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Georgina Salas Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Behaviorist Theory March 22, 2013 Siegler, R. S., & Ellis, S. (1996). PIAGET ON CHILDHOOD. Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 7(4), 211-215 Synopsis This article describes how Piaget transformed thinking of childhood and development (Siegler & Ellis 1996). P.H. Miller (1993) states that it is difficult to fathom how or why we ever thought about them differently. Cognitive development has followed Piaget’s lead by learning how children come to understand epistemologically central concepts such as causality, classification, morality, time, space, and mind. The development also learns how the children solve Quine’s (1960) riddle of induction, and what their basic ontological categories are. The research before 1965 on children’s learning show tow alternative routes that might have been taken (Siegler & Ellis 1996). The research on children before 1965 highlighted questions concerning the way in which processes such as discrimination and generalization shape a child’s learning. Siegler & Ellis (1996) state that part of Piaget’s enduring impact has been his role in shaping the types of questions that are seen as central for understanding cognitive development. The influence of Piaget has been felt in the types of tasks that are studied by researchers interested in children’s thinking (Siegler & Ellis 1996). The tasks were created to elicit high level cognition such as problem solving, reasoning, and understanding of complex concepts. On the other hand, the cognitive psychology in adults, the tasks designed to reveal the workings of attention, perceptual, basic learning and memory processes are given more attention. One final influence of Piaget’s cognitive development is research methods. According to Siegler & Ellis (1996) the research has followed Piaget in emphasizing the relatively direct evidence provided by verbal explanations of reasoning and by the particular errors that children make in solving problems. The rest of this article focuses on the three aspects of Piaget’s legacy which are important to the constructive behaviorist. They are constructivism, essentialism, and dynamism. Theory The first part of the theory which is constructivism is the main theory of Piaget. It states that children are active thinkers, constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world (Siegler & Ellis 1996). In order to create more advanced understandings of this theory there is evident in the development of numerical knowledge. During the preschool period children construct numerical strategies that no one teaches them. Gelman & Gallistel, 1978 gave an example that 5 year olds succeed in devising novel counting procedures that allow them to cope with such instructions as “Count this row of objects and make this one (the second object from the left) be number 5.” The children’s strategy of construction to solve number conservation and class inclusion problems are two of Piaget’s classic illustrations of constructivism in the numerical domain (Seigler & Ellis 1996). According to Seigler & Ellis 1996, they state that there have been recent findings regarding strategy discovery have gone beyond Piaget’s observations to provide new kinds of evidence consistent with the spirit of constructivism. It has been found that children have been found to continue to construct new strategies for solving problems even though they already know adequate ones for solving them. One example of this strategy is children’s addition. Geary & Burlingham-Dubree 1989 state that most 4 and 5 year olds from middle income backgrounds know how to solve simple addition problems by using the sum strategy. The children count out each addend on their fingers and then count all of the raised fingers to determine the sum. Another strategy the students discover by kinder or first grade is the min strategy. For this strategy the students count up from the larger addend the number of times indicated by the smaller addend. For children who were in a group from low income background were taught to add by counting from 1 spontaneously invented the min strategy soon after (Groen & Resnick 1977). Seigler and Ellis (1996) state that another fundamental tenet of constructivism for which substantial evidence has recently emerged is that construction of new understandings involves of prior understandings and new experience. They also state that development is not viewed as a process which children copy and paste what they are told but the knowledge created is viewed as occurring through a complex interplay between preexisting knowledge and new information gathered through interaction with the external world. The next part of the theory is essentialism. Seigler and Ellis (1996) go on to say that part of the appeal of Piaget’s theory is its clear, concise, and memorable depictions of children’s thinking at particular ages. Cognitive development has proved to be considerable more complex than suggested by crisp characterizations. An example of this complexity is found on an experiment titled 5-to-7 shift (Sameroff & Haith 1965). Piaget and other investigators described many tasks in which 5 year olds base responses on a single dimension, but 8 year olds and older children consider multiple dimensions. On the other hand there have been many tasks that 5 year olds and younger children do engage in multidimensional reasoning. Oyam (1995) suggests that in the context of cognitive development research the goal is to identify the essence of thinking at each age. This goal leads to questions such as what is 5 year olds thinking like and how does it differ from the thinking of 8 year olds. Another more specific question it leads to is 5 year olds thinking fundamentally concrete rather than abstract? The last part of the theory is dynamism. Piaget was thought to be ahead of his time because of the crucial role of change mechanisms within a general theory of development. Klahr (1992) and Miller (1993) state that Piaget’s specific proposals regarding assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration have often and justifiable been faulted for vagueness and lack of precision, but he clearly understood the importance of the issue. A reason why Piaget’s proposals remained vague was because he sought to explain changes that are larger and more abrupt than any that actually occur. Seigler and Ellis, 1996 state that one way in which the attempt to identify essences seems to have interfered with understanding of change lies in its leading to understating the variability of children’s thinking. An example would be on number conservation and mathematical equivalence tasks children who exhibit more varied ways of thinking on the pretest subsequently learn more from training (Goldin-Meadow, Alibali & Church,1993 and Siegler, 1995). The findings would come as no surprise to Piaget. He was the prototypic developmental stage theorist and dedicated much of his research to identifying the essence of children’s thinking at particular ages. According to Piaget (1947/1950, 1967/1971) his guiding ideas was that the equilibrative process by which such competitions among ideas produce change is the same regardless of whether the conflicting ideas arise intraindividually, in the course of solitary reflection, or interindicidually, as ideas are exchanged in social interaction. There is even stronger reason to believe that cognitive variability and conflict among competing ideas are central to cognitive change than when Piaget originally hypothesized such a relation (Seigler & Ellis 1996). Analysis Throughout this article Piaget’s ideas of how childhood thinking was transformed is supported. For the constructivism theory he first describes how children first learn how to count on with their fingers and then how they use manipulative to show the number they are counting to. He explains how the children use the sum strategy (Geary & Burlingham-Dubree, 1989). In the sum strategy the children first count out each addend on their fingers and then counting out all of the raised fingers to determine the sum. He also suggests that by kinder or first grade most children discover the min strategy. The min strategy involves counting up from the larger addend the number of times indicated by the smaller addend. For the essentialism theory Piaget (1946/1969) presented a task involving two toy trains that travel in the same directions along parallel tracks. The 5 year olds were asked which train traveled for the longer time. Their thinking is which train stopped farther up the track or which train stopped at the later time. Whereas, 8 year olds, for example, might consider both the starting point and stopping point of the toy trains. (Siegler, in press). Piaget also explained the difference between the reasoning of 5 and 8 year olds in terms of the older child being able to decanter, being less egocentric, and being able to focus on transformations as well as concrete states (Seigler & Ellis 1996). Levin (1982) on the other hand found that when 4 and 5 year olds are asked to judge the time of travel of two cars that rotate on a turntable for varying amounts of time they consider both beginning time and ending time in making their judgments. For the dynamism theory Piaget considered the role of change mechanisms within a general theory of development (Sieglar & Ellis 1996). According to Klahr (1982) and Miller (1993) they state that Piaget’s specific proposals regarding assimilation, accommodation and equilibration have often been faulted for vagueness and lack of precision. According to Seigler and Ellis (1996) Piaget’s proposals remained as vague as they did may be that he sought to explain changes that are larger and more abrupt than any that actually occur. His goal of identifying the essence of thinking at different ages may have hindered his efforts to realize another goal that of understanding how changes in thinking occur. As of today there are stronger reasons to believe that cognitive variabilities and conflict among competing ideas are central to cognitive change (Seigler & Ellis 1996). Piaget’s argument that variability within an individual child’s thinking is a crucial motivator of cognitive change may provide a firmer foundation from which to build future theories of development (Seigler & Ellis 1996). This lead to his attempt to identify the essence of children’s thinking at different ages. Evaluation This article provides information to the different cognitive theories that Piaget experimented with. It provides enough evidence in how each part of the theory was used. It gave lots of examples for the constructivism, essentialism, and dynamism theory that was discussed in this article. The examples help get a better understanding of what the authors were talking about. As I was reading this article I realized even back when Piaget was alive children learned just the same was as children do now for the math part at least. I agree with Piaget when he said that children’s experiences help them with their learning and even when the children don’t have much experience they still come up with their own way of learning. I believe that children are sponges and they will respond and learn from anything that is being taught to them. References Ellis, S., & Siegler, R.S. (1995, April). Developmental changes in children's understanding of principles and procedures of measurement. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Chiid Development, Indianapolis, IN. Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C.R. (1978). The child's understanding of number. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Geary, D,C., & Burlingham-Dubree, M, (1989). External validation of the strategy choice model for addition. Journal of Experimental Chiid Psychology, 47, 175-192. Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M.W., & Church, R.B. (1993). Transitions in concept acquisition: Using the hand to read the mind. Psychological Review, 100, 279-297. Groen, G.J., & Resnick, L.B. (1977). Can preschool children invent addition aigont'htns'l Journal of Educational Psychology, 6P, 645-6 Klahr, D. (1982). Nonmonotone assessment of monotone development: An information processing analysis. In S. Strauss (Ed.), U-shaped behaviora growth (pp. 63-86). New York: Academic Press. Levin, I, (1982). The nature and development of time concepts in children: The effects of interfering cues. In W.J. Friedman (Ed.), The deveiopmental psychology of time (pp, 47-86). New York: Academic Press. MiUer, P.H. (1993). Theories of developmental psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Freeman. Oyama, S. (1985). The ontogeny of information: Developmental systems and evolution. New York: Cambridge University Press. Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child (M. Gabain, Trans.). London: Kegan Paul. Piaget, J, (1950). The psychology of intelligence (M. Piercy & D.E. Berlyne, Trans,). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1947) Piaget, J. (1952). The child's conception of number (C. Gattegno & F.M. Hodgson,Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published1941) Piaget, J. (1%9). The child's concept of time (A.J. Pomerans, Trans.). New York: Ballantine. (Original work published 1946) (Juine, W.V.O. (1960). Word and object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Siegler, R,S. (in press). Unidimensional thinking, multidimensional thinking, and characteristic tendencies of thought. In A.J. Sameroff & M. Haith (Eds.), Reason and responsibility: The passage through childhood, Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.