress through these stages, their cognitive abilities and skills are continuously shaped by a myriad of factors such as genetics, environment, and experiences. Understanding the nuances of child cognitive development is essential for parents, educators, and professionals alike, as it provides valuable insight into supporting the growth of the child’s intellect and overall well-being.

Throughout the developmental process, language and communication play a vital role in fostering a child’s cognitive abilities . As children acquire language skills, they also develop their capacity for abstract thought, reasoning, and problem-solving. It is crucial for parents and caregivers to be mindful of potential developmental delays, as early intervention can greatly benefit the child’s cognitive development. By providing stimulating environments, nurturing relationships, and embracing diverse learning opportunities, adults can actively foster healthy cognitive development in children.

Key Takeaways

• Child cognitive development involves the growth of mental abilities and occurs through various stages.
• Language and communication are significant factors in cognitive development , shaping a child’s ability for abstract thought and problem-solving.
• Early intervention and supportive environments can play a crucial role in fostering healthy cognitive development in children.

Child Cognitive Development Stages

Child cognitive development is a crucial aspect of a child’s growth and involves the progression of their thinking, learning, and problem-solving abilities. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget developed a widely recognized theory that identifies four major stages of cognitive development in children.

Sensorimotor Stage

The Sensorimotor Stage occurs from birth to about 2 years old. During this stage, infants and newborns learn to coordinate their senses (sight, sound, touch, etc.) with their motor abilities. Their understanding of the world begins to develop through their physical interactions and experiences. Some key milestones in this stage include object permanence, which is the understanding that an object still exists even when it’s not visible, and the development of intentional actions.

Preoperational Stage

The Preoperational Stage takes place between the ages of 2 and 7 years old. In this stage, children start to think symbolically, and their language capabilities rapidly expand. They also develop the ability to use mental images, words, and gestures to represent the world around them. However, their thinking is largely egocentric, which means they struggle to see things from other people’s perspectives. During this stage, children start to engage in pretend play and begin to grasp the concept of conservation, recognizing that certain properties of objects (such as quantity or volume) remain the same even if their appearance changes.

Concrete Operational Stage

The Concrete Operational Stage occurs between the ages of 7 and 12 years old. At this stage, children’s cognitive development progresses to more logical and organized ways of thinking. They can now consider multiple aspects of a problem and better understand the relationship between cause and effect . Furthermore, children become more adept at understanding other people’s viewpoints, and they can perform basic mathematical operations and understand the principles of classification and seriation.

Formal Operational Stage

Lastly, the Formal Operational Stage typically begins around 12 years old and extends into adulthood. In this stage, children develop the capacity for abstract thinking and can consider hypothetical situations and complex reasoning. They can also perform advanced problem-solving and engage in systematic scientific inquiry. This stage allows individuals to think about abstract concepts, their own thought processes, and understand the world in deeper, more nuanced ways.

By understanding these stages of cognitive development, you can better appreciate the complex growth process that children undergo as their cognitive abilities transform and expand throughout their childhood.

Key Factors in Cognitive Development

Genetics and brain development.

Genetics play a crucial role in determining a child’s cognitive development. A child’s brain development is heavily influenced by genetic factors, which also determine their cognitive potential , abilities, and skills. It is important to understand that a child’s genes do not solely dictate their cognitive development – various environmental and experiential factors contribute to shaping their cognitive abilities as they grow and learn.

Environmental Influences

The environment in which a child grows up has a significant impact on their cognitive development. Exposure to various experiences is essential for a child to develop essential cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking. Factors that can have a negative impact on cognitive development include exposure to toxins, extreme stress, trauma, abuse, and addiction issues, such as alcoholism in the family.

Nutrition and Health

Maintaining good nutrition and health is vital for a child’s cognitive development. Adequate nutrition is essential for the proper growth and functioning of the brain . Key micronutrients that contribute to cognitive development include iron, zinc, and vitamins A, C, D, and B-complex vitamins. Additionally, a child’s overall health, including physical fitness and immunity, ensures they have the energy and resources to engage in learning activities and achieve cognitive milestones effectively .

Emotional and Social Factors

Emotional well-being and social relationships can also greatly impact a child’s cognitive development. A supportive, nurturing, and emotionally healthy environment allows children to focus on learning and building cognitive skills. Children’s emotions and stress levels can impact their ability to learn and process new information. Additionally, positive social interactions help children develop important cognitive skills such as empathy, communication, and collaboration.

In summary, cognitive development in children is influenced by various factors, including genetics, environmental influences, nutrition, health, and emotional and social factors. Considering these factors can help parents, educators, and policymakers create suitable environments and interventions for promoting optimal child development.

Language and Communication Development

Language skills and milestones.

Children’s language development is a crucial aspect of their cognitive growth. They begin to acquire language skills by listening and imitating sounds they hear from their environment. As they grow, they start to understand words and form simple sentences.

• Infants (0-12 months): Babbling, cooing, and imitating sounds are common during this stage. They can also identify their name by the end of their first year. Facial expressions play a vital role during this period, as babies learn to respond to emotions.
• Toddlers (1-3 years): They rapidly learn new words and form simple sentences. They engage more in spoken communication, constantly exploring their language environment.
• Preschoolers (3-5 years): Children expand their vocabulary, improve grammar, and begin participating in more complex conversations.

It’s essential to monitor children’s language development and inform their pediatrician if any delays or concerns arise.

Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication contributes significantly to children’s cognitive development. They learn to interpret body language, facial expressions, and gestures long before they can speak. Examples of nonverbal communication in children include:

• Eye contact: Maintaining eye contact while interacting helps children understand emotions and enhances communication.
• Gestures: Pointing, waving goodbye, or using hand signs provide alternative ways for children to communicate their needs and feelings.
• Body language: Posture, body orientation, and movement give clues about a child’s emotions and intentions.

Teaching children to understand and use nonverbal communication supports their cognitive and social development.

Parent and Caregiver Interaction

Supportive interaction from parents and caregivers plays a crucial role in children’s language and communication development. These interactions can improve children’s language skills and overall cognitive abilities . Some ways parents and caregivers can foster language development are:

• Reading together: From an early age, reading books to children enhance their vocabulary and listening skills.
• Encouraging communication: Ask open-ended questions and engage them in conversations to build their speaking skills.
• Using rich vocabulary: Expose children to a variety of words and phrases, promoting language growth and understanding.

By actively engaging in children’s language and communication development, parents and caregivers can nurture cognitive, emotional, and social growth.

Cognitive Abilities and Skills

Cognitive abilities are the mental skills that children develop as they grow. These skills are essential for learning, adapting, and thriving in modern society. In this section, we will discuss various aspects of cognitive development, including reasoning and problem-solving, attention and memory, decision-making and executive function, as well as academic and cognitive milestones.

Reasoning and Problem Solving

Reasoning is the ability to think logically and make sense of the world around us. It’s essential for a child’s cognitive development, as it enables them to understand the concept of object permanence , recognize patterns, and classify objects. Problem-solving skills involve using these reasoning abilities to find solutions to challenges they encounter in daily life .

Children develop essential skills like:

• Logical reasoning : The ability to deduce conclusions from available information.
• Perception: Understanding how objects relate to one another in their environment.
• Schemes: Organizing thoughts and experiences into mental categories.

Attention and Memory

Attention refers to a child’s ability to focus on specific tasks, objects, or information, while memory involves retaining and recalling information. These cognitive abilities play a critical role in children’s learning and academic performance . Working memory is a vital component of learning, as it allows children to hold and manipulate information in their minds while solving problems and engaging with new tasks.

• Attention: Focuses on relevant tasks and information while ignoring distractions.
• Memory: Retains and retrieves information when needed.

Decision-Making and Executive Function

Decision-making is the process of making choices among various alternatives, while executive function refers to the higher-order cognitive processes that enable children to plan, organize, and adapt in complex situations. Executive function encompasses components such as:

• Inhibition: Self-control and the ability to resist impulses.
• Cognitive flexibility: Adapting to new information or changing circumstances.
• Planning: Setting goals and devising strategies to achieve them.

Academic and Cognitive Milestones

Children’s cognitive development is closely linked to their academic achievement. As they grow, they achieve milestones in various cognitive domains that form the foundation for their future learning. Some of these milestones include:

• Language skills: Developing vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure.
• Reading and mathematics: Acquiring the ability to read and comprehend text, as well as understanding basic mathematical concepts and operations.
• Scientific thinking: Developing an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships and forming hypotheses.

Healthy cognitive development is essential for a child’s success in school and life. By understanding and supporting the development of their cognitive abilities, we can help children unlock their full potential and prepare them for a lifetime of learning and growth.

Developmental Delays and Early Intervention

Identifying developmental delays.

Developmental delays in children can be identified by monitoring their progress in reaching cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social milestones. Parents and caregivers should be aware of developmental milestones that are generally expected to be achieved by children at different ages, such as 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 18 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, and 5 years. Utilizing resources such as the “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program can help parents and caregivers recognize signs of delay early in a child’s life.

Resources and Support for Parents

There are numerous resources available for parents and caregivers to find information on developmental milestones and to learn about potential developmental delays, including:

• Learn the Signs. Act Early : A CDC initiative that provides pdf checklists of milestones and resources for identifying delays.
• Parental support groups : Local and online communities dedicated to providing resources and fostering connections between families experiencing similar challenges.

Professional Evaluations and Intervention Strategies

If parents or caregivers suspect a developmental delay, it is crucial to consult with healthcare professionals or specialists who can conduct validated assessments of the child’s cognitive and developmental abilities. Early intervention strategies, such as the ones used in broad-based early intervention programs , have shown significant positive impacts on children with developmental delays to improve cognitive development and outcomes.

Professional evaluations may include:

• Pediatricians : Primary healthcare providers who can monitor a child’s development and recommend further assessments when needed.
• Speech and language therapists : Professionals who assist children with language and communication deficits.
• Occupational therapists : Experts in helping children develop or improve on physical and motor skills, as well as social and cognitive abilities.

Depending on the severity and nature of the delays, interventions may involve:

• Individualized support : Tailored programs or therapy sessions specifically developed for the child’s needs.
• Group sessions : Opportunities for children to learn from and interact with other children experiencing similar challenges.
• Family involvement : Parents and caregivers learning support strategies to help the child in their daily life.

Fostering Healthy Cognitive Development

Play and learning opportunities.

Encouraging play is crucial for fostering healthy cognitive development in children . Provide a variety of age-appropriate games, puzzles, and creative activities that engage their senses and stimulate curiosity. For example, introduce building blocks and math games for problem-solving skills, and crossword puzzles to improve vocabulary and reasoning abilities.

Playing with others also helps children develop social skills and better understand facial expressions and emotions. Provide opportunities for cooperative play, where kids can work together to achieve a common goal, and open-ended play with no specific rules to boost creativity.

Supportive Home Environment

A nurturing and secure home environment encourages healthy cognitive growth. Be responsive to your child’s needs and interests, involving them in everyday activities and providing positive reinforcement. Pay attention to their emotional well-being and create a space where they feel safe to ask questions and explore their surroundings.

Promoting Independence and Decision-Making

Support independence by allowing children to make decisions about their playtime, activities, and daily routines. Encourage them to take age-appropriate responsibilities and make choices that contribute to self-confidence and autonomy. Model problem-solving strategies and give them opportunities to practice these skills during play, while also guiding them when necessary.

Healthy Lifestyle Habits

Promote a well-rounded lifestyle, including:

• Sleep : Ensure children get adequate and quality sleep by establishing a consistent bedtime routine.
• Hydration : Teach the importance of staying hydrated by offering water frequently, especially during play and physical activities.
• Screen time : Limit exposure to electronic devices and promote alternative activities for toddlers and older kids.
• Physical activity : Encourage children to engage in active play and exercise to support neural development and overall health .

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key stages of child cognitive development.

Child cognitive development can be divided into several key stages based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development . These stages include the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), preoperational stage (2-7 years), concrete operational stage (7-11 years), and formal operational stage (11 years and beyond). Every stage represents a unique period of cognitive growth, marked by the development of new skills, thought processes, and understanding of the world.

What factors influence cognitive development in children?

Several factors contribute to individual differences in child cognitive development, such as genetic and environmental factors. Socioeconomic status, access to quality education, early home environment, and parental involvement all play a significant role in determining cognitive growth. In addition, children’s exposure to diverse learning experiences, adequate nutrition, and mental health also influence overall cognitive performance .

How do cognitive skills vary during early childhood?

Cognitive skills in early childhood evolve as children progress through various stages . During the sensorimotor stage, infants develop fundamental skills such as object permanence. The preoperational stage is characterized by the development of symbolic thought, language, and imaginative play. Children then enter the concrete operational stage, acquiring the ability to think logically and solve problems. Finally, in the formal operational stage, children develop abstract reasoning abilities, complex problem-solving skills and metacognitive awareness.

What are common examples of cognitive development?

Examples of cognitive development include the acquisition of language and vocabulary, the development of problem-solving skills, and the ability to engage in logical reasoning. Additionally, memory, attention, and spatial awareness are essential aspects of cognitive development. Children may demonstrate these skills through activities like puzzle-solving, reading, and mathematics.

How do cognitive development theories explain children’s learning?

Piaget’s cognitive development theory suggests that children learn through active exploration, constructing knowledge based on their experiences and interactions with the world. In contrast, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes the role of social interaction and cultural context in learning. Both theories imply that cognitive development is a dynamic and evolving process, influenced by various environmental and psychological factors.

Why is it essential to support cognitive development in early childhood?

Supporting cognitive development in early childhood is critical because it lays a strong foundation for future academic achievement, social-emotional development, and lifelong learning. By providing children with diverse and enriching experiences, caregivers and educators can optimize cognitive growth and prepare children to face the challenges of today’s complex world. Fostering cognitive development early on helps children develop resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking skills essential for personal and professional success.

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10 Cognitive Development in the Preschool Years

Chapter Objectives

After this chapter, you should be able to:

• Compare and contrast Piaget and Vygotsky’s beliefs about cognitive development.
• Explain the role of information processing in cognitive development.
• Discuss how preschool-aged children understand their worlds.
• Put cognitive milestones into the order in which they appear in typically developing children. Discuss how early child education supports development and how our understanding of development influence education.
• Describe autism spectrum disorder as atypical cognitive development

Introduction

Understanding of cognit ive development is advancing on many different fronts. One exciting area is linking changes in brain activity to changes in children’s thinking (Nelson et al., 2006, as cited in Leon, n.d.). Although many people believe that brain maturation is something that occurs before birth , the brain actually continues to change in large ways for many years thereafter. For example, a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is located at the front of the brain and is particularly involved with planning and flexible problem solving, continues to develop throughout adolescence (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006, as cited in Leon, n.d.). 

preschool cognitive skills

The Continuum of Development (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014) describes the core skills which are part of the preschool/ kindergarten stage of development. These skills are also reflected the overall and specific expectations in the four frames in Ontario’s the Kindergarten Program (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016). This document will be referred to throughout the chapters on preschool development.

Below is a summary of the core skills in preschool cognitive development as described in the Continuum of Development by Ontario Ministry of Education (2014).

During the preschool years children continue to observe their world, ask questions, and develop and test their theories about how things work. During this stage of development children master new ways of describing and making meaning of their experiences.  At this stage their reasoning is more logical. They solve problems by collecting and organizing information, reflecting on it, drawing conclusions and communicating their findings with others. This may include the skills of classifying and seriating. Increased verbal abilities allow them to use spatial terms and positional words such as behind, inside, in front of, between. They can follow directions, creating and using maps.

Preschoolers’ exploration of mathematics continues to grow with an increasing understanding of numeracy,  which includes counting in meaningful ways to determine quantity, comparing quantities, and completing simple number operations using number symbols. They explore ways to represent number such as tally marks. They demonstrate a growing ability to describe attributes of 2 dimensional figures and 3 dimensional solids, to identify patterns and show an interest in measurement, particularly linear measurement. They become more skilled at understanding time and how it is measured.

The ability to represent is demonstrated through using materials to express ideas which may be in the form of 2D and 3D creations.  In socio dramatic play preschoolers can take on a role pretending to be someone else, sustaining the play, and using props to tell a story. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014)

E arly childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language. As young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning some basic principles about how the world works, they hold some interesting ideas. For example, while adults have no concerns with taking a bath, a child of three might genuinely worry about being sucked down the drain. A child might protest if told that something will happen “tomorrow” but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur “today after we sleep.” Or the young child may ask, “How long are we staying? From here to here?” while pointing to two points on a table. Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size and distance are not easy to grasp at this young age . Understanding size, time, distance, fact and fiction are all tasks that are part of cognitive development in the preschool years. 

Piaget’s Preoperational Intelligence  

Piaget’s stage that coincides with early childhood is the  preoperational stage . The word operational means logical , children are learning to use language and to think about the world symbolically. Let’s  examine some of Piaget’s assertions about children’s cognitive abilities at this age.    

Mental representation   

As children move through substage 6 in sensorimotor development they begin to work with symbols, words ,and gestures to form an internal working model of their world. They demonstrate deferred imitation by imitating actions they have seen at a previous time. They begin to use objects to represent other things so a block can be a phone for example. These new skills support the emergence of make-believe play.   

Pretend play

Pretending is a favourite activity at this time . A toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended. A teddy bear, for example, can be a baby or the queen of a faraway land !    

Figure 10.1:  A child pretending to buy items at a toy grocery store. (Image by Ermalfaro is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0) 

According to Piaget, children’s pretend play helps them solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively. This play, then, reflects changes in their conceptions or thoughts. However, children also learn as they take on roles. examine perspectives, pretend and experiment. Their play does not simply represent what they have learned (Berk, 2007, as cited Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). In their play they make meaning of their lived experiences and explore possibilities as they consider ‘what is’ and ‘ what if ’ ?  

Indigenous Perspectives

This is the perfect age to introduce Indigenous Storytelling with role playing the animals in the story. Let them change the story and have fun with it.  Children will see themselves in the story. This relates to what Piaget says: “In their play, they make meaning of their lived experiences and explore possibilities as they consider ‘what is’ and ‘what if’?”.   Plenty of outdoor play will help to connect children to the land.

At this age, children also have to have clear directions in order to complete what they are asked to do. For example, if the child is not looking at you. You say listen to me. The child says “I am listening to you.” The educator has to be precise in what they are asking of the child. It is important to note that a lot of Indigenous children might not look you in the eyes. This is a cultural thing.

Egocentrism    

Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child. Piaget’s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a 3-dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see. Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own view, rather than that of the doll. However, children tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult. This indicates  some awareness of the views of others .    

Figure 10.2: Piaget’s egocentrism experiment. (Image by Rosenfeld Media is licensed under CC BY 2.0) 

Syncretism  

Syncretism refers to a tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other. Example: A family is planning to go on a picnic. The preschooler misbehaves by taking a toy away from their younger sibling who cries. The family reacts firmly to the situation. As they are sorting out the situation, they hear the sound of distant thunder and decide to postpone the picnic. The preschooler may believe that their behaviour caused the storm which resulted in the cancellation of the plans.    

Attributing lifelike qualities to objects is referred to as animism.  T he cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child’s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they are tired. Cartoons and animation frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. They may also think that a small gardening tool could grow up to be a full-size shovel. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk, 2007, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).  

Classification Errors  

Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons. As the child’s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, the ability to classify objects improves.  

  Conservation Errors  

Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity. Let’s look at an example. A father gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-old Keiko and another slice to 3-year-old Kenny. Kenny’s pizza slice was cut into five pieces, so Kenny told his sister that he got more pizza than she did. Kenny did not understand that cutting the pizza into smaller pieces did not increase the overall amount. This was because Kenny exhibited Centration or focused on only one characteristic or attribute of an object to the exclusion of others.

