Have you ever wondered why your pre-schooler thinks differently than you? |
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Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, was born August 9, 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Throughout his life he accomplished many great things. He studied biology, philosophy, and psychology. His greatest contribution to this world was his studies of children and their cognitive processes. He theory noted four stages of thought.
First Stage Sensorimotor |
Birth to 18 mo. |
Infant interacts with the world through actions such as criying, regulated gestures, and exploring. |
Second Stage Pre-Operational |
2 yrs to 7 yrs |
Pre-schoolers relate to their world through symbolic reasoning, magical thought, and continued sensorimotor activity. |
Third Stage Concrete-Operational |
7 yrs to Adolescence |
Children begin demonstrating logical thought by using concrete examples from the world around. |
Fourth Stage |
Adolescence into Adulthood |
Adolescents go beyond concrete examples and begin engaging in abstract thinking. |
The pre-operational stage
is a time during early childhood when children start to reason, build concepts,
and lay the foundation for concrete operations. "Operations are initialized
sets of actions that allow the child to do mentally what was done physically
before." (Santrock, 203). Operations also involve, "the process of classification,
seriation, or reversability that generates logical thinking and understanding"
(Boden, 41).
There are two substages of preoperational thought, symbolic function and
intuitve thought.
The first substage, symbolic function occurs between the ages of 2 and 4. During this time the child acquires the ability to mentally represent what is not there in front of them (Santrock, 203). Because egocentrism and animism play a role in this stage of the child's development, their mental symbols are not completely real or logical. Egocentrism, one of the characteristics of pre-operational thought is, "the childs inability to distinguish between one's own perspective and someone else's perspective" (Santrock, 204). For instance, a child who has learned the right and left sides of their body cannot point them out on a person facing them (Pulaski, 44). They also have a hard time understanding why banging on pots and pans or playing with a musical toy could increase their mother's headache when they're having so much fun.
Animism is another characteristic of pre-operational thought that adds to the magic of the young child's symbolic representation. Animism is the child's belief that things are alive or have human characteristics because they move or grow. The child believes this because he is alive and he can move and grow. The child may express this by drawing suns or flowers with faces or say that the raindrops from clouds are tears because the sky is sad. If a child were to trip over a chair, he may comment that the "chair" was mad at him and made him fall. The following are remarks made by Piaget's and other children that he recorded which reflect the idea of animism:
| Year | Month | Comment |
2 |
1 |
Moon running (following the child). |
2 |
5 |
There aren't any boats on the lake; they're asleep. |
2 |
5 |
(on a winter morning) Oh good! The sun's come to make the radiators warm. |
2 |
6 |
The sun goes to bed because its sad. |
2 |
10 |
(looking at blowing leaves) Do they like dancing? |
2 |
9 |
(looking at a hollow in a tree) Didn't it cry when the hole was made? |
2 |
9 |
(watching a stone roll down a bank) Look at the stone. Its afraid of the grass. |
The second substage of Piaget's preoperational
thought is the intuitive thougt substage. In this stage, children 4 to 7 years of age
become insightful thinkers. Children in this stage want to know
the answers to all kinds of questions, for instance, "Why?",
"Where?", and "How come?" for everything that happens.
They tend to be so sure of their knowledge and understanding that they become
unaware of how they gained their knowledge. A child at this age focuses
on one characteristic of someone or something, and base their decision or
judgment on that one characteristic. For example, if a 4 yr. old was given
some blocks and asked to put the blocks into groups in which he or she thought
they belonged. A child at this age may focus his or her attention on the
color instead of the shape. Whereas an older individual may focus on both.
This characteristic is called centration. Which leads to a child's lack of a characteristic called
conservation. (Santrock,206)
Have you ever been in a situation where your child throws a tantrum because they believe they have less juice than their sibling? When in actuality they have the same amount, but different size cups. This illustrates the concept of centration and the lack of conservation. |
Conservation is when a child concentrates on an object's physical appearance instead of superficial changes. The most common example of conservation is the beaker test. In this test, a child is shown two identical beakers with the same amount of liquid in each. The child is asked, "Which one has the most liquid?" The child responds,"Their equal". But if one were to take a taller, skinnier beaker and pour the liquid from one of the smaller beakers into it, then ask the child which container has more, the preschool child would respond to the taller beaker as having more liquid. Even when the child is observing that there is no change in the content of the liquid, the child focuses on the physical apperance of the glass. The child is incapable of decentering. Children ages 6 to 8 are usually capable of realizing that there is no change in the amount of liquid that is being poured into the beakers. Children who master this skill are moving into the concrete operational stage. (Santrock,207)
