Substage 1 - birth to 1 month. Innate
reflexes such as sucking and grasping
become modified in response to different
kinds of objects and situations
Substage 2 - 1 to 4 months. Infants begin to
coordinate acts. Also the appearance of
primary circular reactions - cycles of behavior
in which an infants random movements lead
to some unexpectant but pleasant outcome
that the baby wants to reproduce
Substage 3 - 4 to 8 months. Secondary
circular reactions appear. They
encompass movements that do not
involve direct sensory stimulation. Object
permanence occurs, the understanding
the objects continue to exist when they
are removed from sensory experience
Substage 4 - 8 to 12 months. Infants begin
to show their first true intentional behaviors.
Also further understands object permanence
and begin searching for hidden objects.
Concepts are still profoundly egocentric
Substage 5 - 12 to 18 months. Actively experiment
with actions to examine the effects on the
environment. These cycles are referred to as
tertiary circular reactions. Begin to have a less
egocentric view.
Substage 6 - 18 months to 2 years. Create mental
representations that are independent of
experiences. Known as semiotic or semantic
functioning.
Preoperational Period
2 years to 7 years
Symbolic representations- the use
of one object to stand for another
Symbolic play- practice, strengthen and
extension of their representational skills is
achieved through symbolic play. They
imitate real life situations and then engage
in sociodramatic play (more children)
Egocentrism- still show
signs of this in their mental
representations
Animism- children attribute
life and lifelike characteristics
to inanimate objects
Centration- focus on only
one aspect of a problem
at a time, ignoring other
important aspects
Conservation- fail to
understand that quantitative
properties of an object
remain the same despite
their changes in appearance.
Concrete Operation Period
7 years to 12 years
believed to have
now overcome
many of the
previous cognitive
limitations
Operations- the
creation of
representations
of the outside
world and the
manipulation of
these
representations
in order to solve
practical
problems
Formal Operation Period
12 years onwards
At 12 - 13 years children
begin to reason abstractly
and draw hypothesis from
observations
Hypotheorico-deductive
reasoning- the ability to generate
and test hypothesis through
systematic observation. This style
of 'thought' is what is used in
scientific reasoning.
This approach to problem
solving tasks more
systematically allows them to
consider all possible factors
unlike in concrete
operational children.
Can reason about
abstract propositions and
are capable of evaluation
a logical validity of
arguments without
reference to the specific
content of those
arguments
Arguments
such as- if 'a'
is 'c' and 'c' is
'b', then 'a' is
'b'