Kenny focused on the five pieces of pizza to his sister’s one piece even though the total amount of pizza was the same. Keiko was able to consider several characteristics of an object rather than just one.

The classic Piagetian experiment associated with conservation involves liquid (Crain, 2005, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). As seen below, the child is shown two glasses (as shown in a) which are filled to the same level and asked if they have the same amount. Usually, the child agrees they have the same amount. The researcher then pours the liquid from one glass to a taller and thinner glass (as shown in b). The child is again asked if the two glasses have the same amount of liquid. The preoperational child will typically say the taller glass now has more liquid because it is taller. The child has concentrated on the height of the glass and fails to conserve (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).

Figure 10.3: Piagetian liquid conservation experiments. (Image by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) 

Cognitive Schemas  

As introduced in the first chapter, Piaget believed that in a quest for cognitive equilibrium, we use schemas (categories of knowledge) to make sense of the world. And when new experiences fit into existing schemas, we use assimilation to add that new knowledge to the schema. But when new experiences do not match an existing schema, we use accommodation to add a new schema. During e arly childhood, children use accommodation often as they build their understanding of the world around them.  

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development 

Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

Vygotsky’s best-known concept is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can perform a task with assistance, but not quite yet on their own. With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully. A good teacher identifies a child’s ZPD and helps the child stretch beyond it. Then the adult (teacher) gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided. Researchers have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to this way of teaching. Scaffolding is the temporary support that parents or teachers give a child to do a task.

Figure 10.4: Zone of proximal development. (Image by Dcoetzee is licensed under CC0 1.0) 

Private Speech   

Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as egocentric speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips to engage in private speech or inner speech.

Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).

Contrast with Piaget   

Piaget was highly critical of teacher-directed instruction, believing that teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role (Crain, 2005, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Further, teachers may present abstract ideas without the child’s true understanding, and instead they just repeat back what they heard. Piaget believed children must be given opportunities to discover concepts on their own. As previously stated, Vygotsky did not believe children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals. Who is correct? Both theories certainly contribute to our understanding of how children learn.  

Information Processing   

Information processing researchers have focused on several issues in cognitive development for this age group, including improvements in attention skills, changes in the capacity, and the emergence of executive functions in working memory. Additionally, in early childhood memory strategies, memory accuracy, and autobiographical memory emerge. Early childhood is seen by many researchers as a crucial time period in memory development (Posner & Rothbart, 2007, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).  

Figure 10.5: How information is processed. (Image by Gradient drift is in the public domain) 

Changes in attention have been described by many as the key to changes in human memory (Nelson & Fivush , 2004; Posner & Rothbart, 2007, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). However, attention is not a unified function; it is comprised of sub-processes. The ability to switch our focus between tasks or external stimuli is called divided attention or multitasking. This is separate from our ability to focus on a single task or stimulus, while ignoring distracting information, called selective attention. Different from these is sustained attention, or the ability to stay on task for long periods of time. Moreover, we also have attention processes that influence our behaviour and enable us to inhibit a habitual or dominant response, and others that enable us to distract ourselves when upset or frustrated .   

Selective Attention   

Children’s ability with selective attention tasks , improve as they age. However, this ability is also greatly influenced by the child’s temperament (Rothbart & Rueda, 2005, as cited Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021), the complexity of the stimulus or task (Porporino, Shore, Iarocci & Burack , 2004), and whether the stimuli are visual or auditory (Guy, Rogers & Cornish, 2013, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Guy et al. (2013, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021) found that children’s ability to selectively attend to visual information outpaced that of auditory stimuli. This may explain why young children are not able to hear the voice of the teacher over the cacophony of sounds in the typical preschool classroom (Jones, Moore & Amitay , 2015, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Jones and his colleagues found that 4- to 7-year-olds could not filter out background noise, especially when its frequencies were close in sound to the target sound. In comparison, 8- to 11-year-old children often performed similar to adults.  

Figure 10.6:  A child playing a game that measures their sustained attention. (Image by Fabrice Florin is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0) 

Based on studies of adults, people with amnesia, and neurological research on memory, researchers have proposed several “types” of memory (see Figure 4.14). Sensory memory (also called the sensory register) is the first stage of the memory system, and it stores sensory input in its raw form for a very brief duration; essentially long enough for the brain to register and start processing the information. Studies of auditory sensory memory show that it lasts about one second in 2-year-olds , two seconds in 3-year-olds, more than two seconds in 4-year-olds, and three to five seconds in 6-year-olds (Glass, Sachse, & von Suchodoletz , 2008, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Other researchers have also found that young children hold sounds for a shorter duration than do older children and adults, and that this deficit is not due to attentional differences between these age groups, but reflects differences in the performance of the sensory memory system (Gomes et al., 1999, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). The second stage of the memory system is called short-term or working memory. Working memory is the component of memory in which current conscious mental a ctivity occurs.    

Working memory often requires conscious effort and adequate use of attention to function effectively. As you read earlier, children in this age group struggle with many aspects of attention and this greatly diminishes their ability to consciously juggle several pieces of information in memory. The capacity of working memory, that is the amount of information someone can hold in consciousness, is smaller in young children than in older children and adults. The typical adult and teenager can hold a 7-digit number active in their short-term memory. The typical 5-year-old can hold only a 4-digit number active. This means that the more complex a mental task is, the less efficient a younger child will be in paying attention to, and actively processing, information in order to complete the task.

Changes in attention and the working memory system also involve changes in executive function. Executive function (EF) refers to self-regulatory processes, such as the ability to inhibit a behaviour or cognitive flexibility, that enable adaptive responses to new situations or to reach a specific goal. Executive function skills gradually emerge during early childhood and continue to develop throughout childhood and adolescence. Like many cognitive changes, brain maturation, especially the prefrontal cortex, along with experience influence the development of executive function skills.

A child shows higher executive functioning skills when the parents are more warm and responsive, use scaffolding when the child is trying to solve a problem, and provide cognitively stimulating environments for the child (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes & Meredith, 2014, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). For instance, scaffolding was positively correlated with greater cognitive flexibility at age two and inhibitory control at age four (Bibok, Carpendale & Müller, 2009, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). In Schneider, Kron-Sperl and Hunnerkopf’s (2009, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021) longitudinal study of 102 kindergarten children, the majority of children used no strategy to remember information, a finding that was consistent with previous research. As a result, their memory performance was poor when compared to their abilities as they aged and started to use more effective memory strategies.

The third component in memory is long-term memory, which is also known as permanent memory. A basic division of long- term memory is between declarative and non-declarative memory.   Declarative memories , sometimes referred to as explicit memories, are memories for facts or events that we can consciously recollect. Declarative memory is further divided into semantic and episodic memory.  Semantic memories are memories for facts and knowledge that are not tied to a timeline,  e pisodic memories are tied to specific events in time.  Non- declarative memories , sometimes referred to as implicit memories, are typically automated skills that do not require conscious recollection.  

Neo- Piagetians    

As previously discussed, Piaget’s theory has been criticized on many fronts, and updates to reflect more current research have been provided by the Neo-Piagetians, or those theorists who provide “new” interpretations of Piaget’s theory. Morra, Gobbo, Marini and Sheese (2008, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021) reviewed Neo-Piagetian theories, which were first presented in the 1970s, and identified how these “new” theories combined Piagetian concepts with those found in Information Processing. Similar to Piaget’s theory, Neo- Piagetian theories believe in constructivism, assume cognitive development can be separated into different stages with qualitatively different characteristics, and advocate that children’s thinking becomes more complex in advanced stages. Unlike Piaget, Neo-Piagetians believe that aspects of information processing change the complexity of each stage, not logic as determined by Piaget.

Neo-Piagetians propose that working memory capacity is affected by biological maturation, and therefore restricts young children’s ability to acquire complex thinking and reasoning skills. Increases in working memory performance and cognitive skills development coincide with the timing of several neurodevelopmental processes. These include myelination, axonal and synaptic pruning, changes in cerebral metabolism, and changes in brain activity (Morra et al., 2008, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).

Myelination especially occurs in waves between birth and adolescence, and the degree of myelination in particular areas explain the increasing efficiency of certain skills. Therefore, brain maturation, which occurs in spurts, affects how and when cognitive skills develop.  Additionally, all Neo-Piagetian theories support that experience and learning interact with biological maturation in shaping cognitive development (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).  

Children’s Understanding of the World   

Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that children actively try to understand the world around them. More recently developmentalists have added to this understanding by examining how children organize information and develop their own theories about the world.  

Theory-Theory  

The tendency of children to generate theories to explain everything they encounter is called theory-theory. This concept implies that humans are naturally inclined to find reasons and generate explanations for why things occur. Children frequently ask questions about what they see or hear around them. When the answers provided do not satisfy their curiosity or are too complicated for them to understand, they generate their own theories. In much the same way that scientists construct and revise their theories, children do the same with their intuitions about the world as they encounter new experiences (Gopnik & Wellman, 2012, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). One of the theories they start to generate in early childhood centers on the mental states; both their own and those of others.  

Figure 10.7: What theories might this boy be creating? (Image by Eglin Air Force Base is in the public domain) 

Theory of Mind  

Theory of mind refers to the ability to think about other people’s thoughts. This mental mind reading helps humans to understand and predict the reactions of others, thus playing a crucial role in social development. One common method for determining if a child has reached this mental milestone is the false belief task, described below.

The research began with a clever experiment by Wimmer and Perner (1983, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021), who tested whether children can pass a false-belief test (see Figure 4.17). The child is shown a picture story of Sally, who puts a ball in a basket and leaves the room. While Sally is out of the room, Anne comes along and takes the ball from the basket and puts it inside a box. The child is then asked where Sally thinks the ball is located when Sally comes back to the room. Will they look first in the box or in the basket? The right answer is that they will look in the basket, because that’s where Sally put it and thinks it is; but we have to infer this false belief against our own better knowledge that the ball is in the box.

Figure 10.8: A ball. (Image is in the public domain) 

Figure 10.9: A basket. (Image is in the public domain) 

Figure 10.10: A box. (Image is licensed under CC0)

This is very difficult for children before the age of four because of the cognitive effort it takes. Three-year-olds have difficulty distinguishing between what they once thought was true and what they now know to be true. They feel confident that what they know now is what they have always known (Birch & Bloom, 2003, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Even adults need to think through this task (Epley, Morewedge, & Keysar, 2004, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).

To be successful at solving this type of task the child must separate what they “know” to be true from what someone else might “think” is true. In Piagetian terms, they must give up a tendency toward egocentrism. The child must also understand that what guides people’s actions and responses are what they “believe” rather than what is reality. In other words, people can mistakenly believe things that are false and will act based on this false knowledge. Consequently, prior to age four children are rarely successful at solving such a task (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). Researchers examining the development of theory of mind have been concerned by the overemphasis on the mastery of false belief as the primary measure of whether a child has attained theory of mind. Wellman and his colleagues (Wellman, Fang, Liu, Zhu & Liu, 2006, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021) suggest that theory of mind is comprised of a number of components, each with its own developmental timeline (see Table 4.2).

Two-year-olds understand the diversity of desires, yet as noted earlier it is not until age four or five that children grasp false belief, and often not until middle childhood do they understand that people may hide how they really feel. In part, because children in early childhood have difficulty hiding how they really feel.

This awareness of the existence of theory of mind is part of social intelligence, such as recognizing that others can think differently about situations. It helps us to be self-conscious or aware that others can think of us in different ways and it helps us to be able to be understanding or be empathetic toward others. Moreover, this mind-reading ability helps us to anticipate and predict people’s actions. The awareness of the mental states of others is important for communication and social skills (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).  

The many theories of cognitive development and the different research that has been done about how children understand the world has allowed researchers to study the milestones that children who are typically developing experience in early childhood. Understanding how children think and learn has proven useful for improving education.

In 2010, Ontario introduced the full day kindergarten program which was fully implemented by 2014. Children can attend the program at 3 years 8 month of age. There is a year one and a year two of the program. In 2016 The Kindergarten Program document was released describing a play-based curriculum which includes four frames to guide teaching, learning and assessment of learning. Overall and specific expectations are described in each of the four frames.

The frames are:

• Self-regulation and Well-Being
• Belonging and Contributing
• Problem Solving and Innovating
• Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours

In each kindergarten classroom an RECE and a qualified teacher registered with the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) work in partnership as an educator team to implement the curriculum. There is an expectation for the educator team to observe children’s play, ‘notice and name’ the learning and assess individual progress against the Overall and Specific Expectations. The progress is formally shared with families as their child moves through Year One and Y ear Two of the Kindergarten Program. In the delivery of the curriculum the educator team provides opportunities for children to demonstrate the expectations, and design and implement learning opportunities specifically related to the expectations. Two of the four frames; Problem Solving and Innovating and Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours relate directly to children’s cognitive development. In the latter frame children are expected to, for example, use language to communicate their thinking and to solve problems, to demonstrate an interest in writing and reading, to demonstrate cardinality and the ability to subitize, to describe the properties of three-dimensional solids and to identify , create and describe simple patterns in mathematical terms (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016).   

Application of “The Kindergarten Program”  to the Early Years

Even before they enter kindergarten, the mathematical knowledge of children from low-income backgrounds lags far behind that of children from more affluent backgrounds. Ramani and Siegler (2008, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021) hypothesized that this difference is due to the children in middle- and upper-income families engaging more frequently in numerical activities, for example playing numerical board games such as Chutes and Ladders. Chutes and Ladders is a game with a number in each square; children start at the number one and spin a spinner or throw a dice to determine how far to move their token. Playing this game seemed likely to teach children about numbers, because in it, larger numbers are associated with greater values on a variety of dimensions. In particular, the higher the number that a child’s token reaches, the greater the distance the token will have traveled from the starting point, the greater the number of physical movements the child will have made in moving the token from one square to another, the greater the number of number-words the child will have said and heard, and the more time will have passed since the beginning of the game. These spatial, kinesthetic, verbal, and time- based cues provide a broad-based, multisensory foundation for knowledge of numerical magnitudes (the sizes of numbers), a type of knowledge that is closely related to mathematics achievement test scores (Booth & Siegler, 2006, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).

Playing this numerical board game for roughly 1 hour, distributed over a 2-week period, improved low-income children’s knowledge of numerical magnitudes, ability to read printed numbers, and skill at learning novel arithmetic problems. The gains lasted for months after the game-playing experience (Ramani & Siegler, 2008; Siegler & Ramani, 2009, as cited in Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021). An advantage of this type of educational intervention is that it has minimal if any cost—a parent could just draw a game on a piece of paper.

Autism: Defining Spectrum Disorder   

Sometimes children’s brains work differently. One form of this neuro-diversity is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).   ASD describes a range of conditions classified as neuro-developmental disorders in the fifth revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The DSM-5, published in 2013, redefined the autism spectrum to encompass the previous (DSM-IV-TR) diagnoses of autism, Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and childhood disintegrative disorder. These disorders are characterized by social deficits and communication difficulties, repetitive behaviours and interests, sensory issues, and in some cases, cognitive delays.  

Autism spectrum disorders are considered to be on a spectrum because each individual with ASD expresses the disorder uniquely and has varying degrees of functionality. Many have above-average intellectual abilities and excel in visual skills, music, math, and the arts, while others have significant disabilities and are unable to live independently. About 25 percent of individuals with ASD are nonverbal; however, they may learn to communicate using other means.

In Canada 1 in 66 children between the ages of 5 and 17 years of age are diagnosed on the ASD spectrum (Government of Canada, 2018). Males are four times more likely to be diagnosed than females. The statistics are one in 44 males compared to one in 165 females (Government of Canada, 2018).

In this chapter we looked at:

• Piaget’s preoperational stage.
• Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.
• Information processing.
• How young children understand the world.
• The Full Day Kindergarten Program
• Autism spectrum disorder.

Lally, M. & Valentine-French, S. (2019). Lifespan development: A psychological perspective (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://dept.clcillinois.edu/psy/LifespanDevelopment.pdf

Leon, A. (n.d.). Children’s development: Prenatal through adolescent development. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k1xtrXy6j9_NAqZdGv8nBn_I6-lDtEgEFf7skHjvE-Y/edit

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2014). Exerpts from “ELECT”. Retrieved from https://countrycasa.ca/images/ExcerptsFromELECT.pdf

Government of Canada. (2018). Autism prevalence among children and youth in Canada: Report of the national autism spectrum disorder (ASD) surveillance system. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/infographic-autism-spectrum-disorder-children-youth-canada-2018.html

Ontario Ministry of Education (2016). The kindergarten program. Retrieved from https://files.ontario.ca/books/kindergarten-program-en.pdf?_ga=2.18670905.1886719864.1639406346-482631340.1639406346

Child Growth and Development Canadian Ed Copyright © 2022 by Tanya Pye; Susan Scoffin; Janice Quade; and Jane Krieg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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8 Chapter 8: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Compare and contrast Piaget and Vygotsky’s beliefs about cognitive development.
• Explain the role of information processing in cognitive development.
• Discuss how preschool-aged children understand their worlds.
• Put cognitive and language milestones into the order in which they appear in typically developing children.
• Discuss how early child education supports development and how our understanding of development influence education.
• Describe autism spectrum disorder, including characteristics and possible interventions.

Introduction

Early childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language. As young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning some basic principles about how the world works, they hold some pretty interesting initial ideas. For example, while adults have no concerns with taking a bath, a child of three might genuinely worry about being sucked down the drain. 1

Figure 8.1 – A child in a bathtub. 2

A child might protest if told that something will happen “tomorrow” but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur “today after we sleep.” Or the young child may ask, “How long are we staying? From here to here?” while pointing to two points on a table. Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size and distance are not easy to grasp at this young age. Understanding size, time, distance, fact and fiction are all tasks that are part of cognitive development in the preschool years. 3

Piaget’s Preoperational Intelligence

Piaget’s stage that coincides with early childhood is the  preoperational stage.  The word operational means logical, so these children were thought to be illogical. However, they were learning to use language or to think of the world symbolically. Let’s examine some of Piaget’s assertions about children’s cognitive abilities at this age.

Pretend Play

Pretending is a favorite activity at this time. A toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended. A teddy bear, for example, can be a baby or the queen of a faraway land!

Figure 8.2 – A child pretending to buy items at a toy grocery store. 4

According to Piaget, children’s pretend play helps them solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively. This play, then, reflects changes in their conceptions or thoughts. However, children also learn as they pretend and experiment. Their play does not simply represent what they have learned (Berk, 2007).

Egocentrism

Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child. Piaget’s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a 3-dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see. Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own view, rather than that of the doll. However, children tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult. This indicates some awareness of the views of others.

Figure 8.3 – Piaget’s egocentrism experiment. 5

Syncretism refers to a tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other.  An example of this is a child putting on their bathing suit to turn it to summertime.

Attributing lifelike qualities to objects is referred to as animism . The cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child’s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they are tired.  Cartoons frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk, 2007).

Classification Errors

Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons. As the child’s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, the ability to classify objects improves. 6

Conservation Errors

Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity . Let’s look at an example. A father gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-old Keiko and another slice to 3-year-old Kenny. Kenny’s pizza slice was cut into five pieces, so Kenny told his sister that he got more pizza than she did. Kenny did not understand that cutting the pizza into smaller pieces did not increase the overall amount. This was because Kenny exhibited Centration, or focused on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others.

Kenny focused on the five pieces of pizza to his sister’s one piece even though the total amount was the same. Keiko was able to consider several characteristics of an object than just one. Because children have not developed this understanding of conservation, they cannot perform mental operations.

