Child Development - Infancy and Childhood.
In this section I will be discussing the theories of psychologists Jean Piaget and Len Vygotsky.
Jean Piaget - 1896 - 1980.
Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on August 9, 1896. His father was a professor of medieval studies and his mother was a strict Calvinist (Protestant - following the teachings of John Calvin). He was somewhat of a child genius publishing his first paper at 10 years old - an account of his sightings of an albino sparrow. In 1918 Piaget received his Doctorate in Science from the University of Neuchatel. Piaget was thought of as one of the most significant psychologists of the 20th Century. By the end of his career he had written over 60 books and many hundreds of articles. Students studying primary education teaching are taught Piaget's theories to enable them to understand the developmental needs of children in school today.
Piaget's theory was based on the biological basis of intellectual development in children (i.e. cognitive development). He identified four stages that children moved through and that they had to reach all the competencies in each stage before they could successfully move on to the next stage. Moreover, these stages occurred in a fixed order, being Sensori-motor (0-2yrs), Pre-operational (2-7yrs), Concrete operational (7-11 yrs) and Formal operational (11 yrs +).
Sensori-Motor (birth to 2 yrs).
Piaget theorised that the early stage, sensor-motor was a combination of sensory impressions and motor reactions such as sucking and grasping. Children also have no mental representations of events e.g. they cannot differentiate between grasping and sucking a rattle or a parent's finger. As the child develops he/she begins to understand the concept of object permanence i.e. just because something disappears does not mean it no longer exists. At 18 months or so full object permanence is achieved. Through imaginative and symbolic play the child is beginning to demonstrate its earliest internal mental representations of the outside world.