According to Piaget there are 3 processes, which are the basis of cognitive development, these are:.
Adaptation is a continuous process which studies and learns from the environment around and also learns to adjust when changed.
Assimilation is the principle of absorbing new information, and making it a mental idea. Also creating sense of new information within knowledge and understanding. .
Accommodation is new information brought in which changes the child mental ideas to adjust to the new information. .
(Grivas & Carter, 2000, page 227 - 228).
Previous Research.
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Robert Thatcher did research to give some support Piaget's theory. Thatcher used an "EEG" to measure each participant brain waves activity. .
Participants were 577 "normal" children in the age range from two months to early adolescence.
Robert found that the child brain undergoes five different growths, around the same time as Piaget suggested. He also found that the brain hemisphere develops, and are active at different times in childhood. Robert's finding concluded that different areas of the brain develop at particular ages. This affects and supports Piaget's fours stages theory of cognitive development.
Piaget's stages of cognitive development Thatcher's suggested growth spurts .
Birth to two years Sensorimotor stage Birth to three years.
Two to seven years Pre-operational stage Four to six year.
Seven to 12 years Concrete operation stage Eight to 10 years .
12+ years Formal operational stage 11 - 14 years.
15 years to adulthood.
(Grivas & Carter, 2000, page 238 - 239).
Aim: Comparing cognitive abilities in children in different stages, using Piaget's theory. Also to test the hypothesis that children less than 7 years can't conserver mass, area and volume.
Hypothesis: It's expected that children under the age of 7 years (Pre-Operation stage) would be unable to conserve volume, mass, area, numbers and children aged 7+ over (Concrete Operational Stage) would be able to conserve.