The classic Piagetian experiment associated with conservation involves liquid (Crain, 2005). As seen below, the child is shown two glasses (as shown in a) which are filled to the same level and asked if they have the same amount. Usually the child agrees they have the same amount. The researcher then pours the liquid from one glass to a taller and thinner glass (as shown in b). The child is again asked if the two glasses have the same amount of liquid. The preoperational child will typically say the taller glass now has more liquid because it is taller. The child has concentrated on the height of the glass and fails to conserve. 7

Figure 8.4 – Piagetian liquid conservation experiments. 8

Cognitive Schemas

As introduced in the first chapter, Piaget believed that in a quest for cognitive equilibrium, we use schemas (categories of knowledge) to make sense of the world. And when new experiences fit into existing schemas, we use assimilation to add that new knowledge to the schema. But when new experiences do not match an existing schema, we use accommodation to add a new schema. During early childhood, children use accommodation often as they build their understanding of the world around them.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

As introduced in Chapter 1, Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who argued that culture has a major impact on a child’s cognitive development. He believed that the social interactions with adults and more knowledgeable peers can facilitate a child’s potential for learning. Without this interpersonal instruction, he believed children’s minds would not advance very far as their knowledge would be based only on their own discoveries. Let’s review some of Vygotsky’s key concepts.

Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

Vygotsky’s best known concept is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can perform a task with assistance, but not quite yet on their own. With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully. A good teacher identifies a child’s ZPD and helps the child stretch beyond it. Then the adult (teacher) gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided. Researchers have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to this way of teaching. Scaffolding is the temporary support that parents or teachers give a child to do a task.

Figure 8.5 – Zone of proximal development. 9

Private Speech

Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as e gocentric s peech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in p rivate s peech or inner speech.

Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962). 10

Contrast with Piaget

Piaget was highly critical of teacher-directed instruction, believing that teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role (Crain, 2005). Further, teachers may present abstract ideas without the child’s true understanding, and instead they just repeat back what they heard. Piaget believed children must be given opportunities to discover concepts on their own. As previously stated, Vygotsky did not believe children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals. Who is correct? Both theories certainly contribute to our understanding of how children learn.

Information Processing

Information processing researchers have focused on several issues in cognitive development for this age group, including improvements in attention skills, changes in the capacity, and the emergence of executive functions in working memory. Additionally, in early childhood memory strategies, memory accuracy, and autobiographical memory emerge. Early childhood is seen by many researchers as a crucial time period in memory development (Posner & Rothbart, 2007).

Figure 8.6 – How information is processed. 11

Changes in attention have been described by many as the key to changes in human memory (Nelson & Fivush, 2004; Posner & Rothbart, 2007). However, attention is not a unified function; it is comprised of sub-processes. The ability to switch our focus between tasks or external stimuli is called divided attention or multitasking. This is separate from our ability to focus on a single task or stimulus, while ignoring distracting information, called selective attention . Different from these is sustained attention , or the ability to stay on task for long periods of time. Moreover, we also have attention processes that influence our behavior and enable us to inhibit a habitual or dominant response, and others that enable us to distract ourselves when upset or frustrated.

Divided Attention

Young children (age 3-4) have considerable difficulties in dividing their attention between two tasks, and often perform at levels equivalent to our closest relative, the chimpanzee, but by age five they have surpassed the chimp (Hermann, Misch, Hernandez-Lloreda & Tomasello, 2015; Hermann & Tomasello, 2015). Despite these improvements, 5-year-olds continue to perform below the level of school-age children, adolescents, and adults.

Selective Attention

Children’s ability with selective attention tasks improve as they age. However, this ability is also greatly influenced by the child’s temperament (Rothbart & Rueda, 2005), the complexity of the stimulus or task (Porporino, Shore, Iarocci & Burack, 2004), and along with whether the stimuli are visual or auditory (Guy, Rogers & Cornish, 2013). Guy et al. (2013) found that children’s ability to selectively attend to visual information outpaced that of auditory stimuli. This may explain why young children are not able to hear the voice of the teacher over the cacophony of sounds in the typical preschool classroom (Jones, Moore & Amitay, 2015). Jones and his colleagues found that 4 to 7 year-olds could not filter out background noise, especially when its frequencies were close in sound to the target sound. In comparison, 8- to 11-year-old children often performed similar to adults.

Figure 8.7 – A group of children making crafts. 12

Sustained Attention

Most measures of sustained attention typically ask children to spend several minutes focusing on one task, while waiting for an infrequent event, while there are multiple distractors for several minutes. Berwid, Curko-Kera, Marks & Halperin (2005) asked children between the ages of 3 and 7 to push a button whenever a “target” image was displayed, but they had to refrain from pushing the button when a non-target image was shown. The younger the child, the more difficulty he or she had maintaining their attention.

Figure 8.8 – A child playing a game that measures her sustained attention. 13

Based on studies of adults, people with amnesia, and neurological research on memory, researchers have proposed several “types” of memory (see Figure 4.14). Sensory memory (also called the sensory register) is the first stage of the memory system, and it stores sensory input in its raw form for a very brief duration; essentially long enough for the brain to register and start processing the information. Studies of auditory sensory memory show that it lasts about one second in 2 year-olds, two seconds in 3-year-olds, more than two seconds in 4-year-olds, and three to five seconds in 6-year-olds (Glass, Sachse, & von Suchodoletz, 2008). Other researchers have also found that young children hold sounds for a shorter duration than do older children and adults, and that this deficit is not due to attentional differences between these age groups, but reflects differences in the performance of the sensory memory system (Gomes et al., 1999). The second stage of the memory system is called short-term or working memory . Working memory is the component of memory in which current conscious mental activity occurs.

Working memory often requires conscious effort and adequate use of attention to function effectively. As you read earlier, children in this age group struggle with many aspects of attention and this greatly diminishes their ability to consciously juggle several pieces of information in memory. The capacity of working memory, that is the amount of information someone can hold in consciousness, is smaller in young children than in older children and adults. The typical adult and teenager can hold a 7 digit number active in their short-term memory. The typical 5-year-old can hold only a 4 digit number active. This means that the more complex a mental task is, the less efficient a younger child will be in paying attention to, and actively processing, information in order to complete the task.

Figure 8.8 – A child thinking. 14

Changes in attention and the working memory system also involve changes in executive function. Executive function (EF) refers to self-regulatory processes, such as the ability to inhibit a behavior or cognitive flexibility, that enable adaptive responses to new situations or to reach a specific goal. Executive function skills gradually emerge during early childhood and continue to develop throughout childhood and adolescence. Like many cognitive changes, brain maturation, especially the prefrontal cortex, along with experience influence the development of executive function skills.

A child shows higher executive functioning skills when the parents are more warm and responsive, use scaffolding when the child is trying to solve a problem, and provide cognitively stimulating environments for the child (Fay-Stammbach, Hawes & Meredith, 2014). For instance, scaffolding was positively correlated with greater cognitive flexibility at age two and inhibitory control at age four (Bibok, Carpendale & Müller, 2009). In Schneider, Kron-Sperl and Hunnerkopf’s (2009) longitudinal study of 102 kindergarten children, the majority of children used no strategy to remember information, a finding that was consistent with previous research. As a result, their memory performance was poor when compared to their abilities as they aged and started to use more effective memory strategies.

The third component in memory is long-term memory , which is also known as permanent memory. A basic division of long-term memory is between declarative and non-declarative memory.

• Declarative memories , sometimes referred to as explicit memories , are memories for facts or events that we can consciously recollect. Declarative memory is further divided into semantic and episodic memory.
• Semantic memories are memories for facts and knowledge that are not tied to a timeline,
• Episodic memories are tied to specific events in time.
• Non- declarative memories , sometimes referred to as implicit memories , are typically automated skills that do not require conscious recollection.

A utobiographical memory is our personal narrative. Adults rarely remember events from the first few years of life. In other words, we lack autobiographical memories from our experiences as an infant, toddler and very young preschooler. Several factors contribute to the emergence of autobiographical memory including brain maturation, improvements in language, opportunities to talk about experiences with parents and others, the development of theory of mind, and a representation of “self” (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Two-year-olds do remember fragments of personal experiences, but these are rarely coherent accounts of past events (Nelson & Ross, 1980). Between 2 and 2 1⁄2 years of age children can provide more information about past experiences. However, these recollections require considerable prodding by adults (Nelson & Fivush, 2004). Over the next few years children will form more detailed autobiographical memories and engage in more reflection of the past.

Neo-Piagetians

As previously discussed, Piaget’s theory has been criticized on many fronts, and updates to reflect more current research have been provided by the Neo- Piagetians , or those theorists who provide “new” interpretations of Piaget’s theory. Morra, Gobbo, Marini and Sheese (2008) reviewed Neo-Piagetian theories, which were first presented in the 1970s, and identified how these “new” theories combined Piagetian concepts with those found in Information Processing. Similar to Piaget’s theory, Neo-Piagetian theories believe in constructivism, assume cognitive development can be separated into different stages with qualitatively different characteristics, and advocate that children’s thinking becomes more complex in advanced stages. Unlike Piaget, Neo-Piagetians believe that aspects of information processing change the complexity of each stage, not logic as determined by Piaget.

Neo-Piagetians propose that working memory capacity is affected by biological maturation, and therefore restricts young children’s ability to acquire complex thinking and reasoning skills. Increases in working memory performance and cognitive skills development coincide with the timing of several neurodevelopmental processes. These include myelination, axonal and synaptic pruning, changes in cerebral metabolism, and changes in brain activity (Morra et al., 2008).

Myelination especially occurs in waves between birth and adolescence, and the degree of myelination in particular areas explains the increasing efficiency of certain skills. Therefore, brain maturation, which occurs in spurts, affects how and when cognitive skills develop. Additionally, all Neo-Piagetian theories support that experience and learning interact with biological maturation in shaping cognitive development. 15

Children’s Understanding of the World

Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that children actively try to understand the world around them. More recently developmentalists have added to this understanding by examining how children organize information and develop their own theories about the world.

Theory-Theory

The tendency of children to generate theories to explain everything they encounter is called theory-theory . This concept implies that humans are naturally inclined to find reasons and generate explanations for why things occur. Children frequently ask question about what they see or hear around them. When the answers provided do not satisfy their curiosity or are too complicated for them to understand, they generate their own theories. In much the same way that scientists construct and revise their theories, children do the same with their intuitions about the world as they encounter new experiences (Gopnik & Wellman, 2012). One of the theories they start to generate in early childhood centers on the mental states; both their own and those of others.

Figure 8.9 – What theories might this boy be creating? 16

Theory of Mind

Theory of mind refers to the ability to think about other people’s thoughts. This mental mind reading helps humans to understand and predict the reactions of others, thus playing a crucial role in social development. One common method for determining if a child has reached this mental milestone is the false belief task, described below.

The research began with a clever experiment by Wimmer and Perner (1983), who tested whether children can pass a false-belief test (see Figure 4.17). The child is shown a picture story of Sally, who puts her ball in a basket and leaves the room. While Sally is out of the room, Anne comes along and takes the ball from the basket and puts it inside a box. The child is then asked where Sally thinks the ball is located when she comes back to the room. Is she going to look first in the box or in the basket? The right answer is that she will look in the basket, because that’s where she put it and thinks it is; but we have to infer this false belief against our own better knowledge that the ball is in the box.

This is very difficult for children before the age of four because of the cognitive effort it takes. Three-year-olds have difficulty distinguishing between what they once thought was true and what they now know to be true. They feel confident that what they know now is what they have always known (Birch & Bloom, 2003). Even adults need to think through this task (Epley, Morewedge, & Keysar, 2004).

To be successful at solving this type of task the child must separate what he or she “knows” to be true from what someone else might “think” is true. In Piagetian terms, they must give up a tendency toward egocentrism. The child must also understand that what guides people’s actions and responses are what they “believe” rather than what is reality. In other words, people can mistakenly believe things that are false and will act based on this false knowledge. Consequently, prior to age four children are rarely successful at solving such a task (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001).

Researchers examining the development of theory of mind have been concerned by the overemphasis on the mastery of false belief as the primary measure of whether a child has attained theory of mind. Wellman and his colleagues (Wellman, Fang, Liu, Zhu & Liu, 2006) suggest that theory of mind is comprised of a number of components, each with its own developmental timeline (see Table 4.2).

Two-year-olds understand the diversity of desires, yet as noted earlier it is not until age four or five that children grasp false belief, and often not until middle childhood do they understand that people may hide how they really feel. In part, because children in early childhood have difficulty hiding how they really feel.

Cultural Differences in Theory of Mind

Those in early childhood in the US, Australia, and Germany develop theory of mind in the sequence outlined above. Yet, Chinese and Iranian preschoolers acquire knowledge access before diverse beliefs (Shahaeian, Peterson, Slaughter & Wellman, 2011). Shahaeian and colleagues suggested that cultural differences in childrearing may account for this reversal.

Parents in collectivistic cultures, such as China and Iran, emphasize conformity to the family and cultural values, greater respect for elders, and the acquisition of knowledge and academic skills more than they do autonomy and social skills (Frank, Plunkett & Otten, 2010). This could reduce the degree of familial conflict of opinions expressed in the family. In contrast, individualistic cultures encourage children to think for themselves and assert their own opinion, and this could increase the risk of conflict in beliefs being expressed by family members.

As a result, children in individualistic cultures would acquire insight into the question of diversity of belief earlier, while children in collectivistic cultures would acquire knowledge access earlier in the sequence. The role of conflict in aiding the development of theory of mind may account for the earlier age of onset of an understanding of false belief in children with siblings, especially older siblings (McAlister & Petersen, 2007; Perner, Ruffman & Leekman, 1994).

This awareness of the existence of theory of mind is part of social intelligence, such as recognizing that others can think differently about situations. It helps us to be self-conscious or aware that others can think of us in different ways and it helps us to be able to be understanding or be empathetic toward others. Moreover, this mind reading ability helps us to anticipate and predict people’s actions. The awareness of the mental states of others is important for communication and social skills. 21

Milestones of Cognitive Development

The many theories of cognitive development and the different research that has been done about how children understand the world, has allowed researchers to study the milestones that children who are typically developing experience in early childhood. Here is a table that summarizes those.

Table 8.1 – Cognitive Milestones 22

Language Development

Vocabulary growth.

A child’s vocabulary expands between the ages of 2 to 6 from about 200 words to over 10,000 words through a process called fast-mapping. Words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known. The parts of speech that are learned depend on the language and what is emphasized. Children speaking verb-friendly languages such as Chinese and Japanese, tend to learn nouns more readily. But, those learning less verb-friendly languages such as English, seem to need assistance in grammar to master the use of verbs (Imai, et al, 2008).

Figure 8.14 – A woman instructing a girl on vocabulary. 23

Literal Meanings

Children can repeat words and phrases after having heard them only once or twice. But they do not always understand the meaning of the words or phrases. This is especially true of expressions or figures of speech which are taken literally. For example, two preschool-aged girls began to laugh loudly while listening to a tape-recording of Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” when the narrator reports, “Prince Phillip lost his head!” They imagine his head popping off and rolling down the hill as he runs and searches for it. Or a classroom full of preschoolers hears the teacher say, “Wow! That was a piece of cake!” The children began asking “Cake? Where is my cake? I want cake!”

Overregularization

Children learn rules of grammar as they learn language but may apply these rules inappropriately at first. For instance, a child learns to add “ed” to the end of a word to indicate past tense. Then form a sentence such as “I goed there. I doed that.” This is typical at ages 2 and 3. They will soon learn new words such as “went” and “did” to be used in those situations.

The Impact of Training

Remember Vygotsky and the zone of proximal development? Children can be assisted in learning language by others who listen attentively, model more accurate pronunciations and encourage elaboration. The child exclaims, “I goed there!” and the adult responds, “You went there? Say, ‘I went there.’ Where did you go?” Children may be ripe for language as Chomsky suggests, but active participation in helping them learn is important for language development as well. The process of scaffolding is one in which the adult (or more skilled peer) provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned.

Language Milestones

The prior aspects of language development in early childhood can also be summarized into the progression of milestones children typically experience from ages 3 to 5. Here is a table of those.

Table 8.2 – Language Milestones 24

Now that we have addressed some of the cognitive areas of growth in early childhood, let’s take a look at the topic of school and its various applications.

Early Childhood Education

Providing universal preschool has become an important lobbying point for federal, state, and local leaders throughout our country. In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama called upon congress to provide high quality preschool for all children. He continued to support universal preschool in his legislative agenda, and in December 2014 the President convened state and local policymakers for the White House Summit on Early Education (White House Press Secretary, 2014).

However, universal preschool covering all four-year olds in the country would require significant funding. Further, how effective preschools are in preparing children for elementary school, and what constitutes high quality early childhood education have been debated.

To set criteria for designation as a high quality preschool, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) identifies 10 standards (NAEYC, 2016). These include:

• Positive relationships among all children and adults are promoted.
• A curriculum that supports learning and development in social, emotional, physical, language, and cognitive areas.
• Teaching approaches that are developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate.
• Assessment of children’s progress to provide information on learning and development.
• The health and nutrition of children are promoted, while they are protected from illness and injury.
• Teachers possess the educational qualifications, knowledge, and commitment to promote children’s learning.
• Collaborative relationships with families are established and maintained.
• Relationships with agencies and institutions in the children’s communities are established to support the program’s goals.
• The indoor and outdoor physical environments are safe and well-maintained.
• Leadership and management personnel are well qualified, effective, and maintain licensure status with the applicable state agency.

Parents should review preschool programs using the NAEYC criteria as a guide and template for asking questions that will assist them in choosing the best program for their child.

Figure 8.15 – Children making crafts at preschool. 25

Selecting the right preschool is also difficult because there are so many types of preschools available. Zachry (2013) identified Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, High Scope, Creative Curriculum and Bank Street as types of early childhood education programs that focus on children learning through discovery. Teachers act as facilitators of children’s learning and development and create activities based on the child’s developmental level. Here is a table summarizes characteristics of each type of program.

Table 8.3 – Types of Early Childhood Education Programs 26

For children who live in poverty, Head Start has been providing preschool education since 1965 when it was begun by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his war on poverty. It currently serves nearly one million children and annually costs approximately 7.5 billion dollars (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). However, concerns about the effectiveness of Head Start have been ongoing since the program began. Armor (2015) reviewed existing research on Head Start and found there were no lasting gains, and the average child in Head Start had not learned more than children who did not receive preschool education.

Figure 8.16 – A photograph from when Head Start began. 27

A recent report dated July 2015 evaluating the effectiveness of Head Start comes from the What Works Clearinghouse. The What Works Clearinghouse identifies research that provides reliable evidence of the effectiveness of programs and practices in education, and is managed by the Institute of Education Services for the United States Department of Education. After reviewing 90 studies on the effectiveness of Head Start, only one study was deemed scientifically acceptable and this study showed disappointing results (Barshay, 2015). This study showed that 3- and 4-year-old children in Head Start received “potentially positive effects” on general reading achievement, but no noticeable effects on math achievement and social-emotional development.

Nonexperimental designs are a significant problem in determining the effectiveness of Head Start programs because a control group is needed to show group differences that would demonstrate educational benefits. Because of ethical reasons, low income children are usually provided with some type of pre-school programming in an alternative setting. Additionally, Head Start programs are different depending on the location, and these differences include the length of the day or qualification of the teachers. Lastly, testing young children is difficult and strongly dependent on their language skills and comfort level with an evaluator (Barshay, 2015). 28

Applications to Early Education

Understanding how children think and learn has proven useful for improving education. Activities like playing games that involve working with numbers and spatial relationships can give young children a developmental advantage over peers who have less exposure to the same concepts.

