Cognitive+Development



__Concrete Operational Stage__

Piaget had a theory that children cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 years of age. During the middle childhood years the stage that Piaget theorized is know as the concrete operational stage. This stage takes place between the ages of seven and eleven years old. According to Piaget, at this point in life the ability to use logic and mental operations allows concrete operational children to approach problems more systematically. Thinking begins to become more flexible and children understand that operations can be reversed mentally. Concrete operational thinkers also no longer base their judgments on the appearances of things. There are three types of mental operations that children use to organize their world during this stage. These three mental operations are called seriation, classification, and conservation.


 * Seritation is important for understanding the concepts of numbers, time, and measurement. Piaget had an experiment when he asked children to order a series of sticks. At ages 3 and 4, children can find the longest and shortest sticks. They had no problem understanding size, however they had difficulty constructing an ordered sequence from smallest to largest. Preschool children also are unable to do so because they focus on one dimension at a time. The ability to organize this sequence takes place during the middle childhood stage when their thinking is characterized less by concentration.


 * Classification is another way children can impose order on their environment by grouping things and ideas according to common elements. Children begin to classify objects according to multiple dimensions. There are two types of classification systems that Piaget describes. The matrix classificication involves classifying items by two or more attributes and the hierarchical classification is used to organize information about biology, geology, astronomy, history, physics, and music.


 * Conservation involves the understanding that an object or being remains the same despite the superficial changes in its form or physical appearance.

__Vygotsky's theory of Development__ Vygotsky aslo has a theory for cognitive development. He as developed a socio-cultural approach to cognitive development. Vygotsky believes that language and social interaction play an essential role in cognitive development. During middle childhood, children often talk their way through a process called self-directed speech. Children name objects, and narrate their activities especially while problem solving when they use self-directed speech, and can tell themselves which information is important. Vygotsky believed that one way children can learn is within the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development represents the gap between what children can do on their own and what they can do with assistance from others. Two common classroom practices that follow this approach are cooperative learning and reciprocal teaching. Cooperative learning is when students work together and reciprocal teaching is taught through learning dialogues when children learn how to regulate their own reading comprehension. These types of learning are very popular during the elementary school years.

 __Language__ During middle childhood a child’s vocabulary is always increasing as their semantic development is growing. More than just learning new words, children are learning more adult definitions of the words they know. They create relationships among words, understand synonyms and antonyms, and understand how prefixes and suffixes affect word meaning. __Memory__

 Short-term memory is known to improve during middle childhood. Children hear a series of 5 or more numbers and repeat them. Long-term memory improves as well, children are able to construct larger and more complex memories. They understand their own thinking a lot more during this stage in life.