An important discovery during the sensori- motor stage is the concept of "object permanence”. Object permanence is the awareness that an object continues to exist even when it is not in view. After first year of exploration the child exhibits perseverative search as it searches for objects concealed in places found earlier, leading to object permanence towards the end of this stage. The child may also show evidence of deferred imitation, whereby it is able to imitate behaviour seen before.
Piaget argues that the child cannot grasp the concept that objects still exist when hidden or taken away until the age of 8 months. Piaget underestimated the abilities of infants in number of ways. Most researchers agree that children posses many of the abilities at an earlier age than Piaget suspected. For example Bower (1982) hid a toy behind a screen .When the screen was lifted a few second later ,the toy was no longer there. Infants who were three or four months old showed surprised. This explains
That some aspect of object permanence are present much earlier than was claimed by Piaget.
This view has that a child does not have object permanence until 8 months has been challenged by Bower and Wishard in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
Piaget is also been criticised for sticking to the notion of distinct stage or periods of development (Flawell et al 1993) Research has disputed Piaget's argument that all children will automatically move to the next stage of development as they mature. Some data suggests that environmental factors may play a role in the development of formal operations.
Preoperational ( Toddler and Early Childhood ) thought is the second stage in Piaget’s theory. The most important development at this time is language. The development of languages is associated with the cognitive advances of pre-operational children.
In this stage a child ranging from 2 to 7 years of age learns how to talk and walk to understand their bodies. Children at this time use symbols, they can pretend. Although the thinking of the child is more advanced than when it was in the sensori-motor stage, it is still qualitatively inferior to that of an adult .The preoperational stage is divided into the preconceptual (2-4 years) and the intuitive (4-7years) In the preoperational stage children use language and try to make sense of the world but have a much less sophisticated mode of thought than adults. In the intuitive phase the child slowly moves away from drawing conclusions based solely on concrete experiences with objects. However, the conclusions drawn are based on rather vague impressions and perceptual judgments
Children in the preoperational stage are characterized by what Piaget called egocentric thoughts. That is, he sees things pretty much from one point of view: his own! Piaget did a study to investigate this phenomenon called the mountains study. He would put children in front of a simple plaster mountain range and seat himself to the side, then ask them to pick from four pictures the view that he, would see. Younger children would pick the picture of the view they themselves saw; older kids picked correctly.
'Animism' is also a characteristic of the Pre-operational stage. This is when a person has the belief that everything that exists has some kind of consciousness.
Pre-operational children are unduly influenced by their perception of environment they tend to pay attention to only one aspect of the total situation ,this is called centration .The way in which centration produces errors is explained in studies of conversation .
The experiment involves demonstrating a child's understanding of conservation. In one conservation experiment, equal amounts of liquid are poured into two identical containers. The liquid in one container is then poured into a different shaped cup, such as a tall and thin cup, or a short and wide cup. Children are then asked which cup holds the most liquid. Despite seeing that the liquid amounts were equal, children almost always choose the cup that appears fuller.
Both of piaget test or task; mountain task and conversation tasks come under critics . It is believed that the three mountain task that Piaget asked three year old children to solve was too complex to test children's ability to see someone else's perspective. It is believed that young children can see someone else's point of view in a simple way. Similarly, the conservation tasks may also have been too complex., and further research has indicated that if a conservation task was presented in a simplified, fun manner, children were able to understand the concept of it much more easily. Wheldall and Poboroca (1980) claimed that children fail on conversation task because they do not understand the question.
Piaget was correct in that, while children are capable for showing some understanding of these concepts it does take maturity and experience before children can fully logical structures and apply them to daily life.
The third is the concrete operation stage (Elementary and early adolescence) which usually occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 or 12. The word operation refers to logical operations or principles we use when solving problems. In this stage, the child not only uses symbols but can manipulate those symbols logically. This stage is also characterized by a loss of egocentric thinking. Egocentric thinking dissolves and children learn that others have ideas and views different from their own. They begin to pay attention to the point of view of others as a way to verify their own. They understand laws of conservation and are able to classify, understand reversibility, the ability to think backward from the end to the beginning. The most important cognitive operation is Reversibility - where the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, and then returned to their original state.