Mathematics

Even before they enter kindergarten, the mathematical knowledge of children from low-income backgrounds lags far behind that of children from more affluent backgrounds. Ramani and Siegler (2008) hypothesized that this difference is due to the children in middle- and upper-income families engaging more frequently in numerical activities, for example playing numerical board games such as Chutes and Ladders. Chutes and Ladders is a game with a number in each square; children start at the number one and spin a spinner or throw a dice to determine how far to move their token. Playing this game seemed likely to teach children about numbers, because in it, larger numbers are associated with greater values on a variety of dimensions. In particular, the higher the number that a child’s token reaches, the greater the distance the token will have traveled from the starting point, the greater the number of physical movements the child will have made in moving the token from one square to another, the greater the number of number-words the child will have said and heard, and the more time will have passed since the beginning of the game. These spatial, kinesthetic, verbal, and time-based cues provide a broad-based, multisensory foundation for knowledge of numerical magnitudes (the sizes of numbers), a type of knowledge that is closely related to mathematics achievement test scores (Booth & Siegler, 2006).

Playing this numerical board game for roughly 1 hour, distributed over a 2-week period, improved low-income children’s knowledge of numerical magnitudes, ability to read printed numbers, and skill at learning novel arithmetic problems. The gains lasted for months after the game-playing experience (Ramani & Siegler, 2008; Siegler & Ramani, 2009). An advantage of this type of educational intervention is that it has minimal if any cost—a parent could just draw a game on a piece of paper.

Cognitive developmental research has shown that phonemic awareness—that is, awareness of the component sounds within words—is a crucial skill in learning to read. To measure awareness of the component sounds within words, researchers ask children to decide whether two words rhyme, to decide whether the words start with the same sound, to identify the component sounds within words, and to indicate what would be left if a given sound were removed from a word. Kindergartners’ performance on these tasks is the strongest predictor of reading achievement in third and fourth grade, even stronger than IQ or social class background (Nation, 2008). Moreover, teaching these skills to randomly chosen 4- and 5-year-olds results in their being better readers years later (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Continuing Brain Maturation

Understanding of cognitive development is advancing on many different fronts. One exciting area is linking changes in brain activity to changes in children’s thinking (Nelson et al., 2006). Although many people believe that brain maturation is something that occurs before birth, the brain actually continues to change in large ways for many years thereafter. For example, a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is located at the front of the brain and is particularly involved with planning and flexible problem solving, continues to develop throughout adolescence (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006). Such new research domains, as well as enduring issues such as nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity, and how to apply cognitive development research to education, insure that cognitive development will continue to be an exciting area of research in the coming years. 29

Cognitive Differences

Sometimes children’s brains work differently. One form of this neurodiversity is Autism spectrum disorder.

Autism: Defining Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) describes a range of conditions classified as neuro-developmental disorders in the fifth revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The DSM-5, published in 2013, redefined the autism spectrum to encompass the previous (DSM-IV-TR) diagnoses of autism, Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and childhood disintegrative disorder. These disorders are characterized by social deficits and communication difficulties, repetitive behaviors and interests, sensory issues, and in some cases, cognitive delays.

Asperger syndrome was distinguished from autism in the earlier DSM-IV by the lack of delay or deviance in early language development. Additionally, individuals diagnosed with Asperger syndrome did not have significant cognitive delays. PDD-NOS was considered “subthreshold autism” and “atypical autism” because it was often characterized by milder symptoms of autism or symptoms in only one domain (such as social difficulties). In the DSM-5, both of these diagnoses have been subsumed into autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorders are considered to be on a spectrum because each individual with ASD expresses the disorder uniquely and has varying degrees of functionality. Many have above-average intellectual abilities and excel in visual skills, music, math, and the arts, while others have significant disabilities and are unable to live independently. About 25 percent of individuals with ASD are nonverbal; however, they may learn to communicate using other means.

Social Communication Symptoms

Social impairments in children with autism can be characterized by a distinctive lack of intuition about others. Unusual social development becomes apparent early in childhood. Infants with ASD show less attention to social stimuli, smile and look at others less often, and respond less to their own name. Toddlers with ASD differ more strikingly from social norms; for example, they may show less eye contact and turn-taking and may not have the ability to use simple movements to express themselves. Individuals with severe forms of ASD do not develop enough natural speech to meet their daily communication needs.

Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors

Children with ASD may exhibit repetitive or restricted behavior, including:

• Stereotypy—repetitive movement, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking.
• Compulsive behavior—exhibiting intention to follow rules, such as arranging objects in stacks or lines.
• Sameness—resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or sticking to an unvarying pattern of daily activities.
• Restricted behavior—limits in focus, interest, or activity, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy, or game.
• Self-injury—movements that injure or can injure the person, such as eye poking, skin picking, hand biting, and head banging.

Figure 8.17 – A boy stacking cans. 30

While specific causes of ASD have yet to be found, many risk factors have been identified in the research literature that may contribute to its development. These risk factors include genetics, prenatal and perinatal factors, neuroanatomical abnormalities, and environmental factors. It is possible to identify general risk factors, but much more difficult to pinpoint specific factors.

ASD affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; thus, it is categorized as a neuro-developmental disorder. The results of family and twin studies suggest that genetic factors play a role in the etiology of ASD and other pervasive developmental disorders. Studies have consistently found that the prevalence of ASD in siblings of children with ASD is approximately 15 to 30 times greater than the rate in the general population. In addition, research suggests that there is a much higher concordance rate among monozygotic (identical) twins compared to dizygotic (fraternal) twins. It appears that there is no single gene that can account for ASD; instead, there seem to be multiple genes involved, each of which is a risk factor for part of the autism syndrome through various groups. It is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations or by combinations of common genetic variants.

The Diversity of the Autism Spectrum

The rainbow-colored infinity symbol represents the diversity of the autism spectrum as well as the greater neurodiversity movement. The neurodiversity movement suggests that diverse neurological conditions appear as a result of normal variations in the human genome. It challenges the idea that such neurological differences are inherently pathological, instead asserting that differences should be recognized and respected as a social category on a par with gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability status.

Figure 8.18 – A symbol of the autism spectrum. 31

Prenatal and Perinatal Factors

A number of prenatal and perinatal complications have been reported as possible risk factors for ASD. These risk factors include maternal gestational diabetes, maternal and paternal age over 30, bleeding after first trimester, use of prescription medication (such as valproate) during pregnancy, and meconium (the earliest stool of an infant) in the amniotic fluid. While research is not conclusive on the relation of these factors to ASD, each of these factors has been identified more frequently in children with ASD than in developing youth without ASD.

Environmental Factors

Evidence for environmental causes is anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies. In the last few decades, controversy surrounded the idea that vaccinations may be the cause for many cases of autism; however, these theories lack scientific evidence and are biologically implausible. Even still, parental concern about a potential vaccine link with autism has led to lower rates of childhood immunizations, outbreaks of previously controlled childhood diseases in some countries, and the preventable deaths of several children.

There is no known cure for ASD, and treatment tends to focus on management of symptoms. The main goals when treating children with ASD are to lessen associated deficits and family distress and to increase quality of life and functional independence. 32 Treatment for ASD should begin as soon as possible after diagnosis. Early treatment for ASD is important as proper care can reduce individuals’ difficulties while helping them learn new skills and make the most of their strengths.

The wide range of issues facing people with ASD means that there is no single best treatment for ASD. 33 So treatment is typically tailored to the individual person’s needs. Intensive, sustained special-education programs and behavior therapy yearly in life can help children acquire self-care, social, and job skills. The most widely used therapy is applied behavior analysis (ABA); other available approaches include developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy, social skills therapy, and occupational therapy. 34

Figure 8.19 – A boy with ASD receiving therapy. 35

There has been increasing attention to the development of evidenced-based interventions for young children with ASD. Although evidence-based interventions for children with ASD vary in their methods, many adopt a psychoeducational approach to enhancing cognitive, communication, and social skills while minimizing behaviors that are thought to be problematic. 36

In this chapter we covered,

• Piaget’s preoperational stage.
• Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.
• Information processing.
• How young children understand the world.
• Typical progression of cognitive and language development (milestones).
• Early childhood education.
• Autism spectrum disorder.

In the next chapter, we will finish covering early childhood education by looking at how children understand themselves and interact with the world.

Child Growth and Development Copyright © by Jean Zaar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Diana Lang; Nick Cone; Laura Overstreet; Stephanie Loalada; Julie Lazzara; Jessica Traylor; and Jamie Skow

Early childhood is a time of pretending, blending fact and fiction, and learning to think of the world using language. Young children move away from needing to touch, feel, and hear about the world toward learning basic principles about how the world works, they hold some pretty interesting initial ideas. For example, a three-year-old child might worry about whether or not they will go down the drain with the water in the bathtub. A child might protest if told that something will happen “tomorrow” but be willing to accept an explanation that an event will occur “today after we sleep.” Concepts such as tomorrow, time, size, fact, fiction, and distance are all tasks typically part of cognitive development during the preschool years.

Piaget’s Second Stage: The Preoperational Stage

Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development following the sensorimotor stage is called the  preoperational   stage  and typically coincides with ages 2-7. The word  operation  refers to the use of logical rules, so sometimes this stage is misinterpreted as implying that children are illogical. While it is true that children at the beginning of the preoperational stage tend to answer questions intuitively as opposed to logically, children in this stage are learning to use language and how to think about the world symbolically. These advances in symbolic thought help build foundations for future stages.

Piaget believed that we are continuously trying to maintain balance in how we understand the world. With rapid increases in motor skill and language development, young children are constantly encountering new experiences, objects, and words. When faced with something new, a child may either assimilate (bringing in new information) it into an existing schema by matching it with something they already know or expand their knowledge structure to accommodate (change the new learning) the new situation. During the preoperational stage, many of the child’s existing schemas will be challenged, expanded, and rearranged. Their whole view of the world may shift.

Pretend Play

Pretend play is typically a favorite activity at this time. For a child in the preoperational stage, a toy has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function and can now be used to stand for a character or object unlike anything originally intended. A laundry basket, for example, can be a boat or flip it over to be the shell of a turtle or hermit crab!

Piaget believed that children’s pretend play and experimentation helped them solidify the new schemas they were developing cognitively. This involves both assimilation and accommodation, which results in changes in their conceptions or thoughts for future logical operations.

Egocentrism

Egocentrism  in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone shares the same feelings, knowledge, and views of the world. Piaget’s classic experiment on egocentrism involved showing children a three-dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see. Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own, rather than the doll’s view. Children tend to display an inability to take on another person’s point of view and perspective. However, when children are speaking to others, they tend to use different sentence structures and vocabulary when addressing a younger child or an older adult.

The children in this interview display egocentrism by believing that the researcher sees the same thing as they do, even after switching positions.

You can  view the transcript for “Piaget – Egocentrism and Perspective Taking (Preoperational and Concrete Operational Stages)” here (opens in new window) .

This video demonstrates that older children are able to look at the mountain from different viewpoints and no longer fall prey to egocentrism.

You can  view the transcript for “Piaget’s Mountains Task” here (opens in new window) .

Precausal Thinking

Similar to preoperational children’s egocentric thinking is their structuring of cause-and-effect relationships based on their limited view of the world. Piaget coined the term “ precausal thinking ” to describe the way in which preoperational children use their own existing ideas or views, like in egocentrism, to explain cause-and-effect relationships. Three main concepts of causality, as displayed by children in the preoperational stage, include animism, artificialism, and transductive reasoning.

Animism  is the belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities. An example could be a child believing that the sidewalk was mad and made them fall down, or that the stars twinkle in the sky because they are happy. To an imaginative child, the cup may be alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child’s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they are tired. They may believe that stuffed animals and objects have feelings just as they do. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive, but after age three, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk, 2007). Many children’s stories and movies capitalize on animistic thinking. Do you remember some of the classic stories that make use of the idea of objects being alive and engaging in lifelike actions?

Artificialism  refers to the belief that environmental characteristics can be attributed to human actions or interventions. For example, a child might say that it is windy outside because someone is blowing very hard, or the clouds are white because someone painted them that color.

Finally, precausal thinking is categorized by transductive reasoning.  Transductive reasoning  is when a child fails to understand the true relationships between cause and effect. Unlike deductive or inductive reasoning (general to specific, or specific to general), transductive reasoning refers to when a child reasons from specific to specific, drawing a relationship between two separate events that are otherwise unrelated. For example, if a child hears a dog bark and then a balloon pop, the child would conclude that because the dog barked, the balloon popped.

Cognition Errors

Between about the ages of four and seven, children tend to become very curious and ask many questions, beginning the use of primitive reasoning. There is an increase in curiosity in the interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are. Piaget called it the “intuitive substage” because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge, but they are unaware of how they acquired it.

Centration and conservation are characteristic of preoperative thought.  Centration  is the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic or dimension of a situation while disregarding all others. An example of centration is a child focusing on the  number  of pieces of cake that each person has, regardless of the size of the pieces. Centration is one of the reasons that young children have difficulty understanding the concept of conservation.  Conservation  is the awareness that altering a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties. Children at this stage are unaware of conservation and exhibit centration. Imagine a 2-year-old and 4-year-old eating lunch. The 4-year-old has a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He notices, however, that his younger sister’s sandwich is cut in half and protests, “She has more!” He is exhibiting centration by focusing on the number of pieces, which results in a conservation error.

In Piaget’s famous conservation task, a child is presented with two identical beakers containing the same amount of liquid. The child usually notes that the beakers do contain the same amount of liquid. When one of the beakers is poured into a taller and thinner container, children who are younger than seven or eight years old typically say that the two beakers no longer contain the same amount of liquid, and that the taller container holds the larger quantity (centration), without taking into consideration the fact that both beakers were previously noted to contain the same amount of liquid.

Irreversibility is also demonstrated during this stage and is closely related to the ideas of centration and conservation.  Irreversibility  refers to the young child’s difficulty mentally reversing a sequence of events. In the beaker situation, the child does not realize that, if the liquid was poured back into the original beaker, then the same amount of liquid would exist.

Centration, conservation errors, and irreversibility are indications that young children are reliant on visual representations. Another example of children’s reliance on visual representations is their misunderstanding of “less than” or “more than”. When two rows containing equal amounts of blocks are placed in front of a child with one row spread farther apart than the other, the child will think that the row spread farther contains more blocks. When something takes up more space it is seen as having more.

This clip shows how younger children struggle with the concept of conservation and demonstrate irreversibility.

You can  view the transcript for “Piaget – Stage 2 – Preoperational – Lack of Conservation” here (opens in new window) .

Class inclusion refers to a kind of conceptual thinking that children in the preoperational stage cannot yet grasp. Children’s inability to focus on two aspects of a situation at once (centration) inhibits them from understanding the principle that one category or class can contain several different subcategories or classes. Preoperational children also have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, a four-year-old girl may be shown a picture of eight dogs and three cats. The girl knows what cats and dogs are, and she is aware that they are both animals. However, when asked, “Are there more dogs or more animals?” she is likely to answer “more dogs.” This is due to her difficulty focusing on the two subclasses and the larger class all at the same time. She may have been able to view the dogs as dogs or animals, but struggled when trying to classify them as both, simultaneously. Similar to this is a concept relating to intuitive thought, known as “transitive inference.”

Transitive inference is using previous knowledge to determine the missing piece, using basic logic. Children in the preoperational stage lack this logic. An example of transitive inference would be when a child is presented with the information “A” is greater than “B” and “B” is greater than “C.” The young child may have difficulty understanding that “A” is also greater than “C” unless clearly defined.

As the child’s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, they are more able to think logically, demonstrate an understanding of conservation, and classify objects.

Was Piaget Right?

It certainly seems that children in the preoperational stage make the mistakes in logic that Piaget suggests that they will make. That said, it is important to remember that there is variability in terms of the ages at which children reach and exit each stage. Further, there is some evidence that children can be taught to think in more logical ways far before the end of the preoperational period. For example, as soon as a child can reliably count, they may be able to learn conservation of number. For many children, this is around age five. More complex conservation tasks, however, may not be mastered until closer to the end of the stage around age seven.

Theory of Mind

How do we come to understand how our mind works? The  theory of mind  is the understanding that the mind holds people’s beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions. One component of this is understanding that the mind can be tricked or that the mind is not always accurate.

A two-year-old child does not understand very much about how their mind works. They learn through imitation, they start to understand that people do not always agree on things they like, and they have a basic understanding of cause and effect (although they often fall prey to transitive reasoning). By the time a child is four, their theory of the mind allows them to understand that people think differently, have different preferences, and even mask their true feelings by putting on a different face that differs from how they truly feel inside.

To think about what this might look like in the real world, imagine showing a three-year-old child a bandaid box and asking the child what is in the box. Chances are, the child will reply, “bandaids.” Now imagine that you open the box and pour out crayons. If you now ask the child what they thought was in the box before it was opened, they may respond, “crayons.” If you ask what a friend would have thought was in the box, the response would still be “crayons.” Why?

Before about four years of age, a child does not recognize that the mind can hold ideas that are not accurate, so this three-year-old changes their response once shown that the box contains crayons. The child’s response can also be explained in terms of egocentrism and irreversibility. The child’s response is based on their current view rather than seeing the situation from another person’s perspective (egocentrism) or thinking about how they arrived at their conclusion (irreversibility). At around age four, the child would likely reply, “bandaids” when asked after seeing the crayons because by this age a child is beginning to understand that thoughts and realities do not always match.

Theory of Mind and Social Intelligence

This awareness of the existence of mind is part of social intelligence and the ability to recognize that others can think differently about situations. It helps us to be self-conscious or aware that others can think of us in different ways, and it helps us to be able to be understanding or empathic toward others. This developing social intelligence helps us to anticipate and predict the actions of others. The awareness of the mental states of others is important for communication and social skills. A child who demonstrates this skill is able to anticipate the needs of others.

Autism and Impaired Theory of Mind

People with autism or an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically show an impaired ability to recognize other people’s minds. A utism  is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Children with this disorder typically show signs of significant disturbances in three main areas: (a) deficits in social interaction, (b) deficits in communication, and (c) repetitive patterns of behavior or interests. These disturbances tend to be present in early childhood, typically before age three, and may lead to clinically significant functional impairment. Symptoms may include lack of social or emotional reciprocity, stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language, and persistent preoccupation with unusual objects.

About half of parents of children with ASD notice their child’s unique behaviors by age 18 months, and about four-fifths notice by age 24 months, but often a diagnoses comes later, and individual cases vary significantly. Typical early signs of autism include:

• No babbling by 12 months.
• No gesturing (pointing, waving, etc.) by 12 months.
• No single words by 16 months.
• No two-word (spontaneous, not just echolalic) phrases by 24 months.
• Loss of any language or social skills, at any age.

Communication deficits can range from a complete lack of speech to one-word responses (e.g., saying “Yes” or “No” when replying to questions or statements that require additional elaboration), to echoed speech (e.g., parroting what another person says, either immediately or several hours or even days later), to difficulty maintaining a conversation because of an inability to reciprocate others’ comments. These deficits can also include problems in using and understanding nonverbal cues (e.g., facial expressions, gestures, and postures) that facilitate normal communication.

Repetitive patterns of behavior or interests can be exhibited in a number of ways. The child might engage in stereotyped, repetitive movements (rocking, head-banging, or repeatedly dropping an object and then picking it up), or she might show great distress at small changes in routine or the environment. For example, the child might throw a temper tantrum if an object is not in its proper place or if a regularly- scheduled activity is rescheduled. In some cases, the person with an autism spectrum disorder might show highly restricted and fixated interests that appear to be abnormal in their intensity. For instance, the child might learn and memorize every detail about something even though doing so serves no apparent purpose. Importantly, autism spectrum disorder is not the same thing as intellectual disability, although these two conditions can occur together.

