Child psychology, also called child development, is the study of the psychological processes of children and especially, how they develop as young adults and how they differ from one child to the next. It basically tends to map onto children’s physical, cognitive and social/emotional development. Psychologists attempt to make sense of every aspect of child development, including how children learn, think, interact and respond emotionally to people around them and understand emotions and their developing personalities, temperaments and skills. It also includes how individual, social and cultural factors may influence their development. Child study is of comparatively recent origin. Notable psychologists namely Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and
In the case study, I would like to use several theories and concepts to analysis the case of Susan. I would briefly analysis the case by using social ecological theory and analysis in detail by using the relevant theories.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states four stages of cognitive development. During the first Sensorimotor Stage which Piaget
Child psychology, also called child development, is the study of the psychological processes of children and especially, how they develop as young adults and how they differ from one child to the next. It basically tends to map onto children’s physical, cognitive and social/emotional development. Psychologists attempt to make sense of every aspect of child development, including how children learn, think, interact and respond emotionally to people around them and understand emotions and their developing personalities, temperaments and skills. It also includes how individual, social and cultural factors may influence their development. Child study is of relatively recent origin. Notable psychologists namely Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and Anna
Children are like a plain paper who can be easily influenced by the environment of their living. The environment can affected the pattern of change in emotions, personality development and social relationship between people. In fact, the children purposely try to develop a better understanding of the environment and explore the world to fulfill their curiosity.
Jean Piaget was a Twentieth century Swiss psychologist and was the first psychologist to systematically study the cognitive development of children. Thomas (2005) wrote that early in Piaget’s career he worked with children and his observations and interactions with the students led him to the theory that a young person's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults (pp. 188-9). According to Ahmad, et al. (2005), Piaget showed that when compared to adults, young children think in differently and he then came to the conclusion that cognitive development was an ongoing process which occurred due to maturation and interaction with the environment (p. 72).
Social Cognitive Theory by Jean Piaget. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based. 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. Both Piaget and Vygotsky provided highly influential theories which had impact on the way children are taught. However, as with every theory and study, there are pro’s and con’s to be highlighted. I will first evaluate Jean Piaget’s theory, followed by Lev Vygotsky. I will then compare and contrast the two with each other, showing the main similarities and differences between the two. Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in a number of important ways: 1: Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting/shaping cognitive development - this contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development. (Vygotsky does not refer to stages in the way that Piaget does). (i) Hence Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures. 2: Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to
Child development is an area of significant interest to professionals who deal with children on a daily basis. It is through child development theorists and their theories that we begin to form an understanding of how children develop emotionally and socially to become fully grown adults in society with a moral and emotional compass/. Teachers need to study child development in order to provide developmentally appropriate educational experiences for children. Health professionals also need to understand this area to support children in their physical, social, emotional and cognitive journey to becoming functioning adults in society. Childhood is a concept that is affected by social context and also by history. Here in the West childhood was not always considered to be a fundamental developmental phase in life with children in Victorian times working from as early as the age of four. The Industrial Revolution did highlight the poor treatment of children and bring to the forefront the morality of allowing children to work such long hours and subsequently depriving them of an education.
This article aims to explore Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory. Piaget explicated people fundamentally improve their thinking in stage at distinct periods. In terms of Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory, it is inevitable to investigate the correlation between social interaction and individual cognitive development, the role of cultural tools in mental process, and the zone of proximal development(ZPD).
There are two theorists associated with cognitive development; Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget believes that things children learn and do are organized as schemes, groups of similar actions and thoughts are repeated in response to the environment. Vygotsky believes that thoughts and language are separate functions for infants and toddlers. This is important for me to know because when teaching my first graders using Piaget’s belief that children curiosity to adapt to their environment, will help me in setting up my classroom so as to provide the friendliest environmental atmosphere. Another useful belief of Piaget that I intend to use, is by exploring and manipulating physical objects, children gain a relationship with their physical environment. I agree with and will use Vygotsky belief that language is a way for children to exchange ideas with adults and their peers and that it is vital for cognitive development. Also Vygotsky theory that I found useful is that social activities provide the seeds from which complex cognitive processes can
Biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes are all connected in the developmental task of a baby smiling at his or her mother’s touch. Biological processes produce changes in an individual’s physical nature. Cognitive processes bring changes to the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language. Socioemotional processes include changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions and changes in personality. For the baby, the biological process has to do with the physical touch by the mother and the baby’s response to this touch. The cognitive process deals with the fact that the mother is intentionally touching the baby, something that the baby is beginning to understand. The socioemotional process for
Children’s gallery is a place where “children play to learn and adults learn to play”. Developing such kind of environment is a challenging task. It required to study and understand the child growth and developments . No two children are like. Even identical twins, who have the same genetic makeup. Children differ in cognitive , social, physical and emotional development pattern. They may differ in response for the same objet or play or affection or people. Some always appear to be active and happy and other appear to be dull and unhappy. It is found that some children are easier to like. To help all kinds of children, it is required to understand the sequence of development pattern. Thorough knowledge of these domains
It stresses on learning through thinking. It studies how people treat, organize, and transform information to affect their behavior. The most representative theorist of cognitive theory is Jean Piaget (1896-1980). He was born in Switzerland, and he has three children. It is impressive that most of his research is based on observation and studying of his own children. Cognitive development stages are the central part of Piaget’s theory, which demonstrate the development stages of children’s ability to think from infancy to adolescence, how to gain knowledge, self-awareness, awareness of the others and the environment. These stages are respectively relative to 4 ranges of age. It consists of characteristics of each stage and phenomena of each. The first stage between birth to 2 years old, children learn the external through senses and action, instinctively. They sense object permanently and they usually show anxiety to strangers. The second stage is between age of 2 to 6 years old, children form ideas with words and images, which is tend to be over generalizing. Developmental phenomena of this stage include pretending play, egocentrism and language development. And then the third stage from 7 to 11 years old, children think logically about concrete events and understand similar events. In this period, abilities of conversation and mathematical transformation get to be developed. Last stage, 12
Jean Piaget, known for his interest in the Epistemology in children is seen as the pioneer of Developmental Psychology. Piaget 's Cognitive development theory led to a great deal of research work in the field of educational philosophy . But in the discipline of Psychology, every theory has been faced with a counter theory or an alternative. So is the case with Piaget 's theory. Lev Vygotsky, a soviet psychologist came up with the socio-cultural theory, which is another strong theory emphasizing child development and is seen as a major counter theory to Piaget 's work (Saul McLeod, 2004). Theories of these two cognitive psychologists have been compared and contrasted on different levels. This essay will look into the differences and similarities between their theories.
Cognition is a process where different aspects of the mind are working together that lead to knowledge. Piaget’s cognitive development theory is based on stages that children go through as they grow that lead them to actively learn new information. Cognitive change occurs with schemes that children and adults go through to make sense of what is happening around them. The change that occurs is activity based when the child is young and later in life correlates to mental thinking. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development start from birth to adulthood and it begins with the sensorimotor stage, a child from birth to the age of 2 years old learns and thinks by doing and figuring out how something works. The second stage is the preoperational stage and in this stage children from ages 2 through 7 years are developing their language and they do pretend play (Berk, 2005, p.20). Concrete operational is the third stage and children ages 7 to 11 years old lack abstract but have more logic than they did when they were younger. The last stage is formal