Alice Mahrez was born in 23rd October 1992 in Los Angeles California to Loice Mahrez and Mahrez Fernando. Her parents described her as a joyful girl since childhood who adapted to various activities easily. At the age of one month, Alice started looking at people, and things flashed in her face beginning to show reflexes associated with the sensorimotor stage. At this stage, she could look at people and smile easily, and she had learned how to suck well. Her accommodation influenced the actions of reflexes in Alice because she was used to looking more on her mother who was her companion at all times. Alice started sucking her thumb at the age of 3 months an act which shows primary circular reactions in cognitive development. Alice did not distinguish which finger to be sucking, and she ended up sucking any of her five fingers. This is because at this stage of cognitive development infants do not distinguish objects. At this stage, children are coordinating their sensation to new schemas.
Secondary reactions in Alice begins at the age of 10 months when she begins playing with toys. She could pick her toy and put it in her mouth to gauge the reaction of her mother. During this stage, Alice begins to understand that certain toys have specific characteristics. She started shaking the rattle to make sound with the sound making her happy. Between her 12-18 months, she began exploring things like toys and foods improving her motor skills. At the age between 18-24 months, Alice began to show some understanding of events and objects in the world. This was made possible by her mental operations than her actions. She displays the development of symbols of recognition by clapping her hands when one is singing and waving her hand to greet a person. Alice developed schema which indicates knowledge of the world including herself. Her schema continued to change as she began experiencing more things in her development life.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Alice started to undergo the preoperational stage at the age of 2-6 years as she began to language development and recognition of egocentrism and logic. At this stage, Alice used to play and pretend when she is wrong as she became adapted to using symbols. At this stage, all children just like Alice behaved do not take any other person’s perspective as they have developed the feeling of being egocentric . Alice did not understand the importance of conservation, and she could destroy anything she was using for playing. This behavior is indicated in Piaget’s cognitive development theory which states that children do not recognize similarities existing in the world and do not realize some classes are entirely included in other categories. Similarly to Alice’s behavior, kids in this stage have transductive thinking as they show rigid reasoning though they cannot evaluate their thoughts, strategies, and conclusions. These kids do not coherently integrate their conditions and states to facilitate transformation.
At the age of 7-11 years, Alice underwent a concrete operational stage where she experienced internal manipulations like multiplication, division, subtraction, and serial ordering. The mental operations helped in the establishment of logic especially on objects children use. The children find it challenging to use deductive activities as they concern vague concepts. Alice began her formal operational stage at the age of twenty-one years where she develops the ability to contemplate ideas and concepts. At this stage, Alice established systematic planning, deductive thinking, and logical reasoning. She developed universal ability to hypothesize a specific experience which led to the development of deductive logic skill. Development of abstract thinking helped Alice planning especially for a long-term plan and ability to reason the impacts of her actions. The behavior of trial-and-error changed to a more systematic problem-solving strategy.
Alice experienced the concept of assimilation where she had to acquire new information and assimilate or take it in her existing schema. Kids need to use their existing schemas in understanding new ideas and knowledge through modifying this information to fit in the existing ones. The concept of accommodation as she continued gaining further information and experiences in her development. Alice had to adjust her existing schemas and thoughts to acquire new knowledge and experiences hence new schemas. Alice struggled to balance the new acquired ideas and knowledge with the existing ones showing that she had to balance assimilation and accommodation mechanisms in the concept of equilibrium . This involves children assimilates their previous knowledge and changing their actions if the existing knowledge does not align with the new experience.
Section 2
Piaget’s theory of cognition development from infant to cognitive maturity is the right theory indicating the process of cognitive development in human beings (Piaget, 1955). The argument shows that infants start their cognitive development at the age of one month where they start showing reflexes as they learn how to look at people as well as sucking. According to Piaget (1955), children learn how to play with toys and objects when they reach the age of 9 months. Kids develop an understanding that individual objects and toys have a specific characteristic such as rattling in some toys. At this age, they notice when a toy or an object is withdrawn from their sight. They show their reaction through crying and moving their eyes towards the direction where the objects are kept. Piaget claims that at this age toddlers starts understanding their actions have external effects. Children are focused more on the world and the reactions of the surrounding to their actions. They usually repeat their responses intentionally to interact freely with the environment. For example, a child would put a toy or any other object in his mouth to gauge the reaction of his mother.
Although Baillargeon experiments that toddlers develop an understanding of objects at the age of 4 months, her claim is not supported by an adequate object because it does not give evidence of how the children know that the box exists. Baillargeon (1987) claims that at the age of four months, infants spend their time looking at impossible events. In her study, she uses five months old babies who she claims that they are surprised at how the physical objects behaved. In the experiment, Baillargeon states that the infants knew that the box existed in the drawbridge and that one solid cannot pass through another. Baillargeon study indicates that children at the age of three months have an adequate understanding of objects. The study’s conclusion seems incorrect because, at the period of three months, the brains of infants have not developed enough to contain a clear understanding of objects in the real world.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has faced various criticisms from other psychologists. Many psychologists argue that Piaget’s theory underestimates the ability of children. The psychologists claim that most preschool kids are capable of solving their problems associated with operational reasoning. They claim that Piaget’s methodology should have presented optimal situations indicating children’s real potential. Although many psychologists have researched to show operational argument than the preoperational thinking in children, they have not shown evidence of that children competencies are equal to logic and operational mathematical competences hence they do not challenge Piaget’s theory of cognitive development process.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is criticized claiming that the age norms he establishes, in theory, have disconfirming data. In operational thinking in pre-operational kids is controversial because Piaget shows that kids develop operational reasoning in different cognition areas and not in one bunch. The psychologists indicate that Piaget’s sensorimotor stage lack evidence on the ability of thinking of infants. According to Lourenco &Machado (1996), Piaget was only interested in change sequences instead of attainment of ages in children. They further argue that Piaget characterizes cognitive development negatively as his theory is based on development conception as the form of transition between absence and presence. The concrete operations in Piaget’s theory are claimed to be based on kids’ capability to complete various tasks hence the argument is termed to be an extreme competence theory. The case is also argued to ignore social factors of cognition development (Lourenco & Machado 1996). This is because there is incontinency between structuralism in the opinion and asynchrony development.
On the other hand, Baillargeon study is criticized in that psychologists claim that there are many reasons which can make infants stare at impossible events. The survey of Baillargeon goes beyond data claiming that children look at impossible events as they are surprised as there is a violation of their expectations. Psychologists note that children understand the difference of two events they are being shown and everything beyond this is an extrapolation as in Baillargeon's study. Various reasons can make children look at impossible events. For example, the unlikely events have more movements than possible events hence they attract the attention of children. Psychologists say that Baillargeon makes an incorrect conclusion that the only variation in children’s stimuli is possible and impossible without considering the difference between the two.
References
Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object permanence in 3½-and 4½-month-old infants . Developmental psychology, 23(5), 655.
Lourenço, O., & Machado, A. (1996). In defense of Piaget's theory: A reply to 10 common criticisms. Psychological review, 103(1), 143.
Piaget, J. (1955). The child's construction of reality. Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
