Jean Piaget’s theory of child development along with...

Section A- Literature Review Jean Piaget’s theory of child development along with effective learning methods and teaching strategies used in secondary school classrooms with particular attention paid to science A child’s developing mind1,2,3 Without a doubt, Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most influential child psychologists. In his day he was at the forefront of research into child psychology and even today, his word is cited by many in the profession. The constructivist theory (see later) in particular has many of its roots seated in Piaget’s early work. Initially a biologist, Piaget was interested in the way in which organisms adapted to their environment. His initial theories on this subject led him to conclude that a†¦show more content†¦This stage normally lasts until the end of a child’s second year. Six sub-stages make up the sensorimotor period which overall involve the development of reflexes, coordination and symbolic representation. The first sub-stage is the development of reflexes, the reflexes of a newborn child appear to be concentrated on those reflexes that will be important in later life, such as the sucking reflex and the palmar reflex. The reproductive nature of these reflexes also causes a general rise in sucking on objects between meals or sucking new objects. Towards the end of this stage a child will develop recognitive assimilation ie, will gain the ability to distinguish between a bottle and nipple from other objects. The second sub-stage sees the introduction of conditioned reflexes and habits. Perhaps the clearest example, though not the most relevant, is that of Pavlov’s dog. In this experiment every time a dog was given food a bell was also sounded; because of the food the dog started to salivate. After a while, once the dog associated the sound of the bell with the food, the bell was rung without any food being given, yet the dog continued to salivate. However, after a brief period the food-bell association died off and the dog no longer salivated upon hearing the bell. The third sub-stage sees the development of hand eye coordination. Because of this a baby