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A 5 page overview of the child development theories of Jean Piaget and Elizabeth Spelke. While Piaget recognized that the seemingly meaningless activities of play could have a tremendous impact on the development of the child, he failed to recognize the importance of innate knowledge in regard to the way things are expected to behave. Spelke, on the other hand, recognized that human cognition consists of many specialized abilities which depend on innately specified knowledge and predisposition. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: AM2_PPpsyInf.rtf
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consistent between individuals. Through their observations and explorations they learn. Cognitive learning is the process in which knowledge is acquired. It involves an individual being cognizant of
his or her environment and gaining knowledge from that environment. This involves both thinking and problem solving which in turn results in memory formation and learning. Memory and
learning are inextricably paired in the behavioral patterns of infants. Two researchers in particular have added to our understanding of how infants learn from their surroundings. These researchers
are Jean Piaget and Elizabeth Spelke. Jean Piaget recognized that the seemingly meaningless activities of play could have a tremendous impact
on the development of the child (Papert, 1999). He identified four critical stages from infancy to adolescence. According to Piagets theories biological pressures to adapt to the environment
provides the impetus for passage through each of these stages. These same stimuli are important in allowing the infant to organize their structure of thinking. Piaget speculated, however,
that the schemes or cognitive structures that help individuals organize and understand their experiences, vary with age and that the stages of thought themselves are qualitatively different from one another.
In other words, according to Piaget, the way individuals think at one stage is different from the way the same individual thinks at other stages.
Piaget observed that a child learned from his play by observing objects and the way they behaved under certain situations. He typically did not accept, however,
the existence of any innate knowledge (Rowe, 2001). Piaget believed, for example, that until children were two years old they were incapable of fully appreciating that objects behave in
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