Cognitivism as the development of intellectual, communicative and logical skills
Introduction
Cognitivism was a dominant current in the experimental psychology of the twentieth century. It is a contemporary current that attempts to explain the psychological functioning of people, introducing an interpretation with respect to how human beings learn.
Cognitive psychology is understood as the set of perspectives for the study of human behavior that are based on the non -observable, mental aspects, which mediate between the stimulus and the open response.
For cognitive psychologists, mental processes are of great importance, especially those called cognitive, as an explanatory factor of human behavior. Cognitive psychology gives particular attention to the mental representations that human beings elaborate as replicas of the environment.
Piaget’s theory (main exponent of the cognitive development approach) explains the observable behavior of the child and its changes throughout its development as an expression of underlying mental structures that the child himself builds. This theory also highlights the description and explanation of the individual and its rational aspect, above the relationships between individuals and affective aspects.
Instead, Lev Vygotsky proposes that it is not possible. The individual’s thinking patterns are the product of cultural institutions and social activities and are not due to innate factors.
Piaget divided cognitive development into four stages: Sensoriomotora stage, preoperational stage, stage of concrete operations and stage of formal operations. At each stage it is suggested that the child’s thought is qualitatively different from that of the remaining.
According to Piaget, cognitive development is not only. Once the child enters a new stage, he does not go back to a previous form of reasoning or operation. That is, all children go through the four stages in the same order. It is not possible to omit any of it. (Linares, 2008)
Developing
Cognitive development according to Piaget is not only the result of the maturation of the organism or the influence of the environment, but the interaction of the two. For Piaget intelligence is an adaptation. He is interested between thought and things. There are invariable functions and variant cognitive structures, that is, structures change as the organism develops. It is the cognitive structures that make the difference between the thought of the child and the adult (Bazán Vera, 2012).
Development as a change in knowledge structures
Piaget thought that everyone, even children, organize the knowledge of the world in schemes. The schemes are sets of physical actions, of mental operations, of concepts or theories with which we organize and acquire information about the world. The young child knows the world of her through the physical actions he does, while older ones can perform mental operations and use symbols systems such as language. As the child goes through the stages, he improves his ability to use complex and abstract schemes that allow him to organize his knowledge. Cognitive development does not consist only of building new schemes, but in reorganizing and differentiating existing ones (Octavio G., 2015).
Stages of development
The Piagetian stadium notion.
Piaget believed that knowledge evolves throughout a series of stages. Children’s thinking at any specific stage is qualitative and quantitatively different from thought in the precedent or in the next stage. There are four characteristics of Piagetian stadiums.
First, the sequence of appearance of the stages is invariant, that is, the stages follow a specific order. However, people advance at different rhythm, that is, fluctuations occur regarding the age of their appearance and not all individuals reach the final stages.
Second, there is a characteristic set structure of each stage. Piaget considered that children’s thinking experiences an abrupt change in short periods. At this time the new cognitive structures arise. The emergence of different structures explains the fact that all the tasks that a child is capable of having a similar complexity.
Third, the stages are hierarchically inclusive, that is, the structures of a lower stage are integrated into the following. For example, in the stage of concrete operations all the progress of the sensoriomotor period is maintained, and it can be said that concrete operations are built on the achievements of the preoperational period.
Finally, the transition between stages is gradual. The step between stadiums is not abrupt, since in each of them there is a preparation phase and another in which the achievements of that stage are completed (Linares A. R., 2008).
The Sensoriomotor Stadium (from birth to two years)
In the Sensoriomotor Stadium the baby is related to the world through the senses and action, but, at the end of this stage she will be able to represent reality mentally. The sensoriomotor period gives rise to some milestones in intellectual development. Children develop intentional or directed behavior towards goals (hitting a rattle to sound). Also, children will come to understand that objects have a permanent existence that is independent of their perception (object permanence). In addition, there are activities that in this period will experience remarkable development: imitation and game.
The Preoperational Stadium (from 2 to 7 years)
The ability to think of objects, facts or absent people marks the beginning of the preoperational stage. Between the age of 2 and 7, the child demonstrates greater ability to use symbols – gestures, words, numbers and images – with which to represent the real things of the environment. She can now think and behave in ways that were not possible before. You can use words to communicate, use numbers to count objects, participate in pretending games and express your ideas about the world through drawings. Preoperational thinking has several limitations despite the ability to represent things and events with symbols (Octavio G., 2015). Piaget designated this period with the name of the preoperational stage, because preschoolers lack the ability to carry out some of the logical operations he observed in older children. Before commenting on the limitations of preoperational thinking we will examine some of the most important cognitive progress of this stage.
