Govt. Exams
Piaget believed that cognitive development occurs through children's active exploration and interaction with their environment. Children construct knowledge through their experiences, not through passive reception or instruction.
This is the classic conservation task. The child's inability to understand that the amount of water remains the same despite the change in appearance is a characteristic feature of the preoperational stage, showing lack of conservation ability.
Zone of proximal development is a concept from Lev Vygotsky's theory, not Piaget's. Piaget's theory focuses on schemas, assimilation/accommodation, equilibration, and distinct stages of cognitive development.
Equilibration is Piaget's concept describing how children maintain cognitive balance by balancing assimilation and accommodation. When new experiences create disequilibrium, children modify their schemas to restore balance.
Reversibility is the ability to mentally undo an action or operation. In the concrete operational stage, children understand that operations can be reversed—if 7+5=12, then 12-5=7. This is essential for understanding conservation.
Centration is the preoperational child's tendency to focus on only one aspect of an object or situation while ignoring other important features. This contributes to their inability to conserve, as they focus on height in a liquid conservation task while ignoring width.
Egocentrism is most prominent in the preoperational stage (2-7 years). Children at this stage believe that everyone sees, thinks, and feels the same way they do and struggle with perspective-taking.
This is accommodation because the child is modifying their existing schema of 'animal' to include new categories and distinctions. The schema becomes more complex and refined to fit new experiences.
This is an example of assimilation where the child is trying to fit the new experience (horse) into their existing schema for 'dog.' The child will later learn to differentiate through accommodation.
Object permanence is a key developmental milestone achieved around 8 months in the sensorimotor stage. It refers to the understanding that objects still exist even when hidden from view, indicating cognitive advancement from purely sensory experience.
