Developmental Psychology

Achieve Test Prep: Developmental Psychology

Cognitive Development: According to Piaget, an infant is in the Sensorimotor Stage for the greater part of infancy. To understand the word ‘sensorimotor’, break the word up into two parts: sensory and motor. Sensorimotor intelligence, according to Piaget, develops as a child performs a series of tasks that engage both of their sensory and motor systems. Sensorimotor intelligence begins with reflexes, such as suckling, listening, and grasping. This intelligence becomes more complex as the child grows and develops. Tasks begin to involve objects and people other than the infant. Later, infants begin to recognize patterns and characteristics of objects in their environment. By the time a child is a year old, they are able to engage in goal-directed behaviors . These behaviors have an end goal in mind, such as grabbing a toy or moving across the floor. Piaget answered the question of how children learn to accomplish goal-directed behaviors with the term schema . Schema describes how infants form mental models to help them learn. Piaget believed infants learn in one of two ways: either by assimilation or by accommodation . If an infant uses assimilation, they incorporate new information into an already established schema and when an infant uses accommodation they modify a schema to include new information. An important schema is object permanence. Object permanence involves the awareness of the existence of an object, even if it is out of sight. This notion develops around eight months of age. Another important schema is reversal, which is the notion that an action can be undone. Another skill that children gain is perceptual constancy . This skill involves the understanding that objects remain the same size and shape despite appearance seeming to change due to its location. Before the development of this skill, a child may think an object shrinks as it moves further away, whereas a child who has this skill understands that if an object moves away, it does not change size. Categorization and pattern recognition starts during infancy. Children younger than six months of age can categorize objects based on size, shape, density, angle, and number. It is believed that children this young can understand and discriminate between similar objects, such as apples and oranges. Sensory Coordination: The senses are not used singularly but in tandem with each other to integrate sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell to understand the environment. The ability to integrate all senses to comprehend the surrounding environment is intermodal perception . Infants are able to

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