The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages Piaget
uses to definecognitive development. Piaget designated the first
two years of an infants lifeas the sensorimotor stage.
During this period, infants are busy discovering relationships
betweentheir bodies and the environment. Researchers have
discovered that infants haverelatively well developed sensory
abilities. The child relies on seeing,touching, sucking, feeling,
and using their senses to learn things aboutthemselves and the
environment. Piaget calls this the sensorimotor stagebecause the
early manifestations of intelligence appear from sensory
perceptionsand motor activities.
Through countless informal experiments, infants develop the
concept ofseperate selves, that is, the infant realizes that the
external world is not anextension of themselves.
Infants realize that an object can be moved by a hand (concept
ofcausality), and develop notions of displacement and events. An
importantdiscovery during the latter part of the sensorimotor stage
is the concept of "objectpermanence".
Object permanence is the awareness that an
object continues to existeven when it is not in view. In young
infants, when a toy is covered by a pieceof paper, the infant
immediately stops and appears to lose interest in the toy(see
figure above).This child has not yet mastered the concept of
objectpermanence. In older infants, when a toy is covered the child
will activelysearch for the object, realizing that the object
continues to exist.
After a child has mastered the concept of object permanence, the
emergenceof "directed groping" begins to take
place. With directedgroping, the child begins to perform motor
experiments in order to see what willhappen. During directed
groping, a child will vary his movements to observe howthe results
will differ. The child learns to use new means to achieve an end.
The child discovers he can pull objects toward himself with the aid
of a stickor string, or tilt objects to get them through the bars
of his playpen.
There have been a number of criticisms levelled at Piaget's
theory. Here are some of the most common ones:
- One criticism mentioned by Carlson and Buskist (1997) concerns
Piaget's terminology. From a scientific viewpoint, it is necessary
to define new terms operationally, in other words, in the form of
an operation which can be duplicated. Piaget often didn't do this,
so it is difficult for others to assess the significance of his
general findings because they cannot be easily and precisely
replicated. For example, consider terms like 'accommodation' and
'assimilation'. Piaget offers these terms up to indicate a change
that has occurred in a child, but what exactly has changed? Piaget
does not offer a specific operationalised definition that would
guide researchers to a link between observed behavioural changes
and posited changes in the mind. This lack of operational
definitions provides a further difficulty. It becomes impossible
for any other researcher to establish a cause-and-effect
relationship among Piaget's variables.
- A major criticism stems from the very nature of a stage theory.
The stages may be inaccurate or just plain wrong. Weiten (1992)
points out that Piaget may have underestimated the development of
young children. He cites Bower, (1982) and Harris, (1983) who have
conducted research that found that some children develop
object-permanence earlier than Piaget thought. Others point out
that preoperational children may be less egocentric than Piaget
believed. Flavell et al. (1982 cited in Weiten, 1992) showed that
even a three year old child is aware that an adult looking at a
card from the opposite side of the child will be seeing a different
view. Furthermore, individual differences may mean that children of
similar ages may vary widely across the stages. In fact some
children may never achieve the level of formal operations. If
children can show a mixture of different stages in their cognitive
make-up, what is the point in attempting to differentiate between
different stages at all?
- Related to the previous criticism is Gray's (1994) notion that
Piaget offers no substantial evidence for a qualitative difference
in cognitive capacity between two children of different stages. The
most important aspect of Piaget's theory is that each cognitive
stage is different, not just as a matter of degree, but rather a
child's type of thinking is quite different depending on
the stage it is in. Providing evidence for a qualitative difference
between stages has not been comprehensively achieved. This
criticism has a further implication. If each stage is marked by a
new type of thinking, then as a child ages there should be signs
indicating the sudden acquisition of certain abilities. In fact the
opposite is true. Children tend to progress rather slowly and
gradually. Gray (1994) offers the example of the
conservation-of-numbers which most children can understand by about
age five, compared to the conservation-of-substance which normally
develops around age eight. While Piaget does admit that some
developments can be slow, critics argue that overall, cognitive
development is so slow as to obviate the need for a stage
theory at all.
- Another criticism is levelled at Piaget's action-oriented
approach. Piaget believes that physical manipulation of external
objects is essential for normal cognitive development. Theorists
have argued that children born without the physical capability of
outward action (consider, for example, paralysed children born
without the ability to move either arms or legs) are still capable
of normal cognitive development. Also, the physical nature of
Piaget's theory fails to explain how children understand abstract
words that don't necessarily relate to an immediately physical
object.
- A criticism levelled by the likes of Vygotsky, chastises Piaget
for his inattention to culturally specific influences on cognitive
development. The children Piaget studied grew up in Geneva, a
Western culture where children attend school and are trained in
certain forms of thinking. Yet Piaget largely ignored this
influence and attributed each child's intellectual growth to the
individual's cognitive reaction to the environment. Later tests
(Segall and others, 1990 cited in Gray, 1994)) have shown that
Piaget's formal operational period and even the concrete
operational period are heavily dependent on formal Western
schooling.
Authoritative parenting would encourage better growth; as
Authoritative parenting is a parenting style characterized by high
responsiveness and high demands. Authoritative parents are
responsive to the child’s emotional needs while having high
standards. They set limits and are very consistent in enforcing
boundaries.
After decades of research, child development experts recognize
that authoritative parenting is the best parenting style among the
four Baumrind parenting styles.This parenting style generally
produces the best outcomes in children.
Studies have found that preschoolers raised by authoritative
parents:
- Tend to be happy and content.
- Are independent and self-reliant.
- Develop good social skills.
- Have good emotional regulation and self-control.
- Express warmth and cooperate with peers.
- Explore new environment without fear.
- Are competent and assertive.