Children's Cognitive Development - Book Report/Review Example

Topic: to what extent can it be said that the change and variation in children's cognitive development during the school years is dependent upon social interaction INTRODUCTION According to Plotnik in 1999, Cognitive development is defined as "...how a person perceives, thinks, and gains an understanding of his or her world through the interaction and influence of genetic and learned factors"1 BODY Reductionist argument. One of the best events that occurred in our 20th century occurred in psychology(De Haan, 2002) This occurred when there were changes from the reductionist view to the non reductionist view on child cognitive behaviour(Meadows, 2006). The reductionist view is also termed behaviorialism. Pavlov saw behaviorialism of human learning that was developed by Watson, Hull and Thorndike in the 1950s. The reductionist sees cognitive(Richards, 1998) development as a black box approach approach based in empiricism, just like the approach a single chemist may use. Since one cannot observe what is happening in the brain, we should limit our measurements and theories to merely what is going in - the stimulus - and what is coming out - the response. By mid-century, the S-R view was so powerful that it dominated other fields of human science as well: education, linguistics and sociology. Classical conditioning by itself could not explain what Jean Piaget(Sheldon, 1995) had observed, that all children have to go through the four stages of development that have no relation to external stimuli. Somehow, he proposed, the brain itself is actively involved in the learning process. The reductionist view, however, has been replaced by more complex non-reductionist views because of the new teachings of Piaget regarding the cognitive child development. Constructivist argument The constructivists who were the educators, researchers and policymakers had discussed the merits of the constructivist style of child cognitive development. Many teachers, researchers and policymakers have discussed constructivism and the constructivist approach to learning and also teaching. During the past few years, this orientation has become the standard in academic circles. The use of a constructionist perspective in order to help children gain a deep understanding of themselves in relation to others in the world, should not therefore be unclear to many educators. The issue of whether the teacher him/herself should directly intervene in such affairs has been one of many concerns. In constructivist style, two factors must be addressed in making such a decisions: a) is this an activitiy which requires permission from the child's family, and b) is this a responsibility for which I should expend considerable time Teachers and administrators must have a clear understanding of what cognitive restructuring is all about, and as good constructivist, we should start from a concept that many will know and understand. Constructivism had grown out from a long and highly respected tradition in cognitive psychology through the teachings of Dewey, Vygotski and Piaget. Constructivism shows the people's understanding of many concepts by experiencing the act or situation themselves. The teacher(Needleman, 1999) and the clinicians help guide the children to learn Constructivism holds that people's understanding of any concept depends entirely on their mental construction of that concept - that is, their experiences in deriving that concept for themselves. Teacher and clinicians and others can guide the process, but children must undertake and manage the process of developing an understanding for themselves. Different individuals, depending on their experiences, knowledge and their cognitive structures at the time will understand a given presentation differently. Research indicates that people remember an experience based on what their pre-existing knowledge and cognitive structures allow them to absorb - regardless of the other's intentions or the quality of explanation. This shows that each child must experience the situations that cannot be explained by the teacher or clinician using words to describe an object or situation. The teacher therefore only guides the child so that the child can experience first hand what the teacher or clinicians wants the child to learn through the use of five senses. The child then uses interpersonal relationships to expand his or her knowledge about life. The child must exert energy and commitment in order to learn to correctly act when interacting with other people he gets in contact with. In some situations, the child puts up a wall to defend himself against hurts or attacks from other persons. It is a fact that when a child meets other people, this situation is the difference that makes a difference. The child is eager to participate because it pertains to his or her survival.2 Teleological argument There is strong body of evidence that shows that children are favor viewing both artifacts and the natural kinds such as biological and non biological ones are existing for a purpose. In line with this thinking, TELEOLOGICAL theories restrict the child's reasoning about other living things around him or her. There are many studies that show that children attend to shared functional adaptation rather than shared overall looks when make general assumptions of behaviours of animals. The children(Mazzoni, 1998) in the teleological view judge if biological properties are heritable because of their function's consequences and not on their origin. The children will the put accept the biological fact that legs are used for walking, that animals should be locked up in a zoo, the clouds must rain and other logical cause and effect situations. Margaret Evans discovered that children in fundamentalist Christian homes have been more inclined to be creationists as compared to children that grow up in non fundamentalist Christian homes. The creationist children believe that God created the animals while the children of non fundamentalist homes believe that God created man and the animals and also the generation theory such as chickens came from eggs and eggs came from chickens. Some non creationist children accept the Charles Darwin's theory of evolution where it is stated that man came from apes. The creationist children are