A rap about Piaget’s stage theory of child development
Chorus
Children develop stage by stage
Everything happens at different age
Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, formal
That’s the stage theory of Jean Piaget
I.
Human development is actually pretty slow, it’s quite a chore
Parents care for their offspring for nearly two decades, sometimes more
Given children’s capacity and the amount that they have to learn, generally
It’s better to have a longer period of dependency
Three major aspects of development are notable
Sensorimotor, cognitive and socioemotional
The relative impact is fluid and ambiguous
Because the dimensions interact and mutually influence
Up to 15 months baby’s braingrowth’s tremendous
100,000 connections forming every second
Though at 2, 6 and 10 there’ll be growth in spurts
The senses function quite well which we show at birth
Through our ears, we hear tones and pitches,
Near sighted but we see lights and colors of pictures
In motor control, more limited effects
But still a grasping, sucking and rooting reflex
It improves, by 3 months you roll over in a ball
6 months you sit up, by 12 you walk or crawl
Of course these approximations, there are many variations
And remember, the physical influences cognitive arrangements
II
Young children and adults don’t think the same hard way
That’s the basis of the Stage Theory proposed by Piaget
He suggested that generally depending on what the child’s age is
Cognitive development happens in distinctive stages
Up to two years an infant’s world has but her own sensations known to her
Piaget described this stage the sensorimotor
No sense of object permanence – this is the comprehension
That objects exist independent of our perception
Observing where they looked for toys that he left
Piaget demonstrated this stage by the A-not-B effect
Object permanence can take up to two years to sort
It’s important because it gives the capacity for representational thought
Now we develop schema – mental patterns
About the world and our interactions
First schemas develop in baby’s built in reactions
To things in the world subject to sucking and grabbing
According to Piaget all cognitive development comes through the combination
Of two mental processes: assimilation and accomodation
Assimilate when we use existing schemas to interpret objects
Accomodate when experience changes a schemas contents
Through these processes we create new schemas compounding the ability
To make sense and interact with the surrounding vicinity
Integrating schemas breaks connections between objects and specific experience
Enhancing the sense of an object’s independent existence
III
2 to 7 years is the preoperational period, objected permanence is developed
But it’s before the manipulation of mental representations is evident
Lack conservation skills – this is the cognitive quality
To understand that changing appearance doesn’t alter quantity
Seeing juice poured from one glass to another and being asked to choose
Children thought the wider, shorter glass held less of the juice
Changing the size of the gap in a line of counters
Children think the longer line will have a larger amount of
Because of inability to comprehend the interrelation
Between the different dimensions of the situation
To combine separate aspects of perceptual experience into one conceptual unit
Children fail by lacking the higher-order schemas required in order to do it
7 to 11 is the period known for concrete operations
Children have learned to interrelate mental representations
Conservation skills are mastered, and so appropriately conceived
Concrete operations can now be achieved
The final stage is formal operational, from 11 or 12 happens to be
And it is now possible to think hypothetically and abstractly
Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, formal, he saw it so clearly
These are the stages of Piaget’s Stage Theory
IV
A critique of Piaget is that in many instants
He underestimated the intellectual capacity of infants
Others saw that experience is often organized
By primitive concepts of objects, numbers, even other minds
Early conceptions of the physical world and mathematical appreciation
Cited in studies of occlusion and habituation
Occlusion meant hiding objects, observing what response it drew
Habituation led to a different responses to familiar and new
Opponents of Piaget’s portrayal of object permanence, suggested evidence
That infants may possess a simple sense of an object’s independence
As well as a primitive theory of mind – basic perceptions
Of others’ intentions, their beliefs and their preference
So why do kids fail to show conservation skills in the testings?
Well, maybe it depends on how you ask the questions
The kid might be thrown off when you ask him twice
He might think you’re repeating yourself cos the first answer wasn’t nice