During this stage, children can use cognitive operation only with specific concrete situations. Piaget argued that cognitive operation are usually organised into a system or structure. The other important cognitive operation are;
Conservation - understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.
Classification - the ability to name and Decentring - where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to identify sets of object according to appearance, size or other characteristic..
The fourth stage is the formal operations stage (Adolescence and adulthood) which follows on from the stage of concrete operations. The formal operational stage begins in most people at age twelve and continues into adulthood. This stage produces a new kind of thinking that is abstract, formal, and logical. By this stage, the person no longer requires concrete objects to make rational judgements. He or she is capable of deductive and hypothetical reasoning. His or her ability for abstract thinking is very similar to an adult. Logic: Piaget believed that deductive logic becomes important during the formal operational stage. This type of thinking involves hypothetical situations and is often required in science and mathematics. Formal operation stage involves the problem-solving. In earlier stages, children used trial-and-error to solve problems. During the formal operational stage, the ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodical way emerges. Children at the formal operational stage of cognitive development are often able to quickly plan an organized approach to solving a problem.
Piaget’s theories and findings have been widely challenged
Around this time, another psychologist was offering his views on child cognitive development. Lev Vygotsky (1986-1934) was a Russian psychologist .He offered an alternative to Piaget's stages of cognitive development. He emphasised the notion that cognitive development depend very largely on social factors. According to Vygotsky (1978)
Any function in child’s cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane.
This theory stated that students learn through social interactions and their culture – much different from Piaget's theory that stated children act on their environment to learn. Our culture helps shape our cognition. Major criticisms is that the theory doesn’t take into account cultural background and education.
Psychologists such as Meadows (1988) have suggested that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of children. Meadows believes that Piaget ignored individual differences in his studies. It has also been argued that Piaget ignored both emotional and social influences on cognitive development.
Much of the criticism of Piaget's work is in regards to his research methods. A major source of inspiration for the theory was Piaget's observations of his own three children
Metholody is another aspect of Piaget theory which has frequently come under criticism .He used the clinical method, in his experiments he used basic question and answer techniques. But his questions were not standardised and tailored very much to the individual. It makes considerable demands on the language ability of the child. Criticisms have also been made of Piaget’s ideas about egocentrism. It has been argued that Piaget’s egocentrism experiments, like the three mountain scene, confused the child as it was not clear what was being asked. Wheldall and Poborca (1980). Piaget did not take into account the individual differences of children, or the differences caused by heredity, culture and education.(Durkein ,1995 ) He did little research on the emotional and personality development of children .
Conclusion
Despite the numerous objections and criticism to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, he was in fact the first psychologist to even look at how children see the world and as a consequence initiated a vast amount of further study into the area. In those terms he has made a substantial contribution to our understanding and appreciation of this complex subject area. Much of his theory has been directly applied and accepted in modern education. Many of the criticisms of Piaget surround his underestimation of childhood abilities and also the age at which the cognitive developments are said to take place. It is not however, disputed that the changes themselves do in fact occur, so in that respect, Piaget’s work has been and still is greatly significant. Never the less, Piaget’s ideas still maintain a vital influence in both general psychology and contemporary education.
REFERENCES
Eysenick, M.W. (2000). Psychology; A Student’s Handbook Hove; Psychology Press
Smith ,P.K & Cowie ,H. (1991) Understanding Children’s Development Oxford Blackwell Publishing .
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press cited in Eysenick (2000)
Durkin, K. (1995). Developmental Social Psychology; From infancy to old age. Oxford; Blackwell cited in Eysenick (2000)
Wheldall, K.,&Poborca ,B.(1980).Conservation without Conversation; An Alternative, Non-Verbal Paradigm for Assessing Conservation of Liquid Quantity. British Journal of Psychology cited in Eysenick (2000)
Bower , T.G.R (1982) Development in infancy .San Francisco; W.H. Freeman
cited in Eysenick (2000)