The qualifier “spectrum” in autism spectrum disorder is used to indicate that individuals with the disorder can show a range, or spectrum, of symptoms that vary in their magnitude and severity: Some severe, others less severe. Some individuals with an autism spectrum disorder, particularly those with better language and intellectual skills, can live and work independently as adults. However, most do not because the symptoms remain sufficient to cause serious impairment in many realms of life. [1]

Causes of Autism

Estimates indicate that nearly 1 in 88 children in the United States has autism spectrum disorder; the disorder is 5 times more common in boys (1 out of 54) than girls (1 out of 252). [2] The exact causes of autism spectrum disorder remain unknown despite massive research efforts over the last two decades. [3] Autism appears to be strongly influenced by genetics, as identical twins show concordance rates of 60%–90%, whereas concordance rates for fraternal twins and siblings are 5%–10%. [4] Many different genes and gene mutations have been implicated in autism. [5] Among the genes involved are those important in the formation of synaptic circuits that facilitate communication between different areas of the brain (Gauthier et al., 2011). A number of environmental factors are also thought to be associated with increased risk for autism spectrum disorder, at least in part, because they contribute to new mutations. These factors include exposure to pollutants, such as plant emissions and mercury, urban versus rural residence, and vitamin D deficiency. [6]

There is no scientific evidence that a link exists between autism and vaccinations. [7] Indeed, a recent study compared the vaccination histories of 256 children with autism spectrum disorder with that of 752 control children across three time periods during their first 2 years of life (birth to 3 months, birth to 7 months, and birth to 2 years). [8] At the time of the study, the children were between 6 and 13 years old, and their prior vaccination records were obtained. Because vaccines contain immunogens (substances that fight infections), the investigators examined medical records to see how many immunogens children received to determine if those children who received more immunogens were at greater risk for developing autism spectrum disorder. The results of this study clearly demonstrated that the number of immunogens from vaccines received during the first 2 years of life was not at all related to the development of autism spectrum disorder.

Language Development

A child’s vocabulary expands between the ages of two to six from about 200 words to over 10,000 words through a process called  fast-mapping . Words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known. The parts of speech that are learned depend on the language and what is emphasized. Children speaking verb-friendly languages such as Chinese and Japanese tend to learn verbs more readily, but those learning less verb-friendly languages such as English seem to need assistance in grammar to master the use of verbs. [9] Children are also very creative in creating their own words to use as labels such as a “take-care-of” when referring to John, the character on the cartoon Garfield, who takes care of the cat.

Children can repeat words and phrases after having heard them only once or twice, but they do not always understand the meaning of the words or phrases. Figures of speech and expressions are often taken literally instead of figuratively. For example, two preschool-aged girls began to laugh loudly while listening to a tape-recording of Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” when the narrator reports, “Prince Phillip lost his head!” They imagine his head popping off and rolling down the hill as he runs and searches for it. Or a classroom full of preschoolers hears the teacher say, “Wow! That was a piece of cake!” The children began asking “Cake? Where is my cake? I want cake!”

Overregularization

Children learn the rules of grammar as they learn the language. Some of these rules are not taught explicitly, and others are. Often when learning language intuitively children apply rules inappropriately at first. But even after successfully navigating the rule for a while, at times, explicitly teaching a child a grammar rule may cause them to make mistakes they had previously not been making. For instance, two- to three-year-old children may say “I goed there” or “I doed that” as they understand intuitively that adding “ed” to a word makes it mean “something I did in the past.” As the child hears the correct grammar rule applied by the people around them, they correctly begin to say “I went there” and “I did that.” It would seem that the child has solidly learned the grammar rule, but it is actually common for the developing child to revert back to their original mistake. This happens as they  overregulate  the rule. This can happen because they intuitively discover the rule and overgeneralize it or because they are explicitly taught to add “ed” to the end of a word to indicate past tense in school. A child who had previously produced correct sentences may start to form incorrect sentences such as, “I goed there. I doed that.” These children are able to quickly re-learn the correct exceptions to the -ed rule.

Vygotsky and Language Development 

Lev Vygotsky hypothesized that children had a  zone of proximal development (ZPD) . The ZPD is the range of material that a child is ready to learn if proper support and guidance are given from either a peer who understands the material or by an adult. We can see the benefit of this sort of guidance when we think about the acquisition of language. Children can be assisted in learning language by others who listen attentively, model more accurate pronunciations and encourage elaboration. For example, if the child exclaims, “I’m goed there!” then the adult responds, “You went there?”

Children may be hard-wired for language development, as Noam Chomsky suggested in his theory of universal grammar, but active participation is also important for language development. The process of  scaffolding  is one in which the guide provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned. Repeating what a child has said, but in a grammatically correct way, is scaffolding for a child who is struggling with the rules of language production. Scaffolding is a process of integrating new information to solve problems and adapt to the environment.

Private Speech

When you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation, we may talk to ourselves. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as egocentric speech, or speech engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from other points of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in  private speech or inner speech. Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something, etc. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others. [10]

30 Million Word Gap

To accomplish the tremendous rate of word learning that needs to occur during early childhood, it is important that children are learning new words each day. Research by Betty Hart and Todd Risley in the late 1990s and early 2000s indicated that children from less advantaged backgrounds tend to be exposed to millions of fewer words in their first three years of life than children who come from more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds. In their research, families were classified by socioeconomic status (SES), into “high” (professional), “middle” (working class), and “low” (welfare) SES. They found that the average child in a professional family hears 2,153 words per waking hour, the average child in a working-class family hears 1,251 words per hour, and an average child in a welfare family only 616 words per hour. Extrapolating, they stated that, “in four years, an average child in a professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family 26 million words, and an average child in a welfare family 13 million words.” The line of thinking following their study is that children from more affluent households would enter school knowing more words, which would give them advantage in school.

Hart and Risley’s research has been criticized by scholars. Critics theorize that the language and achievement gaps are not a result of the number of words a child is exposed to, but rather alternative theories suggest it could reflect the disconnect of linguistic practices between home and school. Thus, judging academic success and linguistic capabilities from socioeconomic status may ignore bigger societal issues. A recent replication of Hart and Risley’s study with found that the “word gap” may be closer to 5 million words, not the oft-cited 30 million words previously proposed. The ongoing word gap research is evidence of the importance of language development in early childhood.

What do you think about this “word gap” notion?

Psychodynamic and Psychosocial Theories of Early Childhood

Freud’s psychodynamic theory.

Consistent with the sexual development we learned about in the health section, Freud asserted that children pass through two stages of his theory during early childhood: stage 2 (anal stage) and stage 3 (phallic stage).

The  anal stage  begins around 18 months of age and lasts until the child is three years old. During the anal stage, Freud believed that the libido source shifted from the mouth (in stage 1) to the anus. The child, then, receives pleasure from defecating. The child, at this point, understands that they have some amount of control over their lives, including control of when and where they defecate. This can lead to difficulties during potty training. What matters, in terms of Freud’s theory, is how the parent reacts to inevitable difficulties in potty training. Parental reactions during potty training may set-up their child to react in one of two ways: (1) parents who are harsh or who ridicule the child for mistakes may have children who stubbornly hold on to their feces in an effort to not have an accident – these children may become anal retentive or (2) parents who are too easy going may have a child who reacts by purposefully making a mess – these children may become anal expulsive. Adults who are anal retentive tend to be stubborn, very neat, rigid, and stingy. Adults who are anal expulsive tend to be messy, wasteful, and harsh.

The phallic stage of psychosexual development occurs from ages three to six. According to Freud, during the  phallic stage,  the child develops an attraction to the opposite sex parent, which is called the Oedipus Complex for boys and the Electra Complex for girls. When the child recognizes that the opposite sex parent is unavailable, the child learns to model their own behavior after the same-sex parent. The child develops their own sense of masculinity or femininity from this resolution.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory: Initiative vs. Guilt

While Erik Erikson was influenced by Freud, he believed that the relationships that people have, not psychosexual stages, are what influence personality development. At the beginning of early childhood, the child is still in the autonomy versus shame and doubt stage (stage 2).

By age three, the child begins stage 3: initiative versus guilt. The trust and autonomy of previous stages develop into a desire to take initiative or to think of ideas and initiate action. Children are curious at this age and start to ask questions so that they can learn about the world. Parents should try to answer those questions without making the child feel like a burden or implying that the child’s question is not worth asking.

These children are also beginning to use their imagination. Children may want to build a fort with the cushions from the living room couch, open a lemonade stand in the driveway, or make a zoo with their stuffed animals and issue tickets to those who want to come. Children are more assertive in social interactions and activities. Another way that children may express autonomy is in wanting to get themselves ready for bed without any assistance. To reinforce taking initiative, caregivers should offer praise for the child’s efforts and avoid being overly critical of messes or mistakes. Soggy washrags and toothpaste left in the sink pale in comparison to the smiling face of a five-year-old emerging from the bathroom with clean teeth and pajamas!

That said, it is important that caregivers do their best to kindly guide the child to the right actions. Remember that according to Freud and Kohlberg, children are developing a sense of morality during this time. Erikson agrees. If the child does leave those soggy washrags in the sink, have the child help clean them up. It is possible that the child will not be happy with helping to clean, and the child may even become aggressive or angry, but it is important to remember that children are still learning how to navigate their world. They are trying to build a sense of autonomy, and they may not react well when they are asked to do something that they had not planned. Parents should be aware of this, and try to be understanding, but also firm. The use of gentle parenting, positive discipline, and related consequence will help guide children to positive behaviors. Guilt for a situation where a child did not do their best allows a child to understand their responsibilities and helps the child learn to exercise self-control (remember the marshmallow test). The goal is to find a balance between initiative and guilt, not a free-for-all where the parent allows the child to do anything they want to. Caregivers must guide children if they are to have a successful resolution in this stage.

Movies, television, and media, in general, provide many examples of psychosocial development. The movie clips in this video demonstrate Erikson’s third stage of development, initiative versus guilt. What other examples can you think of to demonstrate young children developing a sense of autonomy?

You can  view the transcript for “initiative vs guilt wlmp 2” here (opens in new window) .

Social Development: The Importance of Play

Three types she labeled as non-social (unoccupied, solitary, and onlooker) and three types were categorized as social play (parallel, associative, and cooperative). Younger children engage in non-social play more than those older; by age five associative and cooperative play are the most common forms of play. [11]

The development of play is an important milestone in early childhood. Play holds a crucial role in providing a safe, caring, protective, confidential, and containing space where children can recreate themselves and their experiences through an exploratory process. [12] [13] Freud, Vygotsky, and Piaget all viewed play as providing positive outcomes for children.

Further, Parten [14] observed 2 to 5-year-old children and noted six types of play. During this stage, pretend play allows children to express their thoughts, emotions, fears, and anxieties. Early childhood play can be understood by observing the elements of fantasy, organization, and comfort. Fantasy, the process of make-believe, is an essential behavior the child engages in during pretend play; organization helps the child to structure pretend play into a story and to utilize cause-and-effect thinking; and comfort is used to assess the ease and pleasure in the engagement in play. [15]

As children progress through the stage of early childhood, they also progress through several stages of non-social and social play. Stages of play is a theory and classification of participation in play developed by Mildred Parten Newhall in 1929. [16]  Parten observed American children at free play. She recognized six different types of play:

• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition (DSM-V). Washington, DC: Author. ↵
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012). Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders, autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, 14 sites, United States, 2008. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Surveillance Summaries, 61(3), 1–19. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6103.pdf ↵
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• Autism Genome Project Consortium. (2007). Mapping autism risk loci using genetic linkage and chromosomal rearrangements. Nature Genetics, 39 , 319–328. ↵
• Kimmel, M. S. (2008). The gendered society (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kinney, D. K., Barch, D. H., Chayka, B., Napoleon, S., & Munir, K. M. (2009). Environmental risk factors for autism: Do they help or cause de novo genetic mutations that contribute to the disorder? Medical Hypotheses, 74, 102–106. ↵
• Hughes, V. (2007). Mercury rising. Nature Medicine, 13 , 896-897. ↵
• DeStefano, F., Price, C. S., & Weintraub, E. S. (2013). Increasing exposures to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines is not associated with risk of autism. The Journal of Pediatrics, 163 , 561–567. ↵
• Imai, M., Li, L., Haryu, E., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., & Shigematsu, J. (2008). Novel noun and verb learning in Chinese, English, and Japanese children: Universality and language-specificity in novel noun and verb learning. Child Development, 79, 979-1000. ↵
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ↵
• Dyer, S., & Moneta, G. B. (2006). Frequency of parallel, associative, and cooperative play in British children of different socio-economic status. Social Behavior and Personality, 34(5), 587-592. ↵
• Winnicott, D. W. (2016). Why children play. Oxford University Press. ↵
• Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd Ed.). New York: Norton. ↵
• Parten, M. B. (1932). Social participation among pre-school children. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27(3), 243–269. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0074524 ↵
• Salcuni Silvia, Di Riso Daniela, Mabilia Diana, Lis Adriana (2017). "Psychotherapy with a 3-Year-Old Child: The Role of Play in the Unfolding Process". Frontiers in Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02021/full ↵
• Hughes, F. P. (2009). Children, play, and development (4th ed.). SAGE Publications. ↵
• Table 1 Source: Development through the Lifespan by Alisa Beyer and Julie Lazzara, licensed CC BY NC SA, ↵

Individual and Family Development, Health, and Well-being Copyright © 2022 by Diana Lang; Nick Cone; Laura Overstreet; Stephanie Loalada; Julie Lazzara; Jessica Traylor; and Jamie Skow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Key Features

• Constructivist approach to learning : Piaget believed that children actively construct their understanding of the world rather than passively absorbing information. This emphasizes the child’s role as a “little scientist,” exploring and making sense of their environment.
• Developmental Stages : Piaget proposed four sequential stages of cognitive development, each marked by distinct thinking patterns, progressing from infancy to adolescence.
• Schemas : Schemas are mental frameworks that help individuals organize and interpret information. As children grow and learn, their schemas become more numerous and sophisticated, allowing for more complex understanding of the world.
• Assimilation : Incorporating new information into preexisting ideas and schemas.
• Accommodation : Modifying existing schemas or creating new ones to fit new information.
• Equilibration : This is how children progress through cognitive developmental stages. It involves balancing assimilation and accommodation, driving the shift from one stage of thought to the next as children encounter and resolve cognitive conflicts.

Stages of Development

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

Each child goes through the stages in the same order (but not all at the same rate), and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is qualitatively different from the other stages, that is, each stage involves a different type of intelligence.

Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages.

Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age – although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: birth to 2 years.

During the sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2) infants develop basic motor skills and learn to perceive and interact with their environment through physical sensations and body coordination.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

• The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring their environment).
• During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition (the child realizes that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play.
• Cognitive abilities relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally
• At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them, and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

At the beginning of this stage, the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world stored in its memory, so it does not have a sense of object permanence.

If it cannot see something, then it does not exist. This is why you can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not search for the object once it has gone out of sight.

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.

Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins to appear where children show in their play that they can use one object to stand for another. Language starts to appear because they realise that words can be used to represent objects and feelings.

The child begins to be able to store information about the world, recall it, and label it.

Individual Differences

• Cultural Practices : In some cultures, babies are carried on their mothers’ backs throughout the day. This constant physical contact and varied stimuli can influence how a child perceives their environment and their sense of object permanence.
• Gender Norms : Toys assigned to babies can differ based on gender expectations. A boy might be given more cars or action figures, while a girl might receive dolls or kitchen sets. This can influence early interactions and sensory explorations.

Learn More: The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 – 7 years.

Piaget’s second stage of intellectual development is the preoperational stage , which occurs between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage, the child does not use operations (a set of logical rules), so thinking is influenced by how things look or appear to them rather than logical reasoning.

For example, a child might think a tall, thin glass contains more liquid than a short, wide glass, even if both hold the same amount, because they focus on the height rather than considering both dimensions.

Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does, as shown in the Three Mountains study.

As the preoperational stage develops, egocentrism declines, and children begin to enjoy the participation of another child in their games, and let’s pretend play becomes more important.

Toddlers often pretend to be people they are not (e.g. superheroes, policemen), and may play these roles with props that symbolize real-life objects. Children may also invent an imaginary playmate.

• Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
• During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
• A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem-solving) type of thought.
• Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.
• Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

By 2 years, children have made some progress toward detaching their thoughts from the physical world. However, have not yet developed logical (or “operational”) thought characteristics of later stages.

Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgments about situations) and egocentric (centered on the child’s own view of the world).

• Cultural Storytelling : Different cultures have unique stories, myths, and folklore. Children from diverse backgrounds might understand and interpret symbolic elements differently based on their cultural narratives.
• Race & Representation : A child’s racial identity can influence how they engage in pretend play. For instance, a lack of diverse representation in media and toys might lead children of color to recreate scenarios that don’t reflect their experiences or background.

Learn More: The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 – 11 years.

By the beginning of the concrete operational stage , the child can use operations (a set of logical rules) so they can conserve quantities, realize that people see the world in a different way (decentring), and demonstrate improvement in inclusion tasks.

Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.

• During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.
• Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.
• During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g., picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
• During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.

The stage is called concrete because children can think logically much more successfully if they can manipulate real (concrete) materials or pictures of them.

Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child’s cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).

Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.

But operational thought is only effective here if the child is asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.

• Cultural Context in Conservation Tasks : In a society where resources are scarce, children might demonstrate conservation skills earlier due to the cultural emphasis on preserving and reusing materials.
• Gender & Learning : Stereotypes about gender abilities, like “boys are better at math,” can influence how children approach logical problems or classify objects based on perceived gender norms.

Learn More: The Concrete Operational Stage of Development

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and over.

The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think abstractly, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.

Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas; for example, they can understand division and fractions without having to actually divide things up and solve hypothetical (imaginary) problems.

• Concrete operations are carried out on physical objects, whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
• During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g., they no longer need to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
• They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
• Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. For example, if asked, ‘What would happen if money were abolished in one hour?’ they could speculate about many possible consequences.
• Piaget described reflective abstraction as the process by which individuals become aware of and reflect upon their own cognitive actions or operations (metacognition).

From about 12 years, children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

This stage sees the emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.

• Culture & Abstract Thinking : Cultures emphasize different kinds of logical or abstract thinking. For example, in societies with a strong oral tradition, the ability to hold complex narratives might develop prominently.
• 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.

Learn More: The Formal Operational Stage of Development

Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget’s theory places a strong emphasis on the active role that children play in their own cognitive development.
• According to Piaget, children are not passive recipients of information; instead, they actively explore and interact with their surroundings.
• This active engagement with the environment is crucial because it allows them to gradually build their understanding of the world.

1. How Piaget Developed the Theory

Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking.

He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.

Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:

• Children’s intelligence differs from an adult’s in quality rather than in quantity. This means that children reason (think) differently from adults and see the world in different ways.
• Children actively build up their knowledge about the world . They are not passive creatures waiting for someone to fill their heads with knowledge.
• The best way to understand children’s reasoning is to see things from their point of view.

Piaget did not want to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number , time, quantity, causality , justice , and so on emerged.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence using naturalistic observation of his own three babies and sometimes controlled observation too. From these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development.

He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

2. Piaget’s Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

Piaget’s (1936, 1950) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world.

He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

Children’s ability to understand, think about, and solve problems in the world develops in a stop-start, discontinuous manner (rather than gradual changes over time).

• It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
• It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
• It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.

The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses.

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.

Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.

A schema is a mental framework or concept that helps us organize and interpret information. It’s like a mental file folder where we store knowledge about a particular object, event, or concept.

According to Piaget (1952), schemas are fundamental building blocks of cognitive development. They are constantly being created, modified, and reorganized as we interact with the world.

Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be thought of as “index cards” filed in the brain, each one telling an individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.

According to Piaget, we are born with a few primitive schemas, such as sucking, which give us the means to interact with the world. These initial schemas are physical, but as the child develops, they become mental schemas.

