The cognitive domain is the development of intelligence which in infancy begins with information processing and the development of communication. Processing information occurs only if the child receives and processes the stimuli from the surroundings which begin at birth using the five senses. If the child has visual or hearing impairments the development of cognition is impaired. Important points to remember:
- Receptive ability precedes expressive
- Responds to sounds at birth, example is the Moro reflex
- As development progresses the child is able to respond to more complex language
- Develops abstract thinking abilities
Contents
Jean Piaget
The theorist associated with cognition is Jean Piaget. His theory of Cognitive Development includes the following stages:
Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2 years of age)
- Reflexes (inborn)
- Adapts reflexes to the environment
- Sensory abilities increases
- Object permanence
- Trial & error learning
- Simple problem solving
Preoperational Thinking (2 – 7 years of age)
- Can focus on a simple aspect of a situation
- Development of intuitive thought
- Difficulty distinguishing fact from fantasy
Concrete Thinking (7 – 11 years of age)
- Capable of appropriate use of logical thought
- Seriation: sort objects according to size, shape, etc.
- Transitivity: able to recognize logical relationships among elements in serial order
- Classification: able to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size, and other characteristics
- Decentering: take in multiple aspects of a problem to solve it
- Reversibility: understand that numbers or objects can be changed and returned to their original state
- Conservation: understand the quality, length or number of items is unrelated to an arrangement or appearance of the object or item
Formal Operational Thinking (adolescence)
- Ability of abstract thinking
- Capable of complex problem solving (look at a problem in many related aspects and systematically test solutions)
Watch the video to get an overview of the content presented above.
Khan Academy Medicine. ( 2013, December 20). Piaget’s stages of cognitive development | Processing the Environment | MCAT | Khan Academy Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt3-PIC2nCs
