Ages 2-7, Preoperational stage

Intro

1. While the first 2 years were marked by motor activity as a means to define the world, Piaget’s 2nd stage will be a shift to language as a means to define and articulate objects in the world.

· During the first 2 years, motor activity and action are the means to define the world
· Egocentrism proper exists, in that the child is unable to differentiate itself as distinct from the world.
· Object permanence as a means to understand self as an object in the universe.

2. Ages from around 2 to 6 or 7 years.

· Language is a means to define and articulate objects w/ other people.
· Language is more like talking to oneself, a collection of monologues.
· Egocentrism is now an inability to see the points of view of a social universe.
· There is an echo of sensorimotor egocentricity in that it used as an analogue to understand what things are for from the child’s point of view. (Things have purpose--how they are used. E.g., a thumb is *for sucking. This framework continues: A chair is *for sitting.)
· Symbolic play is not an attempt to submit to reality but an assimilation of reality to the child’s self.
· Piaget would argue that the verbal abilities are used as a means of assimilation.

A. Consider the question ‘why.’ Why is the sky blue? Why does the rock roll down hill?

Most adults hear a question of what causes these things: light refracting off of particles, wavelengths; or gravity’s effect on objects on an incline. The HOW.

But it’s useful to remember Aristotle’s 4 causes, because the child seems to be asking for 2 things: 1) the physical cause, or in Aristotle’s lexicon Efficient causes; but the child is also asking for 2) the purpose, or Aristotle’s final cause. What’s the purpose of a rock rolling down hill?

Remember that in the first 2 years, action was purposeful, and the child is using this understanding as a means to explain the world. Another way of experiencing this is to answer the question would it be easier or harder to explain randomness or chance to a child then explaining to them purpose? Because action is always (or at least has always been) purposeful, chance makes no sense to them.

B. Intuition

1. In understanding conservation tasks, children make mistakes because “There is equivalence only if there is a visual (perceptual) correspondence, not a logical one". Consider the example of two rows of coins. If the two rows are aligned and perfectly matched, the child will say they are the same; but if you spread one row out more than the other, the child will see the perceptual difference and conclude that they are different. In other words, this conclusion is purely intuitive and not logical. Intuition is simply sensorimotor schema as thought and expressed in language.

C. So what is missing in that of the pre-operational child?

• Flexibility
• Reversibility

  Conceptually, children’s perceptual schemas dominate, which unfold in a sequential manner that can’t be reversed. Purposeful action can be said to be action that is means to an end, but not reversed. For example, 3 balls connected by string, lettered, A, B, and C. If you put them into a tube, the child who can predict the balls will exit A, B, C, will not necessarily understand what happens if you rotate the tube 180 degrees (balls would exit C, B, A). In fact, if you rotate the tube again, the child will expect B to arrive next.

C. More on what Children do during preoperations:

• Centration – a child will become completely fixed on one point, not allowing them to see the wider picture. For example, focusing only on the height of the container rather than both the height and width when determining what has the biggest volume.
• State – can only concentrate on what something looks like at that time.
• Lack of Reversibility – can’t reverse the steps they have taken. Don’t realize that one set of steps can be cancelled by another set of steps. For example, kids who don't like lettuce will not understand that if you remove the lettuce from the sandwich, you have solved the problem. Subtraction is beyond them. (So take the sandwich from view, remove the lettuce, and then tell them it's a new sandwich, and that should work.)
• Lack of Conservation – realizing that something can have the same properties even if it appears differently. Page 347 in notes has form to perform conservation tests on children.

Vygotsky

Social Development Theory (L. Vygotsky)

Overview:

1. The major theme of Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition.

Vygotsky (1978) states: "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).
This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals." (p57).

2. A second aspect of Vygotsky's theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development depends upon the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD): a level of development attained when children engage in social behavior. Full development of the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.

Scaffolding metaphors “training wheels,” pointing a finger, in Berger there is a demonstration with the author’s daughter performing a conservation task. Early aged kids claim the taller glass has more milk, while the older child says “it looks like it has more because it’s taller.” By saying “looks,” the child appears to be looking for some direction, as Vygotsky suggests.

Vygotsky (1978, p56) provides the example of pointing a finger. Initially, this behavior begins as a meaningless grasping motion; however, as people react to the gesture, it becomes a movement that has meaning. In particular, the pointing gesture represents an interpersonal connection between individuals.

3. Vygotsky's theory was an attempt to explain consciousness as the end product of socialization. For example, in the learning of language, our first utterances with peers or adults are for the purpose of communication but once mastered they become internalized and allow "inner speech".

References regarding Vygotsky

Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

Theory of mind

What is "Theory of Mind"?

A "Theory of Mind" is a specific cognitive ability to understand others as intentional agents, that is, to interpret their minds in terms of theoretical concepts of intentional states such as beliefs and desires.

In their 1978 paper: "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" D. Premack and G. Woodruff argued that experimental evidence of chimpanzees’ understanding of human behavior could be interpreted as detection of intentions.

Autism and Theory of Mind

Research in clinical psychology is one of the areas of application of theory of mind. Autism is one of the most severe psychiatric impairment that can occur during the early stages of development. It is a rare deficit, less than 1% of children. Its symptoms range from anomalies in social communication, absence of imagination, preference for isolation, lack of capacity to involve in social games, to an almost total impairment of cognitive functions.

If you compare Autism vs. Down syndrome on these theory of mind tasks, you find that autistic children had better cognitive performance than Down children in many cognitive tasks, but they massively fail the false belief task. Could this have something to do with their social isolation? If Autism is a biologically driven abnormality, where does our knowledge of biology and cognition intersect?