For example:

• Babies have a sucking reflex, triggered by something touching their lips. This corresponds to a “sucking schema.”
• The grasping reflex, elicited when something touches the palm of a baby’s hand, represents another innate schema.
• The rooting reflex, where a baby turns its head towards something which touches its cheek, is also considered an innate schema.

When Piaget discussed the development of a person’s mental processes, he referred to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that the person had learned.

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.

Operations are more sophisticated mental structures that allow us to combine schemas in a logical (reasonable) way. For example, picking up a rattle would combine three schemas, gazing, reaching and grasping.

As children grow, they can carry out more complex operations and begin to imagine hypothetical (imaginary) situations.

Operations are learned through interaction with other people and the environment, and they represent a key advancement in cognitive development beyond simple schemas.

As children grow and interact with their environment, these basic schemas become more complex and numerous, and new schemas are developed through the processes of assimilation and accommodation .

4. The Process of Adaptation

Piaget (1952) believed child development results from maturation and environmental interaction. Adaptation is the process of changing mental models to match reality, achieved through assimilation and accommodation.

• Assimilation is fitting new information into existing schemas without changing one’s understanding. For example,  a child who has only seen small dogs might call a cat a “dog” due to similar features like fur, four legs, and a tail.
• Accommodation occurs when existing schemas must be revised to incorporate new information. For instance, a child who believes all animals have four legs would need to accommodate their schema upon seeing a snake. A baby tries to use the same grasping schema to pick up a very small object. It doesn’t work. The baby then changes the schema using the forefinger and thumb to pick up the object.

When schemas explain our perceptions, we’re in equilibration. New, unexplainable situations create disequilibrium, motivating learning. This cognitive conflict, where contradictory views exist, drives development.

Piaget viewed intellectual growth as an adaptation to the world through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. These processes are continuous and interactive, allowing schemas to evolve and become more sophisticated.

Jean 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.

5. Equilibration

Piaget (1985) believed that all human thought seeks order and is uncomfortable with contradictions and inconsistencies in knowledge structures. In other words, we seek “equilibrium” in our cognitive structures.

Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.

Equilibration is a regulatory process that maintains a balance between assimilation and accommodation to facilitate cognitive growth. Think of it this way: We can’t merely assimilate all the time; if we did, we would never learn any new concepts or principles.

Everything new we encountered would just get put in the same few “slots” we already had. Neither can we accommodate all the time; if we did, everything we encountered would seem new; there would be no recurring regularities in our world. We’d be exhausted by the mental effort!

Applications to Education

Think of old black-and-white films you’ve seen where children sat in rows at desks with inkwells. They learned by rote, all chanting in unison in response to questions set by an authoritarian figure like Miss Trunchbull in Matilda.

Children who were unable to keep up were seen as slacking and would be punished by variations on the theme of corporal punishment. Yes, it really did happen and in some parts of the world still does today.

Piaget is partly responsible for the change that occurred in the 1960s and for your relatively pleasurable and pain-free school days!

“Children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers, of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that in order for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must re-invent it. Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand that which we allow him to discover by himself will remain with him visibly”. Piaget (1972, p. 27)

Plowden Report

Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget’s theory can be applied to teaching and learning.

Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching practice. For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden Report (1967).

In the 1960s the Plowden Committee investigated the deficiencies in education and decided to incorporate many of Piaget’s ideas into its final report published in 1967, even though Piaget’s work was not really designed for education.

The report makes three Piaget-associated recommendations:

• Children should be given individual attention and it should be realized that they need to be treated differently.
• Children should only be taught things that they are capable of learning
• Children mature at different rates and the teacher needs to be aware of the stage of development of each child so teaching can be tailored to their individual needs.

The report’s recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children’s learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children’s progress – teachers should “not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.”

Discovery learning, the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring, was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.

How to teach

Learning should be student-centered and accomplished through active discovery in the classroom. The teacher’s role is to facilitate learning rather than direct tuition.

Because Piaget’s theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of “readiness” is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught.

According to Piaget’s theory, children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.

Consequently, education should be stage-specific, with curricula developed to match the age and stage of thinking of the child. For example, abstract concepts like algebra or atomic structure are not suitable for primary school children.

Assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered (Piaget, 1958).

Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:

• Consider the stages of cognitive development : Educational programs should be designed to correspond to Piaget’s stages of development. For example, a child in the concrete operational stage should not be taught abstract concepts and should be given concrete aid such as tokens to count with.
• Provide concrete experiences before abstract concepts : Especially for younger children, ensure they have hands-on experiences with concepts before introducing more abstract representations.
• Provide challenges that promote growth without causing frustration : Devising situations that present useful problems and create disequilibrium in the child.
• Focus on the process of learning rather than the end product : Instead of checking if children have the right answer, the teacher should focus on the students’ understanding and the processes they used to arrive at the answer.
• Encourage active learning : Learning must be active (discovery learning). Children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge. Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing “truths.”
• Foster social interaction: Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other). Implement cooperative learning activities, such as group problem-solving tasks or role-playing scenarios.
• Differentiated teaching : Adapt lessons to suit the needs of the individual child. For example, observe a child’s ability to classify objects by color, shape, and size. If they can easily sort by one attribute but struggle with multiple attributes, tailor future activities to gradually increase complexity, such as sorting buttons first by color, then by color and size together.
• Providing support for the “spontaneous research” of the child : Provide opportunities and resources for children to explore topics of their own interest, encouraging their natural curiosity and self-directed learning. Create a “Wonder Wall” in the classroom where children can post questions about topics that interest them. 

Classroom Activities

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years):.

Although most kids in this age range are not in a traditional classroom setting, they can still benefit from games that stimulate their senses and motor skills.

• 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.
• Sensory Play : Activities like water play, sand play, or playdough encourage exploration through touch.
• Imitation : Children at this age love to imitate adults. Use imitation as a way to teach new skills.

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years):

• Role Playing : Set up pretend play areas where children can act out different scenarios, such as a kitchen, hospital, or market.
• Use of Symbols : Encourage drawing, building, and using props to represent other things.
• Hands-on Activities : Children should interact physically with their environment, so provide plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
• Egocentrism Activities : Use exercises that highlight different perspectives. For instance, having two children sit across from each other with an object in between and asking them what the other sees.

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):

• Classification Tasks : Provide objects or pictures to group, based on various characteristics.
• Hands-on Experiments : Introduce basic science experiments where they can observe cause and effect, like a simple volcano with baking soda and vinegar.
• Logical Games : Board games, puzzles, and logic problems help develop their thinking skills.
• Conservation Tasks : Use experiments to showcase that quantity doesn’t change with alterations in shape, such as the classic liquid conservation task using differently shaped glasses.

Formal Operational Stage (11 years and older):

• Hypothesis Testing : Encourage students to make predictions and test them out.
• Abstract Thinking : Introduce topics that require abstract reasoning, such as algebra or ethical dilemmas.
• Problem Solving : Provide complex problems and have students work on solutions, integrating various subjects and concepts.
• Debate and Discussion : Encourage group discussions and debates on abstract topics, highlighting the importance of logic and evidence.
• Feedback and Questioning : Use open-ended questions to challenge students and promote higher-order thinking. For instance, rather than asking, “Is this the right answer?”, ask, “How did you arrive at this conclusion?”

While Piaget’s stages offer a foundational framework, they are not universally experienced in the same way by all children.

Social identities play a critical role in shaping cognitive development, necessitating a more nuanced and culturally responsive approach to understanding child development.

Piaget’s stages may manifest differently based on social identities like race, gender, and culture:

• Race & Teacher Interactions : A child’s race can influence teacher expectations and interactions. For example, racial biases can lead to children of color being perceived as less capable or more disruptive, influencing their cognitive challenges and support.
• Racial and Cultural Stereotypes : These can affect a child’s self-perception and self-efficacy . For instance, stereotypes about which racial or cultural groups are “better” at certain subjects can influence a child’s self-confidence and, subsequently, their engagement in that subject.
• Gender & Peer Interactions : Children learn gender roles from their peers. Boys might be mocked for playing “girl games,” and girls might be excluded from certain activities, influencing their cognitive engagements.
• 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.

Overcoming Challenges and Barriers to Implementation

Balancing play and curriculum.

• Purposeful Play: Ensuring that play is not just free time but a structured learning experience requires careful planning. Educators must identify clear learning objectives and create play environments that facilitate these goals.  
• Alignment with Standards: Striking a balance between child-initiated play and curriculum expectations can be challenging. Educators need to find ways to integrate play-based learning with broader educational goals and standards.
• Pace of Learning: The curriculum’s focus on specific content by certain ages can create pressure to accelerate student learning, potentially contradicting Piaget’s notion of developmental stages. Teachers should regularly assess students’ understanding to identify areas where they need more support or challenge.
• Assessment Focus: The emphasis on standardized testing can shift the focus from process-oriented learning (as Piaget advocated) to outcome-based teaching. Educators should use assessments that reflect real-world tasks and allow students to demonstrate their understanding in multiple ways.
• Parental Expectations: Some parents may have misconceptions about play-based learning, believing it to be less rigorous than traditional instruction. Educators may need to address these concerns and communicate the value of play. 
• Parental Involvement: Involving parents in understanding Piaget’s theory can foster consistency between home and school environments. Providing resources and information to parents about child development can empower them to support their child’s learning at home.

Other challenges

• Individual Differences: Piaget emphasized individual differences in cognitive development, but classrooms often have diverse learners. Meeting the needs of all students while maintaining a play-based approach can be demanding.
• Time Constraints: In some educational settings, there may be pressure to cover specific content or prepare students for standardized tests. Prioritizing play-based learning within these constraints can be difficult.    
• Cultural Sensitivity: Recognizing and respecting cultural differences is essential. Piaget’s theory may need to be adapted to fit the specific cultural context of the children being taught.

Can Piaget’s Ideas Be Applied to Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities?

Yes, Piaget’s ideas can be adapted to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), though with important considerations:

• Individualized Approach : Tailor learning experiences to each child’s unique strengths, needs, and interests, recognizing that development may not follow typical patterns or timelines (Daniels & Diack, 1977).
• Concrete Learning Experiences : Provide hands-on, multisensory activities to support concept exploration, particularly beneficial for children with learning difficulties or sensory impairments (Lee & Zentall, 2012).
• Gradual Scaffolding : Break down tasks into manageable steps and provide appropriate support to help children progress through developmental stages at their own pace (Morra & Borella, 2015).
• Flexible Assessment : Modify Piagetian tasks to accommodate different abilities and communication methods, using multiple assessment approaches.
• Strengths-Based Focus : Emphasize children’s capabilities rather than deficits, using Piaget’s concepts to identify and build upon existing cognitive strengths.
• Interdisciplinary Approach : Combine Piagetian insights with specialized knowledge from fields like occupational therapy and speech-language pathology.

While Piaget’s theory offers valuable insights, it should be part of a broader, evidence-based approach that recognizes the diverse factors influencing development in children with SEND.

Social Media (Digital Learning)

Jean Piaget could not have anticipated the expansive digital age we now live in.

Today, knowledge dissemination and creation are democratized by the Internet, with platforms like blogs, wikis, and social media allowing for vast collaboration and shared knowledge. This development has prompted a reimagining of the future of education.

Classrooms, traditionally seen as primary sites of learning, are being overshadowed by the rise of mobile technologies and platforms like MOOCs (Passey, 2013).

The millennial generation, the first to grow up with cable TV, the internet, and cell phones, relies heavily on technology.

They view it as an integral part of their identity, with most using it extensively in their daily lives, from keeping in touch with loved ones to consuming news and entertainment (Nielsen, 2014).

Social media platforms offer a dynamic environment conducive to Piaget’s principles. These platforms allow interactions that nurture knowledge evolution through cognitive processes like assimilation and accommodation.

They emphasize communal interaction and shared activity, fostering both cognitive and socio-cultural constructivism. This shared activity promotes understanding and exploration beyond individual perspectives, enhancing social-emotional learning (Gehlbach, 2010).

A standout advantage of social media in an educational context is its capacity to extend beyond traditional classroom confines. As the material indicates, these platforms can foster more inclusive learning, bridging diverse learner groups.

This inclusivity can equalize learning opportunities, potentially diminishing biases based on factors like race or socio-economic status, resonating with Kegan’s (1982) concept of “recruitability.”

However, there are challenges. While social media’s potential in learning is vast, its practical application necessitates intention and guidance. Cuban, Kirkpatrick, and Peck (2001) note that certain educators and students are hesitant about integrating social media into educational contexts.

This hesitancy can stem from technological complexities or potential distractions. Yet, when harnessed effectively, social media can provide a rich environment for collaborative learning and interpersonal development, fostering a deeper understanding of content.

In essence, the rise of social media aligns seamlessly with constructivist philosophies. Social media platforms act as tools for everyday cognition, merging daily social interactions with the academic world, and providing avenues for diverse, interactive, and engaging learning experiences.

Criticisms of Jean Piaget’s Theories and Concepts

Criticisms of research methods.

• Small sample size : Piaget often used small, non-representative samples, frequently including only his own children or those from similar backgrounds (European children from families of high socio-economic status). This limits the generalizability of his findings (Lourenço & Machado, 1996).

The lack of inter-rater reliability and potential issues with clinical interviews (e.g., children misunderstanding questions or trying to please the experimenter) may have led to biased or inaccurate conclusions.

Using multiple researchers and more standardized methods could have improved reliability (Donaldson, 1978).

• Age-related issues : Some critics argue that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of younger children. This may be due to the complex language used in his tasks, which could have masked children’s true understanding.
• Cultural limitations : Piaget’s research was primarily conducted with Western, educated children from relatively affluent backgrounds. This raises questions about the universality of his developmental stages across different cultures (Rogoff, 2003).

As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes , 1975).

Challenges to Key Concepts and Theories

Fixed developmental stages.

Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to see development as a continuous process.

Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operational tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.

Current developmental psychology has moved beyond seeing development as progressing through discrete, universal stages (as Piaget proposed) to view it as a more gradual, variable process influenced by social, genetic, and cultural factors.

Current perspectives acknowledge greater variability in the timing and sequence of developmental milestones.

There’s greater recognition of the brain’s plasticity and the potential for cognitive growth throughout the lifespan.

This challenges the idea of fixed developmental endpoints proposed in stage theories.

Culture and individual differences

The fact that the formal operational stage is not reached in all cultures and not all individuals within cultures suggests that it might not be biologically based.

• According to Piaget, the rate of cognitive development cannot be accelerated as it is based on biological processes however, direct tuition can speed up the development which suggests that it is not entirely based on biological factors.
• Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on cognitive development.

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological maturation process.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals which suggests that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8—to 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 the ages of 10 and 13 (as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).

However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier among Aboriginal children than among Swiss children.

Such a study demonstrates that cognitive development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors as well—spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.

Underemphasis on social and emotional factors

While Piaget’s theory focuses primarily on individual cognitive development, it arguably underestimates the crucial role of social and emotional factors.

Lev Vygotsky , a contemporary of Piaget, emphasized the social nature of learning in his sociocultural theory.

Vygotsky argued that cognitive development occurs through social interactions, particularly with more knowledgeable others (MKOs) such as parents, teachers, or skilled peers.

He introduced the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development ( ZPD ), which represents the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance.

Furthermore, Vygotsky viewed language as fundamental to thought development, asserting that social dialogue becomes internalized as inner speech, driving cognitive processes. This perspective highlights how cultural tools, especially language, shape thinking.

Emotional factors, including motivation, self-esteem, and relationships, also play significant roles in learning and development – aspects not thoroughly addressed in Piaget’s cognitive-focused theory.

This social-emotional dimension of development has gained increasing recognition in modern educational and developmental psychology.

Underestimating children’s abilities

Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child can do) and performance (what a child can show when given a particular task).

When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might have underestimated children’s cognitive abilities.

For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still be unable to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies, he found that it wasn’t until after nine months that they looked for them.

However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not.

Later, researchers such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported that infants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do what it expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

Jean Piaget’s Legacy and Ongoing Influence

Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology have had an enormous influence. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.

He inspired many who followed and took up his ideas. Piaget’s ideas have generated a huge amount of research, which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

• Seminal Theory : Piaget (1936) was one of the first psychologists to study cognitive development systematically. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
• Neo-Piagetian theories : Researchers have built upon Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development, incorporating information processing and brain development to explain cognitive growth, emphasizing individual differences and more gradual developmental progressions (Case, 1985; Fischer, 1980; Pascual-Leone, 1970).

Impact on Educational Practices

Early Childhood Education : Piaget’s theories underpin many early childhood programs that emphasize play-based learning, sensory experiences, and exploration.

Constructivist Pedagogy: Piaget’s idea that children construct knowledge through interaction with their environment led to a shift from teacher-centered to child-centered approaches. This emphasizes exploration, discovery, and hands-on activities.

By understanding Piaget’s stages, educators can create environments and activities that challenge children appropriately.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children ( NAEYC ) has incorporated Piagetian principles into its DAP framework, influencing early childhood education policies worldwide.

Parenting Practices

Piaget’s theory influenced parenting by emphasizing stimulating environments, play, and supporting children’s curiosity.

Parents can use Piaget’s stages to have realistic developmental expectations of their children’s behavior and cognitive capabilities.

For instance, understanding that a toddler is in the pre-operational stage can help parents be patient when the child is egocentric.

Play Activities

Recognizing the importance of play in cognitive development, many parents provide toys and games suited for their child’s developmental stage.

Parents can offer activities that are slightly beyond their child’s current abilities, leveraging Vygotsky’s concept of the “ Zone of Proximal Development ,” which complements Piaget’s ideas.

• Peek-a-boo : Helps with object permanence.
• Texture Touch : Provide different textured materials (soft, rough, bumpy, smooth) for babies to touch and feel.
• Sound Bottles : Fill small bottles with different items like rice, beans, bells, and have children shake and listen to the different sounds.
• Memory Games : Using cards with pictures, place them face down, and ask students to find matching pairs.
• Role Playing and Pretend Play : Let children act out roles or stories that enhance symbolic thinking. Encourage symbolic play with dress-up clothes, playsets, or toy cash registers. Provide prompts or scenarios to extend their imagination.
• Story Sequencing : Give children cards with parts of a story and have them arranged in the correct order.
• Number Line Jumps : Create a number line on the floor with tape. Ask students to jump to the correct answer for math problems.
• Classification Games : Provide a mix of objects and ask students to classify them based on different criteria (e.g., color, size, shape).
• Logical Puzzle Games : Games that involve problem-solving using logic, such as simple Sudoku puzzles or logic grid puzzles.
• Debate and Discussion : Provide a topic and let students debate the pros and cons. This promotes abstract thinking and logical reasoning.
• Hypothesis Testing Games : Present a scenario and have students come up with hypotheses and ways to test them.
• Strategy Board Games : Games like chess, checkers, or Settlers of Catan can help in developing strategic and forward-thinking skills.

Comparing Jean Piaget’s Ideas with Other Theorists

Integrating diverse theories enables early years professionals to develop a comprehensive view of child development.

This allows for creating holistic learning experiences that support cognitive, social, and emotional growth.

By recognizing various developmental factors, professionals can tailor their practices to each child’s unique needs and background.

Comparison with Lev Vygotsky

Differences:.

• Stage-Based vs Continuous Development : Piaget proposed a stage-based model of cognitive development, while Vygotsky viewed development as a continuous process influenced by social and cultural factors.
• Role of Language : For Piaget, language is considered secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. Vygotsky argues that the development of language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning has more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world.

Similarities:

• Both theories view children as actively constructing their own knowledge of the world; they are not seen as just passively absorbing knowledge.
• They also agree that cognitive development involves qualitative changes in thinking, not only a matter of learning more things.