the people who have restrained the popularity and spread of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. In short teleology gives the people the idea that there is no God. They are often called atheists. Discredit the Piagetian & information processing approach According to the above Plotnik study in 1999, In the many years that developmental psychology has grown, Jean Piaget's work has made the greatest impact on the study of cognitive development. A significant feature of Piaget's theory is the focus on processes of cognitive development. According to Piaget, the child is born with an innate curiosity to interact with and understand his/her world. The four stages where it is through interaction with others (particularly with one's peers), that the child actively constructs his/her development are: Sensorimotor stage (years 0-2) Preoperational stage (years 2-7) Concrete operational stage (years 7-11) Formal operational stage (years 11-adulthood. There are many challenges to what Piaget taught in his cognitive theory. One such situation is when Piaget himself state, that "development does not always progress in the smooth manner his theory seems to predict. 'Decalage', or unpredicted gaps in the developmental progression, suggest that the stage model is at best a useful approximation. More broadly, Piaget's theory is 'domain general', predicting that cognitive maturation occurs concurrently across different domains of knowledge (such as mathematics, logic, understanding of physics, of language, etc)". "However, more recent cognitive developmentalists have been much influenced by trends in cognitive science away from domain generality and towards domain specificity or modularity of mind, under which different cognitive faculties may be largely independent of one another and thus develop according to quite different time-tables. In this vein, many current cognitive developmentalists argue that rather than being domain general learners, children come equipped with domain specific theories, sometimes referred to as 'core knowledge', which allows them to break into learning within that domain. For example, even young infants appear to understand some basic principles of physics (e.g. that one object cannot pass through another) and human intentionality (e.g. that a hand repeatedly reaching for an object has that object, not just a particular path of motion, as its goal). These basic assumptions may be the building blocks out of which more elaborated knowledge is constructed3". Therefore, physics and other biological sciences may contradict the teachings of Jean Piaget. Coleman study Craig Coleman, clinical coordinator of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh states in his article Hidden Treasure of Stuttering Resources, USA, that in his research of stuttering children that he must teach not only the stuttering child but also the parents and relatives on how to help the child improve his learning skills. Coleman recommended that effective treatment of stuttering children can be hastened if the parents and relatives gave their own efforts so that the children can unlock their communication potential. Vygotsky Study Vygotsky stated in his research of children playing that during the games, a child learns about life. Play is the children's way of learning the social rules by putting them into practice. This is why children play war games or play with dolls or sing and dance together. "Vygotsky even once described two sisters at dinner "playing" at being sisters at dinner. Vygotsky believed that play contained all developmental levels in a condensed form. Therefore, to Vygotsky, play was akin to imagination where a child extends her/himself to the next level of his/her normal behavior, thereby creating a zone of proximal development for her/himself. In essence, Vygotsky believed "play is the source of development." Psychology of game was later developed by Vygotsky's student Daniil El'konin."(Wetsch, 1985). Vygotsky contributed to the theory that inter relationships of language development and thought. CONCLUSION All the above topics shows to what extent can it be said that the change and variation in children's cognitive development(Hepple, 2004) during the school years is dependent upon social interaction both in the psychological and sociological approaches. Psychologically, the child will learn fear, faith, love, trust, belongingness and other feelings when they meet other children or older persons. Sociologically, the child learns that if his playmates or other social contacts are friendly, then the child feels that society is also friendly. Likewise, if the child has playmates who fight him, then the child will grow up feeling that the whole world is dangerous place to stay in so he or she must learn all the tricks of the trade in order to survive. REFERENCES: Meadows, Sara, Child as thinker: the development and acquisition of cognition in childhood, Routlegde, London, 2006 PSY.PDX.edu Wertsch, J. V., Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, London, 1985 De Haan et al., The Cognitive Neuroscience of Development, Psychology Press, London, 2002 Sheldon, B., Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy: Research, Practice, and Philosophy, Routledge, London, 1995 Richards, J., Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention: A Developmental Perspective, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, 1998 Saracho, O., Teachers' and Students' Cognitive Styles in Early Childhood Education, Bergin & Garvey, London, 1997 Needleman, L, Cognitive Case Conceptualization: A Guidebook for Practitioners, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, 1999 Mazzoni, G., Metacognition and Cognitive Neuropsychology: Monitoring and Control Processes, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London, 1998 Hepple, J., Cognitive Analytic Therapy and Later Life: A New Perspective on Old Age, Brunner-Routledge, London, 2004 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Deadline: 2006-11-18 02:38 Order#: 140685 Total Price: $30 Messages: 0 total Topic: to what extent can it be said that the change and variation in children's cognitive development during the school years is dependent upon social interaction Style: APA Language Style: English UK Grade: n/a Pages: 6 Sources: 10 Havard style, Read More