Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis

If we are to be grateful for Piaget’s influence on cognitive-developmental theory, we must start out by acknowledging his theoretical orientation. Piaget’s system is developmental in that it examines the early processes infants and young children use to gain understanding of their surroundings and of the self. Piaget likewise uses a cognitive system as it is concerned with mental representation. In brief, Piaget believed that children do not think like grownups. In his life work and research, spanning almost 75 years, this Swiss philosopher-psychologist-epistemologist sought to explain development in such a way as to keep away from both preformation and environmental determinism. His early work evolved around two necessary questions: What characteristics of children enable them to adjust to their environment? And… what is the simplest, most precise and most utile way of classifying or ordering child development? These questions give us clear or deep perception into Piaget’s basic biological orientation. Further, the answers he offers, assimilation (which involves responding to situations in terms of actions or cognition that have already been learned or that are present at birth) and accommodation (which involves altering existent systems to integrate new experiences) are a key feature of his theory. Piaget believed the mind is an active participant in the learning process; when a child’s experience fits with an existent mental framework, it is assimilating, when it does not fit, the mind may accommodate the new experience. Finally, the interplay of assimilation and accommodation leads to the adaptation. This interplay or motion leading to adaptation demonstrates Piaget’s “mobile” conception of intelligence. This conception primarily differed from the “fixed intelligence” in the traditionalisti approach of his time.

The Stage Theory

Piaget is in all probability best known for his work describing development in a progressive series of stages. Each stage represents the major identifying characteristics of children at that stage and the learning that occurs before the transition to the following stage. According to Piaget, the child is in the Sensorimotor stage from birth to approximately 2 years of age. In this stage, the child’s intelligence relies on self-discovery and on bodily motion; children learn by using their senses as they experience activities. This stage is followed by the Preoperational stage, 2 to 7 years, when cognitions of conceptions and symbols are restricted to personal prompt experience. In other words, children judge things by their aspect and get started to use symbols through the language they are acquiring. At the approximate ages of 7 through 12, the child begins to think logically, moving to the Concrete Operations stage. During this time, the child learns to classify and put items in sequence, and commune through concrete thinking. Next, from regarding ages 11 or 12 years and on, the child moves into the Formal Operations stage, bringing forth systematic thinking that allows the growing child (or young person) to generate possiblenesses and logical solutions. Consequently, she/he may project into the future or recall the past in solving problems, as well as reason with analogy and metaphor.

Back to the Nursery

When my youngest child reached two years, she demonstrated highly social conduct with her desire and her delight in playing with other children. Before this, her necessary playmate, her 4-yr-old brother was the center of her world. This noticeable shift could be attributed (in part) to the size-strength deviations and style of play (e.g. my son was twice her size and was getting more “rough and tumble” oriented). However, I also recognized my daughter’s distinct growth-move from the Sensorimotor stage to the Preoperational stage. For her, this meant that she was no longer fascinated in being her brother’s playmate-slave and she was no longer content in following him around. We met a great deal of other children in our neighborhood (in both sizes) and my daughter translated that experience to having “his & her” friends. Her new found independence and her desire for further and added playmates led me to introduce her to the idea of preschool. Previously, my son and I participated in preschool playgroups; he too showed an interest in peer-play at approximately 26 months old. However, he continued to be more fascinated in playing with adults until approximately 40 months or 3 ½ years-old. Fascinatingly, both childrens successful “potty-habits” coincided with their respective peer-play interests.

In my quest for a safe and furthering preschool environment, I found a private school that had particular classes for each developmental level, infants up to Kindergarten, with plans to commence adding a grade each year until sixth grade. The tuition was high, but well worth the investment, as the staff were distinctly consecrated to their jobs and the facilities were in each way, kid friendly. When I learned that staff could fetch their children tuition free and that the school was looking for a caregiver for the infant room, and perchance because I was missing the infant years I enjoyed with my own children, I made the decision to apply. Within days, I found my own children happily assigned to their potential age-developed classes just yards away from the nursery… the class where I would spend the next two years single-handedly caring for five babies, 8 to 10 hours a day. (Just as an aside… this cured all my “have-another-baby” longings. I would later learn that the position I accepted had never been kept by any other staff person for more than four months… and when I left the position to instruct Kindergarten, the school had to change the class ratio from 5 to 1, to 8 to 2, so that two staff members were available to the infants at all times.)

The staff person I was replacing had to leave the occupation suddenly, taking her own 8-month-old out of the program, and the disruption for the group was rather apparent (i.e. confused and/or disturb babies, all under 9-months-old, equals much crying! Yikes!). The four remaining babies had become rather attached to their former caregiver, making the transition with some objectionary tears, and were not at all comforted by the familiarity of one another. To give my new audio-adventure even more variety, a new “student,” a 6-week-old baby had arrived to fill the empty crib, making my class full and widening the spectrum of developmental needs. My responsibilities included developing a lesson plan that integrated person and group play time, feeding times, altering times, nap times, and of course… time to write every day reports for each child to be ready for the parents when they arrived to take his/her child home. Although the “baby-dictators” over 9-months produced a rhythm for scheduled feeding times, more many times than not, I worked according to their person moods and subsequent needs. As a rule, I witnessed and recorded significant developmental attainments (e.g. original words, sitting up w/o assistance, hand-eye & hand-mouth coordination tasks, pulling self up to standing position, basi steps, teeth, understanding social patterns of care giving such as “you’re next,” etc.). Although each child made these achievements at his or her own person readiness, they very oftentimes followed the predictable developmental time lines as Piaget outlined.

While I confess that caring for the needs of five pre-walking children in one room is a challenge, it did prove to be a rich learning-research-discovery experience. Like Piaget, I had the chance to study children through experiential observation, with one invention leading to the next. Further, when I read the exploration and the theories staged to us by Piaget, I see (in my minds eye) infants and children acquiring and processing info in the respective stages just as he forecasted. Like numerous of his critics, I now and again question Piaget’s age limitation in terms of intellectual capacities. In the lives of my own children, as well as in other children I have studied, I have noticed that children are less egocentric than he thought achievable.

Conclusion

Children are not miniature adults, instead, ought to be recognized as persons living in a amount of time of dependence and preparation. Childhood is a time in which personality structures and very often, lifelong habits are constructed. Many theorists, including Piaget, believe that childhood lays the foundation for the remaining years of life. I have come to believe that the more we may grasp children, the more we will comprehend ourselves. In my life, amongst the years of 24 and 43, I expended a great deal of time raising children and instructing children of all ages. These experiences cause me to believe that children have distinctive thinking and learning capabilities, distinct from adults and these distinctions have only begun to be understood.

Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis

Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis Image

Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis Photo

Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis Photo

Developmental Psychologies Jean Piaget Psychoanalysis Photo

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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
If you have Children
By Robert J. Honzell
If you have children this is a will have to read. If you wish to concentrat on children in your practice, or are just fascinated in what makes a child “tick”, this is a great book.

3 of 4 humans found the following review helpful.
A SUMMARY OVERVIEW OF THE WORK OF PIAGET AND INHELDER
By Steven H. Propp
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as “genetic epistemology”. Bärbel Inhelder (1913-1997) was a Swiss developmental psychologist; she was probably Piaget’s most well-known co-worker.

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