Lesson 2 - Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Presentation of Theoretical Construct

 

Lecture Information: Sensorimotor Stage

Characteristics of this stage
The title of this stage is actually very descriptive of what this stage is all about for Piaget.  The basic characteristics of the stage is primarily linked to the infant's interactions with their immediate environment.  This interaction is only possible through the five senses for an infant.  They are as follows:

1. Sight - brightly colored mobiles hanging over a crib.

2. Sound - lullabies, primary caregivers the world over sing to their babies.

3. Touch - Teddy bears all feel somewhat like real fur.

4. Smell - Baby oil, Baby powder, Sanitary wipes all have perfume added to them.

5. Taste - Gerber's has 67 different varieties & flavors of baby food

It is important to note that Piaget would recommend a stimulating environment.  One that appeals to as many different senses as possible in order to promote as much cognitive development as possible. 

Cognitive challenges of this stage
The two most common cognitive challenges usually discussed at this stage are Object Permanence and Goal-Directed actions. 

The first and probably the most famous is "object permanence."  The legend goes something like Piaget was playing with his first born, a daughter, rolling a ball back and forth on the floor of his living room.  In the course of playing the ball rolled under the couch.  Piaget looked at his daughter's reaction of sitting back, sighing, looking around the room for something else to play with, and he concluded that the baby thought that the ball was gone.  This was a profound moment for him in that he saw the world as his daughter was experiencing the world.  Since his daughter could not see, hear, smell, touch, or taste the ball it did not exist anymore.  He realized that she has only these limited tools, her senses, to understand what was going on around her, if something was outside of those tools capabilities, then it stopped existing.  In more clinical terms, if  an object is outside of the infant's sensory experience, then it does not exist.  In informal terms, object permanence is "Out of sight; out of mind."  Generally speaking, Piaget believed that infants achieved this challenge around 7-9 months of age.

The next challenge for infants that Piaget proposes is that of "goal-directed actions."  This challenge becomes an issue after the infant has achieved object permanence in other words, late Sensorimotor.  This is when the infant is able to string together a series of actions to get what they want.  Any parent or babysitter can tell stories of entering a room to find their infant covered in flour, chocolate syrup, tooth paste, or any number of things.  The baby knows to scoot across the floor, climb up to the drawer, fish out a marking pen, bite off the cap, and begin their art project for the afternoon.  It is important to note that Piaget does not see this as evidence of pre-planning on the baby's part.  For example, he noted that the infant can reverse their actions and put the pen back in the drawer, but could not conceive of that reversal before performing the reversal.  He contends that independent thought comes later and is language dependent.

 

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