Jean Piaget & Child Development essays

Jean Piaget & Child Development essays Jean Piaget outlined a series of developmental stages that children go through as they mature. These stages are: Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years); Preoperational stage (2-6 years); Concrete operational stage (7-11 years); and Formal operational stage (12 years into adulthood). For this assignment I was asked to observe a child who was in either the sensorimotor, preoperational, or concrete operational stages of development. The child whom I chose to observe was my little cousin Nicholas, or Nick for short. Nick is currently 7 Â ½ years old which puts him under the concrete operational stage of development. The concrete operational stage of development is defined by our textbook as "the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 years to 11 years of age) during which the children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events"(page 131). When broken down, this definition basically means that during the ages of 7 through 11, children gain the mental capacity, which allows them to understand different conservations, perform simple arithmetic, and to think logically and with reason. I observed Nick on the morning of Saturday October 19, 2002 while he was staying at my house for the day. This allowed me the perfect opportunity to get in some observations. I chose to do my observations while Nick was outside in my backyard helping my Father so some yard work. During the course of about half an hour, I witnessed what I thought to be typical behaviors for someone of his age. Nicholas appeared to be very interested in performing the tasks that he was involved in. He eagerly offered his assistance to my father. Although Nick wanted to involved and helpful, there was a few times when he seemed to grow inpatient with the way that my father was carrying out the chores. I was able to notice this because Nick was trying to tell my father how to do the work. For example, m ...