Piagets Sensorimotor Intelligence Period
This article will discuss a Piaget Youtube video I saw and compare it to concepts in our class textbook. The author put together a pretty good video that gives an entertaining (he tries to make learning fun) but cursory overview of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development. He first says that all children develop through a set of distinct stages in intellectual development. However instead of stages I think he should have said Periods of Development. This is because our class textbook defines these stages as he spoke about as periods with stages within these periods.
The first stage (period) he speaks about is the Sensorimotor Stage from birth to 2 years. The only dynamic about this period he emphasizes is object permanence. However there is a lot more to this period than that and he doesn't mention any of the stages like Stage 1 which is the use of reflexes like the sucking reflex. For example the fact that babies search for nipples when they are hungry. He also didn't discuss Stage 2 Primary Circular Reactions like thumb sucking and that fact that babies don't have the proper hand coordination to put their thumb in their mouth at this point.
Stage 3 was also left out where the baby is now learning that movements they make can affect other objects around them. One example of this is that Piaget's daughter was making movements with her legs that made the overhead hanging dolls in her crib move. Fascinated by seeing this, she kept doing this knowing each time she kicked her legs and caused vibration the overhead dolls would swing more and more.
He left out Stage 4 where the infant is now coordinating two separate actions to achieve a specific result. An example of this is the infant trying to grab a small toy and the parent blocking it with their hand. The infant will try at first to go through the hand, then around it and over it. When none of these methods worked the baby eventually moved the hand out of the way in order to grab the toy. This method is known as "striking and grabbing".
Stage 5 is when babies experiement with different actions to observe different outcomes. An example of this is if you give a baby 3 action figures, they'll throw the first one a small distance, use a bit more or medium effort to throw the second action figure, and the third action figure they'll throw with all their strength. What the baby is doing here is measuring how far they can throw something depending on how much energy they put into throwing it.
These are the childs very first scientific experiments and is the very first evidence of the child using true cognition. Stage 6 is like stage 5 but the main difference here is that the child takes some time to think or plan out their attack before executing their plan. Although children don't understand language at this point, their planning phase could consist of facial movements understood only by them.
The first stage (period) he speaks about is the Sensorimotor Stage from birth to 2 years. The only dynamic about this period he emphasizes is object permanence. However there is a lot more to this period than that and he doesn't mention any of the stages like Stage 1 which is the use of reflexes like the sucking reflex. For example the fact that babies search for nipples when they are hungry. He also didn't discuss Stage 2 Primary Circular Reactions like thumb sucking and that fact that babies don't have the proper hand coordination to put their thumb in their mouth at this point.
Stage 3 was also left out where the baby is now learning that movements they make can affect other objects around them. One example of this is that Piaget's daughter was making movements with her legs that made the overhead hanging dolls in her crib move. Fascinated by seeing this, she kept doing this knowing each time she kicked her legs and caused vibration the overhead dolls would swing more and more.
He left out Stage 4 where the infant is now coordinating two separate actions to achieve a specific result. An example of this is the infant trying to grab a small toy and the parent blocking it with their hand. The infant will try at first to go through the hand, then around it and over it. When none of these methods worked the baby eventually moved the hand out of the way in order to grab the toy. This method is known as "striking and grabbing".
Stage 5 is when babies experiement with different actions to observe different outcomes. An example of this is if you give a baby 3 action figures, they'll throw the first one a small distance, use a bit more or medium effort to throw the second action figure, and the third action figure they'll throw with all their strength. What the baby is doing here is measuring how far they can throw something depending on how much energy they put into throwing it.
These are the childs very first scientific experiments and is the very first evidence of the child using true cognition. Stage 6 is like stage 5 but the main difference here is that the child takes some time to think or plan out their attack before executing their plan. Although children don't understand language at this point, their planning phase could consist of facial movements understood only by them.
Source...