Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget’s Sensorimotor stage:
Reflexes (birth to 1 month) – the child understands the environment through purely reflex like actions such as sucking and looking.
Primary circular reactions (1 to 4 months) – the child becomes more focused on the world and actions are repeated intentionally in order to produce the elicited response.
Secondary circular reactions (4 to 8 months) – a child can repeat an action in order to produce a wanted response, gradually learns about partial and then full occlusions.
Coordination of schemas (8 to 12 months) – the infant understands object permanence, begins to understand cross modal integration. Challenged by the A not B error.
Tertiary circular reactions (12 to 18 months) – they begin trial and error experimentation in learning. They now pass the AnBe task in it’s standard format, however, they still struggle to pass the variants. Diamond (1985) found that 7 to 10 month year old infants could be trained to perform better, thus emphasising the unfamiliarity of the task. The variant of the AnBe task is called the Stage V invisible displacement task.
Mental representations (18 to 24 months) – the child becomes more able to handle hiding places and invisible displacements. They are now able to use their imagination to consider what would happen IF something else happened- hence the name. This is when imaginative play and grammar take off, how exactly are they linked to mental representations?
Experimentation
Nelson train and tunnel experiment (1971) – supported Piaget’s general theory, however, the unfamiliarity of the situation may have had an influence.
Baillargeon!! Disproves Piaget’s stages theory
Diamond et al. (1994) – argued that perceptually they are able however they cannot turn off the instinct it to search there. He suggested that development was still needed in the pre-frontal cortex. The experiment involved using cups and hiding stuff in the cups.
Reflexes (birth to 1 month) – the child understands the environment through purely reflex like actions such as sucking and looking.
Primary circular reactions (1 to 4 months) – the child becomes more focused on the world and actions are repeated intentionally in order to produce the elicited response.
Secondary circular reactions (4 to 8 months) – a child can repeat an action in order to produce a wanted response, gradually learns about partial and then full occlusions.
Coordination of schemas (8 to 12 months) – the infant understands object permanence, begins to understand cross modal integration. Challenged by the A not B error.
Tertiary circular reactions (12 to 18 months) – they begin trial and error experimentation in learning. They now pass the AnBe task in it’s standard format, however, they still struggle to pass the variants. Diamond (1985) found that 7 to 10 month year old infants could be trained to perform better, thus emphasising the unfamiliarity of the task. The variant of the AnBe task is called the Stage V invisible displacement task.
Mental representations (18 to 24 months) – the child becomes more able to handle hiding places and invisible displacements. They are now able to use their imagination to consider what would happen IF something else happened- hence the name. This is when imaginative play and grammar take off, how exactly are they linked to mental representations?
Experimentation
Nelson train and tunnel experiment (1971) – supported Piaget’s general theory, however, the unfamiliarity of the situation may have had an influence.
Baillargeon!! Disproves Piaget’s stages theory
Diamond et al. (1994) – argued that perceptually they are able however they cannot turn off the instinct it to search there. He suggested that development was still needed in the pre-frontal cortex. The experiment involved using cups and hiding stuff in the cups.