School of Health & Technology-MIT_WPU
Rehabilitation Psychology
Shamim Mohammad, [Link]., PhD.
What is cognition?
• Mental functions- attention, perception, memory, and
intelligence.
• In other words, “it’s a sum of all the processes undertaken by
human mind with a view to understand the situations and
events going on around.”
• Cognition psychology focuses on mental processes such as
how people acquire, process, store and retrieve information.
• Many theories to explain development of these mental
process in children
Why??????
Piaget (1896–1980), a Swiss psychologist
• He was the first to make a systematic study of the acquisition of
understanding in children.
• Ph.D. in Zoology also studied philosophy
• Later in the life developed interests on the “reasoning process of
the young children”
• Held many positions, served as professor of child psychology at
Geneva University till last
• Published >50 books and monographs
• He continued to work on how the mind of the child evolves
through a series of set stages to adulthood.
Introduction
• Piaget views learning as “construction.”
• Four stages in cognitive development and children pass
through these stages sequentially.
• At every stage, a child exhibits new cognitive capacities
and enhanced understanding of the complex world.
• Cognitive development or stages “cannot be jumped or
skipped.”
• However, at what age do children progress from one stage
to the other may vary according to the environment and
background
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Stages
Sensorimotor stage
• Learn using their sensory systems- birth to 18 m to 2 years
• Involves use of gross and fine motor activities with no use of
symbols
• Knowledge gained by experience and physical interactions-
limited
• Learning by trial and error- putting objects in the mouth
• More mobility-more exploration- more development of their
cognitive ability.
• Early language development starts.
• Development of the “object permanence,”
Preoperational stage
• Stage spans ages 2 through 7
• Children start thinking through symbols about objects
• Usage of language becomes more mature.
• Understanding the concept of past and future occurs as a
result of development of memory and imagination.
• Thinking at this stage is based on instincts rather than being
logical.
• Role-playing very common-“doctor” and “patients”.
• Complex concepts such as “cause and effect,” comparisons,
and time are difficult for children to learn at this stage.
Role Playing- Mummy, daddy, doctor, police, chor,
Pretending broom as horse- Pretend Plays
Egocentrism: refers to the tendency of young children
to think that everyone sees things in the same way as
the child
Animism
Concrete Operations Stage
7–11 years of age.
“logical thinking” regarding analogies and concrete
events starts.
• The concept of addition and subtraction develops.
• Decentering: It refers to the ability of the child to
perceive different attributes of situations and objects
• Reversibility: It is the ability of the children to learn that
certain operations can be done in reverse—
• Conservation: It is the ability to understand that certain
characteristics of the objects do not change by change of
their shapes even though there is change in appearance
Concept of Decentering
For example, when asked to
choose between two
lollipops, a child might choose
based on how one flavour is
better than the other even
though the other is the same
size and colour.
Concept of reversibility
Conservation Concept
Formal Operations Stage
• This stage runs through 12–18 years of age.
• This is the age where “abstract thinking or hypothetical
thinking” starts developing.
• Become ready to handle questions like “what if.”
• “analogies” and “deductive reasoning” develops
• Deductive reasoning is the ability of a person to solve some
specific problems by using general principles.
• For example, light objects float in the water; hence, a plastic
ball must float in water.
Analogies
Implication of the Piaget theory
• Individuals adapt to their environments continuously.
“Adaptation is an ability of an organism to fit in with his or
her environment”
• This include processes such as assimilation and
accommodation.
• Assimilation refers to the process where the person
transforms or use the environment to suit his or her
preexisting cognitive structure (Schema)
• The accommodation process refers to a change in the
existing schema or change in cognitive structures as a result
of acquiring new knowledge or new object of situation.
• There needs to be a balance between assimilation and
accommodation. A perfect balance is called “equilibrium.”
• Equilibrium happens when a learner’s schema can deal with new
information by way of assimilation
• Disequilibrium occurs only when a child is unable to fit new
information in existing schemas; this is an unpleasant state.
• On the other hand, equilibrium is a driving force for the learning
process; leaners do not want to live in a frustrated state, i.e.,
disequilibrium.
• Leaners continuously seek to maintain the state of equilibrium by
restoring balance; this is only possible by mastering the new
challenge (accommodation) causing disequilibrium.