short term memory
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory. There have been a number of criticisms leveled at Piaget’s theory, as will become apparent in this essay. This essay will examine Piaget’s theory and explore some of the major criticisms and supporting views. It is not possible in this essay to describe Piaget’s experiments in any great detail, a brief summary of methodologies and the findings will be included. Piaget challenged that cognitive development is constructed into four stages. Each stage is characterized by an overall structure referred to as “schemas” effectively this means organized structure of knowledge or ability that changes with age or experience (Mike Cardwell 2003). The “schemas” adapt through a continuous process of “Assimilation” (this is the process of adapting new experiences to fit into existing “schemas”) and “Accommodation” (which is the process of adapting existing “schemas” to fit to new experiences) in an endeavor to attain “equilibrium”. Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development is the “Sensori-motor intelligence stage”. This stage occurs from birth until two years, babies begin to organize there physical actions such as grasping, sucking and hitting it is a time of practical discovery and interaction with the environment. Through the senses and by utilizing the Sensori-motor skills the baby accommodates and assimilates information it encounters into “schemas”. Piaget argued that babies are born with no sense of “object permanence” (this is the understanding that objects continue to exist in there own right, even when they are not being directly manipulated or immediately perceived). Piaget conducted an experiment using his daughter Jacqueline, to demonstrate the failure of “object permanence” this involved trying to locate a rattle that had been placed under a bedcover. From his observations he concluded that infants in the first 2yrs of life acquire “object permanence” (Piaget 1963) The second stage in Piaget’s theory was the “preoperational thought” this stage occurs from the age of two until the age of seven, children learn to think, to use symbols and internal images, although there thinking at this time is neither systematic nor logical. Piaget argued that at this time children fail to “conserve” (This is the understanding that things remain constant in terms of number, quantity and volume regardless of changes in appearance). Piaget conducted experiments to test number conservation, the children where shown two rows of counters of exactly the same quantity. The counters of one of the rows were then rearranged so that only the appearance changed not the quantity. In his findings Piaget discovered that the children believed that the sets were in fact different in quantity, Piaget argued that this was because the child is unable to “conserve” previous information (Piaget 1952) Another classification of the “preoperational thought” was “egocentrism” (This is the Childs inability to see the world from any other perspective but there own). Piaget observed this phenomenon in his “Swiss mountain scene” experiment (Piaget & Inhaler, 1956). In this experiment a child was placed at one side of the scene and a teddy bear was placed on the opposite side, the child was then asked to choose a picture of the scene that the teddy bear was able to see.