Representational thinking
During the preoperational stage, the child can use symbols as a means to reflect on the environment. The ability to use a word (cookies, milk, for example) to refer to a real object that is not present is called semiotic operation or representational thinking. Piaget proposed that one of his first forms was the deferred imitation, which appears for the first time towards the end of the sensoriomotor period (the ability to repeat a simple sequence of actions or sounds, hours or days after they were initially produced).
During the preoperational stage other examples of representational thinking are observed. It is often considered that preschool years are the "golden age" of the symbolic game (Singer & Singer, 1976). The game begins with simple conduct sequences using real objects; For example, pretend to drink a drink or eat with an object similar to the spoon. At four years of age, the child can invent his own teacher, create a script and represent several social roles.
In general terms, the symbolic game is inspired by real events of the child’s life (for example, the playground, go to the store, go on a trip), but also those who have fantasy and superheroes characters are very attractive for him. Many experts think that this type of game favors language development, as well as cognitive and social skills. Also favors creativity and imagination.
According to Piaget, the development of representational thinking allows the child to acquire language. The preschool years are an accelerated development period of language: most children pronounce their first words towards the second year and increase their vocabulary until reaching about 2000 words at 4 years.
When the child begins to speak, he uses words referring to activities and events, as well as his current wishes. During the preoperational period he begins to use them in a truly representational way. Instead of focusing exclusively on the activities of the moment or in his immediate desires, he begins to use them to represent absent objects and past events (Ginsburg & Sylvia, 1998). In other words, he uses them to refer to events that he does not experience directly. Piaget believed that representational thinking facilitates rapid linguistic development in the preoperational period. That is, thought would precede linguistic development.
During the preoperational stage, the child begins to represent the world through mental paintings and images, which has made some experts qualify in "silent language" child art. The drawings reveal a lot about their thinking and feelings. For example, when children of 2 and 3 years of age are asked what they are drawing or painting, it is most likely to respond: "I am nothing more drawing". However, between 3 and 4 years they begin to combine strokes to draw pictures, crosses, circles and other geometric figures. They start the representational stage of the drawing towards 4 or 5 years. They draw houses, animals, personan, cartoon characters and other objects. The figures can represent real objects of the environment or people of the fantasy they have seen or who have heard. This shows this evolutionary advance in children’s drawings. As he grows, the child enriches his drawings with details, even incorporating words that develop the script (Linares A. R., 2008).
The Stadium of concrete operations (from 7 to 11 years old)
During the elementary schools, the child begins to use mental operations and logic to reflect on the facts and objects of his environment. For example, if we ask him to order five sticks for his size, he will compare them mentally and then extract logical conclusions on the correct order without physically carrying out the corresponding actions. This ability to apply logic and mental operations allows you to address problems more systematically than a child who is in the preoperational stage.
The stage of formal operations (from 11 to 12 years and older)
Once the ability to solve problems such as seriation, classification and conservation, the child from 11 to 12 years begins to form a coherent system of formal logic is achieved. At the end of the period of specific operations, it already has the cognitive tools that allow it to solve many types of logic problems, understand the conceptual relationships between mathematical operations (for example, 15 + 8 = 10 + 13), order and classify the knowledge sets. During adolescence the mental operations that arose in the previous stages are organized in a more complex system of logic and abstract ideas.
conclusion
Cognitive development is the set of transformations that occur throughout the lives of people, where knowledge and skills to perceive, think and understand, which are used for the resolution of practical problems of everyday life are increased.
Theories that explain cognitive development are two: the Piagetian perspective, where he explains how the child interprets the world at diverse ages. Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective where he explains the social processes that influence the acquisition of intellectual skills.
In this work we rely on Piaget’s theory, which divides cognitive development into four stages:
- Sensoriomotora (0 – 2 years): where intelligence is practical and is related to problem solving at the level of action.
- Preoperational children (2 – 7 years): intelligence is already symbolic, but its operations still lack logical structure. They acquire the ability to manage the world symbolically or through representations, they may think of facts or absent people. Between the age of 2 and 7, the child demonstrates greater ability to use symbols (gestures, words, number and images) with which to represent the real things of the environment. He can now think and behave in ways that were not possible before. You can use words to communicate, use numbers to count objects, participate in pretending games and express its ideas about the world through drawings. Piaget designated this stage with this name because preschoolers lack the ability to carry out some logical operations that he observed in older children. (Linares a. R., 2008)
- Concrete operations (7 – 12 years): child thinking is already a logical thought, on condition that it is applied to specific experimentation and manipulation situations.
- Formal operations (12 years and older): Formal logic and the ability to transcend reality by managing and verifying hypotheses appears in an exhaustive and systematic way.
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