Jean Piaget's cognitive development

Jean Piaget looked into the way that children adapt, more specifically assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is adding a new object into an old skill, whereas accommodation is adjusting an old skill on a new object. For example, assimilation is when a child goes from sucking on a small bottle, to a larger bottle. Accommodation is when a child has to adjust their skill of sucking on a pacifier to sucking on a bottle.
Piaget also noted that throughout a child's life, there are moments when accommodation dominates, when assimilation dominates, and when there is a equilibrium between the two.

From here, he developed the idea of stages of cognitive development:
-The sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) - some language is being developed around this point but the child is mainly learning that they are an agent of action e.g. they learn that they can shake the rattle to make a noise. They also begin to differentiate themselves from the object and around the age of 7 months, gain an idea of object permanence,
-The pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - their language use had matured and they begin to use their imagination and memory. The are still egocentric in the idea that they believe everyone knows what they do. Their thinking is typically done in a non-logical manner and they will classify objects by a single feature (red, big, small etc).
-The concrete operational stage (7-11 years) - they can now have conversations based around number, mass, weight, length, liquid, area, and volume. Their egocentric point of view diminishes. They can think in a more logical manner and can classify objects by multiple features.
-The formal operation stage (11+ years) - They can hypothesise and think about abstract thoughts. They begin to think about the future and ideological problems.

Bibliographyhttp://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/piaget.htmlhttp://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsypiaget.html

Evie talking transcript questions

In this transcript Evie’s pronunciation of <picture> varies.  How many variations can you find?  Is there a pattern to them?  How might you explain them?

I counted 4 separate variations of the word ‘picture’. One of the patterns I found is that at first she said picture almost like ‘pitter’ but then as she heard her grandmother say it more she began to pronounce the ‘c’ sound more.

Evie’s grandma uses a variety of strategies to keep the conversation moving along.  How many can you find?  Why do you think these are important?

I counted about 5 different strategies the grandmother used to keep the conversations going. She asked Evie questions so that she will hopefully elaborate on the situation. She completed the sentences for Evie, for example when Evie said “cat” and then “in the picture” after the grandmother responded, the grandmother then said “we want cat in the picture okay” which possibly allows Evie to get an understanding of how sentences can be strung together. As show in the last example, the grandmother repeats Evie as shown when Evie says cat the grandmother then also says cat. As well as questioning Evie about the situation, she also asks her to do things such as choose more animals to take pictures of. And finally, the grandmother confirms what Evie is saying, this could suggests that she wants Evie to continue on talking.

In this sequence, grandma follows each of Evie’s utterances with an extended version of what she has said.  What does she add?  Why?

She usually adds either previous information given to her by Evie (for example the amount of cats) or she adds ‘right’. This is allowing Evie to continue the conversation without being intrusive and adding her own information. Evie is essentially having a conversation with herself since the grandmother isn’t adding anything so Evie. But, Evie is learning how to put all the information she has given into a sentence since that is what the grandmother is doing.

Grandma uses a lot of questions in this transcript.  What proportion of her utterances are questions?  How would you classify the functions of these questions? 

Over half of the utterances that the grandmother says are questions. The function of these questions is to allow Evie to continue on and elaborate on what she is saying. Another one of the functions could be that the grandmother is trying to gain more information from Evie so that she can be more involved in the conversation, if she was to say something that Evie wasn’t thinking it could imply that Evie or the grandmother was wrong and so the grandmother could be trying to avoid that by gaining correct information from her.

This sequence entails a misunderstanding about the bath.  How would you describe this misunderstanding?  How might you explain it?

In this sequence, Evie mistakes the toy bath for the actual bath in the bathroom. The way that the grandmother rectifies this is by saying, “no not that bath the house bath”. This could be confusing for Evie since the actual bath is still a house bath but the grandmother also points to the toy house to get Evie to understand that it was the toy bath she was referring to. The reason she might have misunderstood it is that the grandmother told her to ‘find’ the bath rather than to get it.

As you can see very clearly in the video, Evie is thoroughly enjoying playing to the camera and wants to see the video straight away.  How does this awareness of the camera shape the conversation?

This awareness of the camera allows the conversation to gravitate towards it often. Whether it is about taking pictures of how Evie is smiling. The grandmother wants Evie to continue playing with her toys as she is the one to change the conversation from the smiling to the toys. I doubt Evie is playing up to the camera as she doesn’t believe she is being recorded, but rather having pictures taken of the animals and herself.

As with <picture> we can see variations in Evie’s pronunciation of <kangaroo>.  Trying to get it right?  Creative experimentation with sounds and words?  To what extent do you agree with these ideas?

It could be that she is trying to get it right but her last utterance of kangaroo sounded like ‘camroo’ when he first sounded like ‘kaneeroo’ which would’ve sounded more similar because it has the ‘n’ sound. It could be a creative experiment of sounds and words which would’ve made some form of sense since each time they sound different/ Unlike ‘picture’, ‘kangaroo’ doesn’t become more accurate after each time she hears her grandmother say it. To me it sounds like she is making the word shorter and easier for her to say each time.