Piagets Theory of Child Development - Essay Example

Running Head: Case Study Table of Contents Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 2 Case Study ……………………………………………………………………….. 2 Scholarly Journal …………………………………………………………………. 5 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….. 6 Introduction Child needs special care and attention in his childhood. At early stages, child is not mature to adopt things as they are suppose to. At early stages, he does what he understands by adopting other’s actions. The paper will highlight the issues of a young child and will shed light on these issues with the help of Piaget child development theory. Later section of the paper suggests some solution of Josephine and Connor’s child problem in the light of Piaget’s child development theory. Later sections deal with the scholarly journal points linked with Piaget’s theory. Case Study Josephine and Connor are the parents of 18 month old boy named Taj. They were planning day care centre assistance for his development. They were concerned about his speech as he is not perfect in delivering up proper sentences. They are curious to know is this normal in all kids of this age or do their child having a problem. Sometime, it happens that parent’s don’t understand what their child exactly wants and they fail in understating his requirements/actions and sentences then it frustrates their child and he becomes stubborn. They are worried that if they use day care service then people will consider them bad parents who couldn’t control their child. Both were depressed due to their child behavior and are scared to have a day care service for their child. They are assuming that when their baby having issues at home then he will face issues at day care center as well. Sometimes, it happen that parent gets fail to understand a child’s actions/ sentences and this makes a child stubborn and frustrated. It’s a common issue with almost all kids that in early stages, they can’t deliver proper sentences and can’t elaborate their feelings. A child needs special care and attention in his childhood; parents need patience and love to understand his feelings in his childhood. In the above case, there are two issues related to child’s development. 1) Understanding child’s action/sentences 2) Preventing a child being stubborn. According to Jean Piaget, such issues can get solved by understanding child’s mental status and nature. As in childhood, children are neutral and they just do what they see. Such issues can be handled easily if parents deal them with patience and care. Understanding child’s mental approach helps a lot in understanding his actions. His insight plays a role of maturation (growing up gradually) in childrens rising capacity to explore their world: they cannot perform certain tasks until they become psychologically strong enough to do so. His work has spawned a big deal more, a great extent of which has undermined the description of his own, but like other famous investigators, his significance comes from his strong vision. He suggested that childrens mind does not grow smoothly: instead, there are many points/stages at which it "slows off" and shifts into entirely new areas and skills. He observed these changes getting place at about 18 months, and 11 or 12 years. This has been observed that prior to these stages children are not strong enough (no matter how active) of adopting things in proper ways, and has been utilized as the ground for designing the school curriculum. According to Paiget, a child mind gets mature with time and it needs proper action and silent care till he reaches adolescence. Josephine and Connor baby is 18 years old and he can’t deliver proper sentences and when they don’t understand what he says then he throws himself on floor and has a temper tantrum. According to Paiget, The complete evidence shows that this scheme is too strict: as usually children maintain concrete actions earlier as he thought and some children never adopt formal operations. Piagets approach is significant to the concept of cognitive theory referred as "cognitive constructivism": other researchers, known as "social constructivists", like Vygotsky and Bruner, have emphasized more on the role played by language and surroundings in enabling children to learn and act. Josephine and Connor needs to learn from child’s surrounding that what exactly he likes and always try to stop him being stubborn by different ways. Day care will help in developing their child’s habits. They should not be worried while taking day care service as the trainer knows how to handle such children. Te present development stage is adapting a world by other’s action and fails to deliver those actions properly. The theory suggests learning through environment and a strong but flexible behavior towards child (Franck, Noble, Liossi, 2010). Scholarly Journal The journal deals with the comparison of Piaget’s theory and other child development theories. Piaget states that what separates human beings from other species is the capability to do “abstract symbolic reasoning. Piagets concepts are usually verified with those of Lev Vygotsky, who focused more to social commitment as the primary objective of cognition and behavior. This is almost similar to the differences made between Freud and Erikson in the sense of the development of child’s personality. He observed that young children behave differently than older children. This proves that human development is qualitative approach rather than quantitative approach (Case, Robbie , 2008). Piaget says: Behavior can be controlled through mental status and structures referred as schemes that the individual utilizes to demonstrate the world. This relationship is derived by a biological drive to produce a balance between schemes and the equilibration. Piaget believes that infants come with schemes operating at birth that he referred as "reflexes." In other species, these reflexes maintain behavior throughout life, although, in human beings as the infant lies on these reflexes to adapt to the surroundings; these reflexes are quickly changed with constructed schemes (Velleman, Stallard & Richardson, 2008). Piaget focuses two processes adopts by the individual: assimilation and Accommodation. Both of these procedures are used throughout life as the human usually adapts to the surroundings in a more complex manner. As schemes become more complex with time initiates more complex behaviors and are usually termed as structures. As ones structures become more complex, they are organized in a hierarchical manner (Bourke-Taylor, Law, Howie & Pallant, 2005). Conclusion At early stages, a child needs special attention and care and there is always a need to understand the basic mental approach of a child in order to prevent him being stubborn (West, Morawska, Joughin, 2010). A child must be deal with care in the light of Piaget’s theory and its stages. Day care helps a lot in building child’s personality. References Personal author, compiler, or editor name(s); click on any author to run a new search on that name.Case, Robbie , (2008), Piaget’s Theory of child development, retrieved: 31-08-2010, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ081931&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ081931. S. Velleman, P. Stallard, T. Richardson, (2008), a review and meta-analysis of computerized cognitive behaviour therapy for the treatment of pain in children and adolescents, Retirved: 2-08-2010. H. Bourke-Taylor, M. Law, L. Howie, J. F. Pallant, (2005), Development of the Childs Challenging Behaviour Scale (CCBS) for mothers of school-aged children with disabilities, Retirved: 2-08-2010 F. West, A. Morawska, K. Joughin, (2010), The Lifestyle Behaviour Checklist: evaluation of the factor structure: p 508-515. L. Franck, G. Noble, C. Liossi, (2010), from tears to words: the development of language to express pain in young children with everyday minor illnesses and injuries. Read More