3.4 Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan

Explain how theories of cognitive development apply to behavior and mental processes. UNIT 3 Development and Learning

• According to Piaget, children develop schemas via continuous and discontinuous processes such as assimilation and accommodation.
  • i. The sensorimotor stage occurs from infancy through toddlerhood. Object permanence develops during this stage.
  • ii. The preoperational stage occurs from toddlerhood through early childhood. Children become proficient in using mental symbols and engage in pretend play. The preoperational stage is identified more by cognitive tasks children cannot perform such as conservation and reversibility, or by those they exhibit, such as animism and egocentrism. Children begin to develop a theory of mind during this stage.
  • iii. The concrete operational stage occurs from early through late childhood. Children in this stage can generally correct the cognitive errors made in the preoperational stage and understand the world in logical, realistic, and straightforward ways, but struggle to think systematically.
  • iv. The formal operational stage occurs from late childhood through adulthood. People in this stage gain the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. Piaget proposed that not all people achieve formal operational thinking.
• According to Vygotsky, children are social learners who learn through interacting with and scaffolding by other people within sociocultural contexts. Ideally, learning occurs while the person is in their zone of proximal development.
• Adults experience changes in cognitive capabilities as they progress through the lifespan. Crystallized intelligence remains relatively stable through adulthood while fluid intelligence tends to wane as people age. Cognitive disorders that affect adults include dementia.