Comparison with Erik Erikson

Erikson’s (1958) psychosocial theory outlines 8 stages of psychosocial development from infancy to late adulthood.

At each stage, individuals face a conflict between two opposing states that shapes personality. Successfully resolving conflicts leads to virtues like hope, will, purpose, and integrity. Failure leads to outcomes like mistrust, guilt, role confusion, and despair.

• Cognitive vs. Psychosocial Focus : Piaget focuses on cognitive development and how children construct knowledge. Erikson emphasizes psychosocial development, exploring how social interactions shape personality and identity.
• Universal Stages vs. Cultural Influence : Piaget proposed universal cognitive stages relatively independent of culture. Erikson’s psychosocial stages, while sequential, acknowledge significant cultural influence on their expression and timing.
• Role of Conflict : Piaget sees cognitive conflict (disequilibrium) as a driver for learning. Erikson views psychosocial crises as essential for personal growth and identity formation.
• Scope of Development : Piaget’s theory primarily covers childhood to adolescence. Erikson’s theory spans the entire lifespan, from infancy to late adulthood.
• Learning Process vs. Identity Formation : Piaget emphasizes how children learn and understand the world. Erikson focuses on how individuals develop their sense of self and place in society through resolving psychosocial conflicts.
• Stage-based theories : Both propose that development occurs in distinct stages  (Gilleard & Higgs, 2016).
• Age-related progression : Stages are generally associated with specific age ranges.
• Cumulative development : Each stage builds upon the previous ones.
• Focus on childhood : Both emphasize the importance of early life experiences.
• Active role of the individual : Both see children as active participants in their development.

Comparison with Urie Bronfenbrenner

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory posits that an individual’s development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems, ranging from the immediate surroundings (e.g., family) to broad societal structures (e.g., culture).

Bronfenbrenner’s theory offers a more comprehensive view of the multiple influences on a child’s development, complementing Piaget’s focus on cognitive processes with a broader ecological perspective.

• Individual vs. Ecological Emphasis : Piaget focuses on individual cognitive development through independent exploration. Bronfenbrenner emphasizes the complex interplay between an individual and multiple environmental systems, from immediate family to broader societal influences.
• Stage-based vs. Systems Approach : Piaget proposed distinct stages of cognitive development. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory views development as ongoing interactions between the individual and various environmental contexts throughout the lifespan.
• Role of Environment : For Piaget, the environment provides opportunities for cognitive conflict and schema development. Bronfenbrenner sees the environment as a nested set of systems (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem) that directly and indirectly influence development.
• Cognitive Structures vs. Proximal Processes : Piaget focused on the development of cognitive structures (schemas). Bronfenbrenner emphasized proximal processes – regular, enduring interactions between the individual and their immediate environment – as key drivers of development.
• Discovery Learning vs. Contextual Learning : Piaget advocated for discovery learning to challenge existing schemas. Bronfenbrenner would emphasize the importance of understanding and leveraging the various ecological contexts in which learning occurs, from family to cultural systems.
• Both recognize the child as an active participant in development.
• Both acknowledge the importance of the child’s environment in shaping development.

What is cognitive development?

Cognitive development is how a person’s ability to think, learn, remember, problem-solve, and make decisions changes over time.

This includes the growth and maturation of the brain, as well as the acquisition and refinement of various mental skills and abilities.

Cognitive development is a major aspect of human development, and both genetic and environmental factors heavily influence it. Key domains of cognitive development include attention, memory, language skills, logical reasoning, and problem-solving.

Various theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, provide different perspectives on how this complex process unfolds from infancy through adulthood.

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory?

Piaget divided children’s cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world.

He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence , (2) preoperational thinking , (3) concrete operational thinking , and (4) formal operational thinking . Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately.

According to Piaget, intellectual development takes place through stages that occur in a fixed order and which are universal (all children pass through these stages regardless of social or cultural background).

Development can only occur when the brain has matured to a point of “readiness”.

What are some of the weaknesses of Piaget’s theory?

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals, suggesting that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

What are Piaget’s concepts of schemas?

Schemas are mental structures that contain all of the information relating to one aspect of the world around us.

According to Piaget, we are born with a few primitive schemas, such as sucking, which give us the means to interact with the world.

These are physical, but as the child develops, they become mental schemas. These schemas become more complex with experience.

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Further Reading

• BBC Radio Broadcast about the Three Mountains Study
• Piagetian stages: A critical review
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

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Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained

Background and Key Concepts of Piaget's Theory

Important Cognitive Development Concepts

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• Next in Stages of Cognitive Development Guide The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence. Piaget's stages are:

• Sensorimotor stage : Birth to 2 years
• Preoperational stage : Ages 2 to 7
• Concrete operational stage : Ages 7 to 11
• Formal operational stage : Ages 12 and up

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, acting much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the world. As kids interact with the world around them, they continually add new knowledge, build upon existing knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to accommodate new information.

Test Your Knowledge

At the end of this article, take a fast and free pop quiz to see how much you know about Jean Piaget's work.

History of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget was born in Switzerland in the late 1800s and was a precocious student, publishing his first scientific paper when he was just 11 years old. His early exposure to the intellectual development of children came when he worked as an assistant to Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon as they worked to standardize their famous IQ test .

Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Piaget's theory differs in important ways from those of Lev Vygotsky , another influential figure in the field of child development. Vygotsky acknowledged the roles that curiosity and active involvement play in learning, but placed greater emphasis on society and culture.

Piaget felt that development is largely fueled from within, while Vygotsky believed that external factors (such as culture) and people (such as parents, caregivers, and peers) play a more significant role.

Much of Piaget's interest in the cognitive development of children was inspired by his observations of his own nephew and daughter. These observations reinforced his budding hypothesis that children's minds were not merely smaller versions of adult minds.

Until this point in history, children were largely treated simply as smaller versions of adults. Piaget was one of the first to identify that the way that children think is different from the way adults think.

Piaget proposed that intelligence grows and develops through a series of stages. Older children do not just think more quickly than younger children. Instead, there are both qualitative and quantitative differences between the thinking of young children versus older children.

Based on his observations, he concluded that children were not less intelligent than adults—they simply think differently. Albert Einstein called Piaget's discovery "so simple only a genius could have thought of it."

Piaget's stage theory describes the  cognitive development of children . Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process and abilities. In Piaget's view, early cognitive development involves processes based upon actions and later progresses to changes in mental operations.

The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

Birth to 2 Years

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

• Know the world through movements and sensations
• Learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening
• Learn that things continue to exist even when they cannot be seen ( object permanence )
• Realize that they are separate beings from the people and objects around them
• Realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them

During the sensorimotor stage, children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they continually make new discoveries about how the world works.

The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking; they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down into substages. Early representational thought emerges during the final part of the sensorimotor stage.

Piaget believed that developing  object permanence  or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development.

By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but the emergence of language is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development.

2 to 7 Years

• Begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects
• Tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others
• Getting better with language and thinking, but still tend to think in very concrete terms

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.

Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet they continue to think very concretely about the world around them. 

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Because the flat shape  looks  larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that piece, even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

The Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they become much more adept at using logic.   The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

7 to 11 Years

• Begin to think logically about concrete events
• Begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example
• Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
• Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle

While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

The Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, adolescents and young adults become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.

Age 12 and Up

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this time:

• Begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems
• Begins to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning
• Begins to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage. 

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a quantitative process. That is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing knowledge as they get older.

Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they gradually process through these four stages. At age 7, children don't just have more information about the world than they did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in  how  they think about the world.

Piaget suggested several factors that influence how children learn and grow.

A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the world.

In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. As experiences happen, this new information is used to modify, add to, or change previously existing schemas.

For example, a child may have a schema about a type of animal, such as a dog. If the child's sole experience has been with small dogs, a child might believe that all dogs are small, furry, and have four legs. Suppose then that the child encounters an enormous dog. The child will take in this new information, modifying the previously existing schema to include these new observations.

Assimilation

The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation

Another part of adaptation is the ability to change existing schemas in light of new information; this process is known as accommodation. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Equilibration

As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge (accommodation).

Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between assimilation and accommodation using a mechanism he called equilibration. Equilibration helps explain how children can move from one stage of thought to the next.

One of the main points of Piaget's theory is that creating knowledge and intelligence is an inherently  active  process.

"I find myself opposed to the view of knowledge as a passive copy of reality," Piaget wrote. "I believe that knowing an object means acting upon it, constructing systems of transformations that can be carried out on or with this object. Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality."

Piaget's theory of cognitive development helped add to our understanding of children's intellectual growth. It also stressed that children were not merely passive recipients of knowledge. Instead, kids are constantly investigating and experimenting as they build their understanding of how the world works.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

