12
Cognitive Development of the
MODULE Primary Schoolers
-Heidi Grace L. Borabo, MA. Ed
“…If you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.”
- O. Hammerstein
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this Module, you should be able to:
• Describe the characteristics of children in the concrete operational stage.
• Explain the importance of information-processing skills and how they affect
the child’s cognitive development.
• State the different cognitive milestones in primary-schoolers.
INTRODUCTION
Jean Piaget is the foremost theorist when it comes to
cognitive development. According to him, intelligence is
the basic mechanism of ensuring balance in the relations
between the person and the environment. Everything
that a person experiences is a continuous process of
assimilations and accommodations. Piaget described
four main periods in cognitive development. For Piaget,
intellectual ability is not the same at different ages.
ACTIVITY
Look at the semantic map below. Write down words which come to your mind
when COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT is mentioned.
Find a pair and compare your answers.
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPME
NT
Child and Adolescent Development
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What were the common ideas regarding cognitive development?
2. Are there new ideas regarding cognitive development which you found
intriguing?
3. With the advent of the computer age, do you think cognitive development is
affected? Explain your answer?
ABSTRACTION/GENERALIZATION
Jean Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage
Concrete operation is the third stage in
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. It
spans from ages 7 to approximately 11 years.
In this stage, children have better
understanding of their thinking skills. Children
begin to think logically about concrete events,
particularly their own experiences, but have
difficulty understanding abstract or
hypothetical concepts, thus most of them still
have a hard time at problem-solving
LOGIC
Concrete operational thinkers, according to Piaget, can already make use of
inductive logic. Inductive logic involves thinking from a specific experience to a
general principle. But at this stage, children have great difficulty in using Deductive
logic or using a general principle to determine the outcome of a specific event.
REVERSIBILITY
One of the most important developments in this stage is an understanding of
reversibility, or awareness that actions can be reversed. An example of this being able
to reverse the order of relationships between mental categories. (For example in
arithmetic, 3 + 4 = 7 and 7 - 4 = 3).
Example:
Teacher: Jacob, do you have a brother?
Jacob: Yes.
Teacher: What’s his name?
Jacob: Matthew.
Teacher: Does Matthew have a brother?
Jacob: Yes.
Is Jacob capable of responsibility?
Child and Adolescent Development
COGNITIVE MILESTONES
Elementary-aged children encounter
developmental milestones. They develop
certain skills within a particular time frame.
The skills they learn are in a sequential
manner, meaning they need to understand
numbers before they can perform a
mathematical equation. Each milestone
that develops is dependent upon the
previous milestone they achieved. Up until
age 8, a child learns new skills at a rapid
pace. Once they learn start to level off and
it usually is a steady increase of new skills.
Specifically, young primary school-
aged children can tell left from right. They are able to speak and express themselves
develops rapidly. In school, they share about themselves and their families. During
play, they practice using the words and language they learn in school. They start to
understand time and days of the week. They enjoy rhymes, riddles, and jokes. Their
attention span is longer. They can follow more involved stories. They are learning
letters and words. By six, most can read words or combinations of words.
INFORMATION PROCESSING SKILLS
Several theorists argue that like the computer, the
human mind is a system that can process
information through the application of logical rules
and strategies. They also believe that the mind
receives information, performs operations to
change its form and content, stores and locates it
and generates responses from it.
APPLICATION
1. Study the diagram on information-processing below. Write your insights on how you
can apply the Information-Processing Theory in primary-school children.
Child and Adolescent Development
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2. Give 3 applications each of Piaget’s cognitive theory and that of information
processing theory in the teaching-learning process.
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3. Look for articles and studies, either online or printed, on the influences of family on
cognitive development. Share important points of your research in class.
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SYNAPSE STRENGTHENERS
Read and research more on the components of Information-Processing Skills
focused on:
• Attention
• Perception
• Memory stages among children
Summarize your research and share important points in class.
Child and Adolescent Development
REFLECTION
!
From this Module on the Social-Emotional Development of
Intermediate Schoolers, I learned that.
Child and Adolescent Development