Cognitive Development Activities
Prior to completing this discussion, read chapter 7, Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology, and On major developments in preschoolers' imagination. Using Piaget's theory of cognitive development, you will continue to build your Community Center Proposal by identifying an activity and a toy for one of the rooms in your center that promotes cognitive development. You can choose any of the five rooms for this discussion, but the activity must be focused on the cognitive milestones of your chosen age group and must be clearly tied to Piaget's theory. So your activity might be focused on object permanence for infants, conservation, transitivity, or decentering for middle childhood, or deductive reasoning for adolescence. Then think about what kinds of educational toys would promote cognitive development in this age group and, again, tie the selected object to a specific milestone. You must use at least one scholarly source in either your activity or your toy entry. Here are two examples providing you a model of how to approach this discussion and how to build the elements of the rooms in your Community Center.
Cognitive Development Activity for Infant Room: Peek-a-boo.
One of the activities we will incorporate into the infant room is Peek-a-boo. This is a game where the caregiver hides himself from the child (covering the child's eyes or hiding behind a chair, etc.) and then appears again by uncovering the child's eyes or coming out from behind the chair. Another variation of this would be hiding a treasured object under a scarf and then revealing it again. One of the milestones of the first year of life is the development of object permanence. Object permanence occurs when an infant grasps that something (an object, a person) still exists even when the infant cannot see it. This is a concept from Piaget's theory of cognitive development and is one of the developmental tasks of the sensorimotor stage. Newborns do not have a sense of permanence. When they cannot see you, you do not exist for them. During the first year of life, they slowing learn that objects and people continue to exist even with they cannot be seen (Mossler, 2014). Playing Peek-a-Boo is one way to foster the development of object permanence. Infants usually delight in seeing someone appear and then hide, only to reappear. This activity will support the cognitive development domain and also the psychosocial domain because of its interactive nature.
Mossler, R. (2nd ed.). (2014). Child and Adolescent Development. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.
Cognitive Development Object for Adolescent Room: Board Games involving strategy and problem solving.
In the Adolescent Room, we propose having a collection of board games that require logical thinking and problem solving. Adolescence is the beginning of more sophisticated thinking. Children in this age group move from concrete operations to what Piaget calls formal operations. They are becoming capable of deductive and hypothetical reasoning (Mossler, 2014). Games like chess, Battleship, and checkers all require players to engage in this kind of thinking. Another game that can be used is the game of CLUE. This game supports the development of prepositional logic and requires players to think hypothetically (Neller, Markov and Russell, 2006). These games will not only promote cognitive development, but will further support psychosocial development because of the required interactions.
Mossler, R. (2nd ed.). (2014). Child and Adolescent Development. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.
Neller, T., Markov, Z., & Russell, I. (2006). Clue deduction: Professor Plum teaches logic. Retrieved from https://cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/papers/flairs06.pdf
o Beilin, H. (1992). Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 191-204. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.28.2.191
• The full-text version of this article can be accessed through the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University Library. This article offers a critical analysis of Piaget's work.
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• Diachenko, O. M. (2011). On major developments in preschoolers' imagination. International Journal of Early Years Education, 19(1), 19-25. doi: 10.1080/09669760.2011.570996
• The full-text version of this article can be accessed through the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University Library. This article illustrates how scientific evidence may alter existing views of cognitive development