When a baby ‘serves’ a prompt—either physically or verbally—and an adult responds appropriately—with eye contact, words or an action—neural connections are built and strengthened in the baby’s brain. For example, a child babbles while looking at their father and pointing to a toy, and the father returns the ‘serve’ by acknowledging the request with words and by putting the toy within the child’s reach. ‘Most people recognise obvious milestones in the first three years, such as walking and using words, but much of the evidence of babies’ and toddlers’ learning is subtle and easily missed unless you know what you’re looking for’, explains Anne Stonehouse in her free video series, As babies and children grow, they develop more skills. Like when learning a language, the simplest words and basic language rules come first before more complex phrases. This is the way that children develop executive functioning skills and gain the ability to process and focus on different pieces of information. Challenge is an important aspect of cognitive development and allows children to develop a range of skills as they experiment, hypothesise and investigate a solution. Most challenges have an element of limited, time-sensitive stress that is resolved with the successful completion of a task, sometimes with the support of an adult. Short-term reactions to stress are normal and support the development of resilience. Learn more about resilience and how to help children to self-regulate and identify their emotions in the highly practical webinar, by Beth Macgregor. Interested in learning more about children’s cognitive development? Early Childhood Australia has professional learning modules, webinars and packages to support your professional learning goals. InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development This brief is part of a series that summarizes essential scientific findings from Center publications. Content in This Guide Step 1: why is early childhood important. : Brain Hero : The Science of ECD (Video) You Are Here: The Science of ECD (Text) Step 2: How Does Early Child Development Happen? : 3 Core Concepts in Early Development : 8 Things to Remember about Child Development : InBrief: The Science of Resilience Step 3: What Can We Do to Support Child Development? : From Best Practices to Breakthrough Impacts : 3 Principles to Improve Outcomes The science of early brain development can inform investments in early childhood. These basic concepts, established over decades of neuroscience and behavioral research, help illustrate why child development—particularly from birth to five years—is a foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society. Brains are built over time, from the bottom up. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood. Early experiences affect the quality of that architecture by establishing either a sturdy or a fragile foundation for all of the learning, health and behavior that follow. In the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second . After this period of rapid proliferation, connections are reduced through a process called pruning, so that brain circuits become more efficient. Sensory pathways like those for basic vision and hearing are the first to develop, followed by early language skills and higher cognitive functions. Connections proliferate and prune in a prescribed order, with later, more complex brain circuits built upon earlier, simpler circuits. The interactive influences of genes and experience shape the developing brain. Scientists now know a major ingredient in this developmental process is the “ serve and return ” relationship between children and their parents and other caregivers in the family or community. Young children naturally reach out for interaction through babbling, facial expressions, and gestures, and adults respond with the same kind of vocalizing and gesturing back at them. In the absence of such responses—or if the responses are unreliable or inappropriate—the brain’s architecture does not form as expected, which can lead to disparities in learning and behavior. The brain’s capacity for change decreases with age. The brain is most flexible, or “plastic,” early in life to accommodate a wide range of environments and interactions, but as the maturing brain becomes more specialized to assume more complex functions, it is less capable of reorganizing and adapting to new or unexpected challenges. For example, by the first year, the parts of the brain that differentiate sound are becoming specialized to the language the baby has been exposed to; at the same time, the brain is already starting to lose the ability to recognize different sounds found in other languages. Although the “windows” for language learning and other skills remain open, these brain circuits become increasingly difficult to alter over time. Early plasticity means it’s easier and more effective to influence a baby’s developing brain architecture than to rewire parts of its circuitry in the adult years. Cognitive, emotional, and social capacities are inextricably intertwined throughout the life course. The brain is a highly interrelated organ, and its multiple functions operate in a richly coordinated fashion. Emotional well-being and social competence provide a strong foundation for emerging cognitive abilities, and together they are the bricks and mortar that comprise the foundation of human development. The emotional and physical health, social skills, and cognitive-linguistic capacities that emerge in the early years are all important prerequisites for success in school and later in the workplace and community. Toxic stress damages developing brain architecture, which can lead to lifelong problems in learning, behavior, and physical and mental health. Scientists now know that chronic, unrelenting stress in early childhood, caused by extreme poverty, repeated abuse, or severe maternal depression, for example, can be toxic to the developing brain. While positive stress (moderate, short-lived physiological responses to uncomfortable experiences) is an important and necessary aspect of healthy development, toxic stress is the strong, unrelieved activation of the body’s stress management system. In the absence of the buffering protection of adult support, toxic stress becomes built into the body by processes that shape the architecture of the developing brain. Policy Implications The basic principles of neuroscience indicate that early preventive intervention will be more efficient and produce more favorable outcomes than remediation later in life. A balanced approach to emotional, social, cognitive, and language development will best prepare all children for success in school and later in the workplace and community. Supportive relationships and positive learning experiences begin at home but can also be provided through a range of services with proven effectiveness factors. Babies’ brains require stable, caring, interactive relationships with adults — any way or any place they can be provided will benefit healthy brain development. Science clearly demonstrates that, in situations where toxic stress is likely, intervening as early as possible is critical to achieving the best outcomes. For children experiencing toxic stress, specialized early interventions are needed to target the cause of the stress and protect the child from its consequences. Suggested citation: Center on the Developing Child (2007). The Science of Early Childhood Development (InBrief). Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu . Related Topics: toxic stress , brain architecture , serve and return Explore related resources. 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And How Does It Relate to Child Development? Partner Resources , Tools & Guides : Vroom Type 2 Diabetes Heart Disease Digestive Health Multiple Sclerosis Diet & Nutrition Health Insurance Public Health Patient Rights Caregivers & Loved Ones End of Life Concerns Health News Thyroid Test Analyzer Doctor Discussion Guides Hemoglobin A1c Test Analyzer Lipid Test Analyzer Complete Blood Count (CBC) Analyzer What to Buy Editorial Process Meet Our Medical Expert Board Cognitive Development Theory: What Are the Stages? Sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage. Cognitive development is the process by which we come to acquire, understand, organize, and learn to use information in various ways. Cognitive development helps a child obtain the skills needed to live a productive life and function as an independent adult. The late Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget was a major figure in the study of cognitive development theory in children. He believed that it occurs in four stages—sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. This article discusses Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, including important concepts and principles. FatCamera / Getty Images History of Cognitive Development During the 1920s, the psychologist Jean Piaget was given the task of translating English intelligence tests into French. During this process, he observed that children think differently than adults do and have a different view of the world. He began to study children from birth through the teenage years—observing children who were too young to talk, and interviewing older children while he also observed their development. Piaget published his theory of cognitive development in 1936. This theory is based on the idea that a child’s intelligence changes throughout childhood and cognitive skills—including memory, attention, thinking, problem-solving, logical reasoning, reading, listening, and more—are learned as a child grows and interacts with their environment. Stages of Cognitive Development Piaget’s theory suggests that cognitive development occurs in four stages as a child ages. These stages are always completed in order, but last longer for some children than others. Each stage builds on the skills learned in the previous stage. The four stages of cognitive development include: Sensorimotor Preoperational Concrete operational Formal operational The sensorimotor stage begins at birth and lasts until 18 to 24 months of age. During the sensorimotor stage, children are physically exploring their environment and absorbing information through their senses of smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound. The most important skill gained in the sensorimotor stage is object permanence, which means that the child knows that an object still exists even when they can't see it anymore. For example, if a toy is covered up by a blanket, the child will know the toy is still there and will look for it. Without this skill, the child thinks that the toy has simply disappeared. Language skills also begin to develop during the sensorimotor stage. Activities to Try During the Sensorimotor Stage Appropriate activities to do during the sensorimotor stage include: Playing peek-a-boo Reading books Providing toys with a variety of textures Singing songs Playing with musical instruments Rolling a ball back and forth The preoperational stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development occurs between ages 2 and 7 years. Early on in this stage, children learn the skill of symbolic representation. This means that an object or word can stand for something else. For example, a child might play "house" with a cardboard box. At this stage, children assume that other people see the world and experience emotions the same way they do, and their main focus is on themselves. This is called egocentrism . Centrism is another characteristic of the preoperational stage. This means that a child is only able to focus on one aspect of a problem or situation. For example, a child might become upset that a friend has more pieces of candy than they do, even if their pieces are bigger. During this stage, children will often play next to each other—called parallel play—but not with each other. They also believe that inanimate objects, such as toys, have human lives and feelings. Activities to Try During the Preoperational Stage Appropriate activities to do during the preoperational stage include: Playing "house" or "school" Building a fort Playing with Play-Doh Building with blocks Playing charades The concrete operational stage occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years. During this stage, a child develops the ability to think logically and problem-solve but can only apply these skills to objects they can physically see—things that are "concrete." Six main concrete operations develop in this stage. These include: Conservation : This skill means that a child understands that the amount of something or the number of a particular object stays the same, even when it looks different. For example, a cup of milk in a tall glass looks different than the same amount of milk in a short glass—but the amount did not change. Classification : This skill is the ability to sort items by specific classes, such as color, shape, or size. Seriation : This skill involves arranging objects in a series, or a logical order. For example, the child could arrange blocks in order from smallest to largest. Reversibility : This skill is the understanding that a process can be reversed. For example, a balloon can be blown up with air and then deflated back to the way it started. Decentering : This skill allows a child to focus on more than one aspect of a problem or situation at the same time. For example, two candy bars might look the same on the outside, but the child knows that they have different flavors on the inside. Transitivity : This skill provides an understanding of how things relate to each other. For example, if John is older than Susan, and Susan is older than Joey, then John is older than Joey. Activities to Try During the Concrete Operational Stage Appropriate activities to do during the concrete operational stage include: Using measuring cups (for example, demonstrate how one cup of water fills two half-cups) Solving simple logic problems Practicing basic math Doing crossword puzzles Playing board games The last stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development occurs during the teenage years into adulthood. During this stage, a person learns abstract thinking and hypothetical problem-solving skills. Deductive reasoning—or the ability to make a conclusion based on information gained from a person's environment—is also learned in this stage. This means, for example, that a person can identify the differences between dogs of various breeds, instead of putting them all in a general category of "dogs." Activities to Try During the Formal Operational Stage Appropriate activities to do during the formal operational stage include: Learning to cook Solving crossword and logic puzzles Exploring hobbies Playing a musical instrument Piaget's theory of cognitive development is based on the belief that a child gains thinking skills in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. These stages roughly correspond to specific ages, from birth to adulthood. Children progress through these stages at different paces, but according to Piaget, they are always completed in order. National Library of Medicine. Cognitive testing . MedlinePlus. Oklahoma State University. Cognitive development: The theory of Jean Piaget . SUNY Cortland. Sensorimotor stage . Marwaha S, Goswami M, Vashist B. Prevalence of principles of Piaget’s theory among 4-7-year-old children and their correlation with IQ . J Clin Diagn Res. 2017;11(8):ZC111-ZC115. doi:10.7860%2FJCDR%2F2017%2F28435.10513 Börnert-Ringleb M, Wilbert J. The association of strategy use and concrete-operational thinking in primary school . Front Educ. 2018;0. doi:10.3389/feduc.2018.00038 By Aubrey Bailey, PT, DPT, CHT Dr, Bailey is a Virginia-based physical therapist and professor of anatomy and physiology with over a decade of experience. Cognition and Development in Early Childhood Essay To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block As a source of information (ensure proper referencing) As a template for you assignment Learning Outcomes from Students Enduring understanding, critical questions, intellectual quality (newman & wehlage, 1993), quality learning environment, significance. The aim of this unit is to give an insight on the motor and cognitive development changes that human beings experience from early stages through childhood (from day 1 to eight years). NSW Quality Teaching Model, which is an efficient model that bases on research, guides the creation of the teaching plan. The design of the curriculum follows the ‘Backward’ by McTighe & Wiggins (2004) along with all other practical aspects of Quality Teaching Model. The structure of the curriculum is for diploma students taking units in early childhood. The selected unit ‘Child Development: Cognition and Development’ became structured from a new course at the university since the material of the unit is not in any other syllabus. This curriculum structure became organized as a bit of a task for the unit EDUC 6202 (Productive Curriculum), although, it will be the first time that early childhood teachers in my country will get an introduction to the unit. The key goals of the unit are to enlighten the learner about different approaches that relate to the study of cognition and development, as well as, make them conversant with the thinking processes of children, from the time they get born to the adolescent stage, through play. Assessment of students will occur through a case study. This case study will go through a review as it will form a key part of the unit. Study how young children explore materials, space, surroundings as well as their bodies’ potential through physical actions (motor growth). Explain how active play, critical problem solving, adept movement and a positive reflection of self occur. Describe the traits that distinguish them from others as well as traits that make them comparable to others. Describe how interactions with different people promote wellbeing. Explain various physical encounters of children from birth to eight years that get associated with their thought processes and sequential development of movements. Show attainments of children self-esteem as well as their feelings about physical activity. Carry out a case study on an entity child together with teachers, professionals and parents. Students will appreciate that: Infants and young children discover materials, space and surroundings through physical activity and regular practice. Physical experiences of young children from birth to 8 years depend on their thinking, sequential movement and contextual issues. Children become more experienced in motor and gross skills attained in toddler and infant years. These transformations occur due to neural and physical advances as well as the chance to practice novel skills, which is a critical environmental determinant of motor growth. Children get cognitive skills as well as advances in physical abilities from practice. Children show cognitive development through reactions and actions that are crucial in understanding thought processes that embody early childhood. There exist severe restrictions to cognition in young children since their mental representations are inadequate with older people in how they perceive things, people and occurrences in their daily environment. What learning benefits do children get from play? How can physical activity enable children to learn? What form of the play takes part in each stage of development? How can we relate physical play and learning? How can instructors relate the child’s differential stage with teaching? How can instructors help and give the developing child a suitable learning environment? How can personal differences affect growth in various domains? What forms typical physical development in early childhood? What motor skills do children get at infancy and what triggers differences in these skills? What are some unique strengths and features and aspects of preschoolers thought processes? What traits are parallel in the same age group and which are somewhat distinct? What factors could lead to the shown behavior whether it is negative or positive? What forms successful early childhood learning and what impacts does it have on cognitive development of preschoolers’? Knowledge: Students will learn several things after going through this unit, which include: The way children explore the environment through play. Development of motor skills with practice. Experiences of children in thinking as well as consequential movements. The fundamental aspects of skillful movement in children. Skills: Some skills that learners will do in this course include: Observing children. Identifying personal accomplishments of children. Establishing the cause for deliberate movements. Collaborating with teachers, parents and care givers in finding problems that affect children. Deep Knowledge The content in the unit follows a logical sequence that will help learners understand the process of motor skills and cognitive development, in children, through play. Deep Understanding Students will understand all aspects that surround development of personal, emotional and social traits in children from different cultures. Problematic Knowledge Learners will realize that cognitive development of a child involves many aspects. For instance: High Order Thinking Students will be able to organize, analyze and assess the case study through high order thinking skills. Metalanguage Also, learners will come across various metalanguage when discussing theories of cognitive development. They will also know how to give a suitable learning environment to children in early childhood. Substantive Communication Lastly, students will communicate both verbally and in written form as they make critical evaluations of cognitive actions. Explicit Quality Criteria An explicit criterion for work quality gets given to students, which acts as the reference. This criterion gets particularly designed for the child study. This unit gets particularly designed to engage learners to watch and describe the developmental phases of a child from day 1 to 8 years of age, correctly. High Expectations The expectation is that each learner will give high quality work after doing observations and reporting on the case studies. Incase students encounter problems while completing they will get personal support. Social Support The design of the unit allows sharing skills and knowledge with parents, peers and children. This is beneficial as it allows sharing of information about support, help and feedback of the study. Student Self-regulation and Direction The course uses high degrees of independence and initiatives in the choice of tasks. Background Information The structure of all learning activities includes what the students already know as well as their individual encounters during as they relate to the developmental stages. Cultural Knowledge This course makes use of learners’ cultures through allowing them to form cultural groups when conducting observations on children as well as describing the findings. Students will watch children from their individual cultures and then rate them against other cultures. This will allow them to realize disparities in cognitive development, learning and play among children from different cultures. Knowledge Integration Since the case studies have a holistic approach to development of children, the unit has connections with various subject areas. For instance, there is a strong connection between early childhood and psychology. Cognitive development as well gets connected to many subject areas like sociology and English when describing language development. Inclusivity This unit appreciates and values participation of all learners irrespective of their backgrounds. Connectedness The case study involves observing a child while working with parents, care givers and the entire school community. This allows theoretical lessons to get transmitted to real contexts. Narrative appears in the material source, written papers and presentations that occur all through the unit. The planning of this course of work follows a logical sequence to enhance the learner’s holistic understanding and knowledge of young children. The teaching plan is both theoretical and practical. Students will study different settings after every theoretical lesson and make observations and analysis. This will make students have further interest of proceeding with the course of development in early childhood. The focus of this course is on development of children’s cognitive skills which include thinking, memory, knowledge, discrimination, understanding, reasoning, concentration and formal learning skills (Hine et al., 2010). Other related areas include physical growth and development features in children. These include height, appearance, weight, co-ordination, general physical activity as well as motor skills. The main part is for learners to apply theory into practice through carrying out a case study, which is the main project. This will also help them to have increased skills and knowledge, which will enable them to link with the real world, through communication with the child, parents and others concerned (McTighe, 2004). Principles of Assessment: Expository of Scientific Report Writing as an Assessment Item Early Gifted Education: Why Is It Needed? The Concept of Cognition and Conditioning Epistemic Cognition in Massively Open Online Courses Individualism Versus Group Cognition in Psychology Explorer “Light” in Home Environment: The Little Scientific Concepts Explanation of Collaborative Activity Tuition Funding and Assistance for Post Secondary Education in Ontario High School Students Participating In Extra-Curricular Activities Have Fewer Discipline Problems? Student Retention in Learning Institutions Chicago (A-D) Chicago (N-B) IvyPanda. (2019, June 18). Cognition and Development in Early Childhood. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cognition-and-development-in-early-childhood/ "Cognition and Development in Early Childhood." IvyPanda , 18 June 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/cognition-and-development-in-early-childhood/. IvyPanda . (2019) 'Cognition and Development in Early Childhood'. 18 June. IvyPanda . 2019. "Cognition and Development in Early Childhood." June 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cognition-and-development-in-early-childhood/. 1. IvyPanda . "Cognition and Development in Early Childhood." June 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cognition-and-development-in-early-childhood/. Bibliography IvyPanda . "Cognition and Development in Early Childhood." June 18, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cognition-and-development-in-early-childhood/. Capabilities Early childhood cognitive development milestones. Understanding early childhood cognitive development milestones is crucial for child care center staff, preschool teachers, daycare directors and child care center owners. These milestones help evaluate children’s progress, identify any potential developmental delays and design appropriate learning activities to foster growth! What Are Cognitive Development Milestones? Cognitive development milestones are key skills that children typically achieve as they grow . These skills reflect their capacity to think, learn and solve problems. Monitoring these milestones can provide insights into a child’s mental progress and help educators tailor their teaching strategies accordingly. Cognitive Milestones for Infants (0-12 Months) Birth to 3 Months Recognition of familiar faces and objects. Tracking objects with their eyes. Exploring with hands and mouth. 4 to 7 Months Understanding cause and effect , such as shaking a rattle to hear the sound. Object permanence begins to develop, which is knowing an object still exists even when out of sight. Responding to facial expressions and recognizing different tones of voice. 8 to 12 Months Imitating gestures and sounds. Exploring objects in different ways such as banging, shaking. Finding hidden objects easily . Cognitive Development Milestones for 2-Year-Olds Recognizing names of familiar people, objects and body parts . Sorting shapes and colors . Engaging in simple pretend play such as feeding a doll. Following simple instructions and understanding the use of everyday objects including phone and spoons. Cognitive Development Milestones for 3-Year-Olds Playing make-believe with dolls, animals and people. Completing puzzles with three or four pieces. Understanding the concept of “two” and beginning to count. Recognizing and naming most common objects and pictures. Cognitive Development Milestones for 4-Year-Olds Recalling parts of a story and predicting what will happen next. Understanding the concept of same and different . Counting up to 10 or more objects . Drawing a person with two to four body parts . Cognitive Development Milestones for 5-Year-Olds Understanding the concept of time such as yesterday, today tomorrow. Recognizing and writing their own name . Following directions with two or three steps . Counting 10 or more objects and understanding basic quantities. Cognitive Development Milestones Chart For a quick reference, here’s a cognitive development milestones chart summarizing the key skills for each age group: Age Group Key Cognitive Skills 0-12 Months Recognition, object permanence, cause and effect 2 Years Recognizing names, sorting shapes/colors, pretend play 3 Years Make-believe play, completing puzzles, counting 4 Years Recalling stories, understanding same/different, counting objects 5 Years Understanding time, writing name, following multi-step directions Use Curriculum to Promote Cognitive Development Cognitive development progresses quickly in the first five years of life and it’s vital child care centers have a strong curriculum in place that is designed for young learners. The  2024 Child Care Management Software Industry Trends Report  from Procare Solutions found that about 30% of survey respondents said each teacher spends between three and five hours a week doing lesson planning and a similar percentage noted their centers create their own curriculum: This kind of time means teachers may not be able to focus on the  five developmental domains, educators and parents can provide a balanced and supportive environment that nurtures all aspects of a child’s growth. Procare Early Learning powered by Learning Beyond Paper  is an all-digital curriculum specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educating children from infancy through pre-kindergarten. It embeds Learning Beyond Paper’s early childhood curriculum, which was designed by educators with decades of combined experience, into Procare, making it easier and less time-consuming for busy teachers and administrators to provide high-quality education. With Procare Early Learning by Learning Beyond Paper, child care centers can:   Equip teachers with state-of-the-art online curriculum at their fingertips   Dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on lesson planning each week   Offer children a high-quality, developmentally appropriate curriculum   Save money with this cost-efficient solution that’s integrated with Procare This curriculum can be used in ALL child care center classrooms, with 52 weeks of lesson plans and thousands of daily activities for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and pre-kindergarteners. Learning areas include STEAM, language and literacy, physical development, cognitive, music and movement as well as interactive reading. Plus, teachers get tips and tools they can use in real time. Want to see how much time and money your child care center could save using Procare Early Learning? Enter your number of staff, number of students and type of program into our online calculator to find out! Procare Cost and Time Savings Calculator Automated Payment Processing Cost & Time Savings Calculator Digital Curriculum Cost and Time Savings Calculator Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s all-in-one child care management software. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*: Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s secure and effortless child care payment processing. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*: Calculate your potential cost and time savings by using Procare’s classroom management. All we will need from you is some information about your child care location*: * Our data model is based on our experience working with over 100,000 child care centers, before and after school programs and youth organizations since 1992. Switching to will save you hours and a month!* a month! 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Let us handle the business of child care so you can get back to caring for your children. To learn more about Procare home version, click below. *Please note that the report you see only factors in cost and time savings for the in-home solution features. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative.​ *Please note that the report you see only factors in cost and time savings for the in-home solution features. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative. *Please note that the classroom management functionality is not available for in-home users. For Procare home version users that are interested in seeing how they can benefit from Procare’s full suite of capabilities, contact us today to speak to a Procare representative. --> Cost & Time Savings Date Automation Number of Staff Number of Students Hourly Rate Savings per Month For over 30 years, Procare Solutions has helped child care businesses big and small tackle their biggest operational challenges. From contactless check-in, attendance tracking and staff management to family engagement, tuition collection and extensive reporting, we have the solutions that child care professionals want most. More than 37,000 child care businesses choose Procare because we give them everything they need to focus on what they love—providing amazing experiences to the children in their care. Our data model is based on our experience working with over 100,000 child care centers, before and after school programs and youth organizations since 1992. 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Name First Last Center Name Business Type Business Type In-Home Child Care A Child Care Center Multi-Center or Franchise Centers School District Before and After School Program Role Role Owner Director Assistant Director Administrator CPA/Bookkeeper Teacher Parent Educator Consultant Other Center Status Center Status An Established Center A New Center - Opening Soon Current Procare User Other Name This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Leah woodbury. Leah Woodbury is the head of content at Procare Solutions. Her job includes writing about topics that matter to child care professionals and finding ways to help them do their important work. She’s a mom of two who loves getting updates about what her preschooler is doing during the day via the Procare child care mobile app! Related Resources How much does in-home daycare cost. In-home daycare costs can vary significantly from state to state, from county to county, and even on a per facility basis. Learn what in-home care costs near you. Nurturing Cognitive Development in Child Care Cognitive development involves how children think, explore and grow. It's vital that your child care center uses a curriculum to nurture it. Daycare Marketing Tips to Tout Your Curriculum and Grow Enrollment Use these tips to show off your child care center's curriculum to prospective parents and set yourself apart from other providers! 209 IMAGES Essay Piagets Theory Of Childhood Cognitive Development Cognitive development essay. Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Essay Piagets Theory Of Childhood Cognitive Development Cognitive development essay. Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Essay Piagets Theory Of Childhood Cognitive Development Early Psychological and Cognitive Child Development Free Essay Example COMMENTS Child Cognitive Development: Essential Milestones and Strategies Supporting cognitive development in early childhood is critical because it lays a strong foundation for future academic achievement, social-emotional development, and lifelong learning. By providing children with diverse and enriching experiences, caregivers and educators can optimize cognitive growth and prepare children to face the challenges ... Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Essay Total Length: 2265 words ( 8 double-spaced pages) Total Sources: 7. Page 1 of 8. Abstract. This paper explores two fundamental theories that are considered to be worthy guides and reference points in different discourses of early childhood cognitive development and education. Scientists and scholars world over hold the principles established in ... Cognitive Development in the Preschool Years Information processing researchers have focused on several issues in cognitive development for this age group, including improvements in attention skills, changes in the capacity, and the emergence of executive functions in working memory. Additionally, in early childhood memory strategies, memory accuracy, and autobiographical memory emerge. 8 Chapter 8: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Figure 8.2 - A child pretending to buy items at a toy grocery store. 4. According to Piaget, children's pretend play helps them solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively. This play, then, reflects changes in their conceptions or thoughts. However, children also learn as they pretend and experiment. Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Consistent with the sexual development we learned about in the health section, Freud asserted that children pass through two stages of his theory during early childhood: stage 2 (anal stage) and stage 3 (phallic stage). The anal stage begins around 18 months of age and lasts until the child is three years old. Piaget's Stages: 4 Stages of Cognitive Development & Theory Piaget divided children's cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world. He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence, (2) preoperational thinking, (3) concrete operational thinking, and (4) formal operational thinking. Each stage is correlated with an age period of ... PDF Child Development and Early Learning: A Foundation for Professional The Biology of Early Child Development. the role of the developing brain and other biological systems in early childhood. development:The developmental window (rapidity of brain development during early child-hood). The brain develops through a dynamic interac. ion between underlying biologi-cal processes and exposures and e. PDF Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive chapter 7 Development in Early Childhood. Physical and Cognitive Development in Early ChildhoodOb. ective7.1 Identify patterns of body growth in early childhood.7.2 Contrast advances in gross and fine motor develo. ment and their implications for young children's development.7.3 Distinguish two processes. Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development Explained Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence. Piaget's stages are: Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years. Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7. on cognitive development in the early years This week, spend a minute and unpack cognitive development in the early years. 1. Learning from birth. Right from birth, babies start learning and interacting with the world around them. Serve-and-return interactions help shape the brain's architecture, according to researchers from Harvard University. When a baby 'serves' a prompt ... The Importance of Cognitive Development and How Early Childhood This means that cognitive development in early childhood is essential. It is in these early years that teachers and parents alike can set the stage for future educational success. Missing this early window can create deficiencies that follow the child into elementary and high school. InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development A balanced approach to emotional, social, cognitive, and language development will best prepare all children for success in school and later in the workplace and community. Supportive relationships and positive learning experiences begin at home but can also be provided through a range of services with proven effectiveness factors. PDF Early Childhood Care and Cognitive Development Panel B of Table 1 reports the means by treatment group and average intent-to-treat e ects on children's cognitive skill, time allocation, and quality of care. Overall, the child cognitive skill e ect at the end of the intervention (age 36-months) is 9.5 IQ points, about two-thirds of. Cognitive Development Theory: What Are the Stages? Summary. Piaget's theory of cognitive development is based on the belief that a child gains thinking skills in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. These stages roughly correspond to specific ages, from birth to adulthood. Children progress through these stages at different paces, but ... Cognition and Development in Early Childhood Essay The focus of this course is on development of children's cognitive skills which include thinking, memory, knowledge, discrimination, understanding, reasoning, concentration and formal learning skills (Hine et al., 2010). Other related areas include physical growth and development features in children. Cognitive development in infancy and early childhood. Chapter 4: The Emergence of Thought and Language: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Early Childhood. Basic Principles of Cognitive Development - According to Piaget, children understand the world through schemes - Schemes: psychological structures that organize experience - Infants group items based on what actions they can perform on them (sucking, grasping, etc.) - Preschoolers group by ... PDF ECE 110-L Cognitive Development: An Introduction ECE 110-LCognitive Development: An IntroductionThe first eight years. f life are an amazing time for the human brain. More brain development happens during the early chil. ood years then during any other period in life. Infants and toddlers develop basic cognitive skills that evolve into complex cognitive skills that young school age children use, Cognitive Development In Early Childhood Development Cognitive Development In Early Childhood Development. 954 Words 4 Pages. After infancy, individuals move into the early childhood stage of life. During this stage, a distinct amount of physical growth occurs. Height and weight change drastically during this time; children grow, on average, two and a half inches in height and between five and ... Cognitive Development Pediatr Rev (2023) 44 (2): 58-67. Cognitive development in children begins with brain development. Early life exposures may both positively and negatively influence cognitive development in children. Infants, toddlers, and children learn best in secure, nurturing environments and when attachment to a consistent caregiver is present. Early Childhood Cognitive Development Milestones Cognitive Development Milestones for 2-Year-Olds. Recognizing names of familiar people, objects and body parts.; Sorting shapes and colors.; Engaging in simple pretend play such as feeding a doll.; Following simple instructions and understanding the use of everyday objects including phone and spoons.; Cognitive Development Milestones for 3-Year-Olds Cognitive Development In Early Childhood Essay Cognitive Development In Early Childhood Essay. Middle childhood generally allude to the developmental period between ages 6 and 12, it is an important period in children's cognitive, social and emotional development (Ntshangase, 2011). Ntshangase (2011) explained that during this period, children can form their thoughts in multi-dimensional ... The Effects of Technology in Early Childhood This literature review will focus on the effects. technology has on the development of children in early childhood. Technology could have an. impact on a child's development in the areas of (a) social emotional, (b) physical, (c) cognitive, (d) language, (e) mathematics, and (f) literacy skills. essay homework paper phd project resume review study thesis