Saturday, March 13, 2010

SensoriMotor Stage: Piaget's Cognitive Theory of Development

This is the first stage of Piaget's Cognitive Development. This stage is from birth to infancy or zero to two years old. As the name implies, this is a stage where humans focus on the movement of muscles and body reflexes. Just imagine a baby and how he/she moves. And notice how baby toys are designed. In this stage, humans still have to familiarize and learn the world through interaction to objects, concrete objects in the environment.
According to Piaget, babies have the ability of "object permanence" or the ability of the child to know that an object still exists even without of sight. So if you show a baby a teddy bear, and then block or hide the teddy behind a cardboard, the baby would still believe that the teddy is there.
So to the parents, or even teachers, they have to provide a stimulating environment that will give the opportunity for the babies to learn his or her environment. Toys that captivate the senses like those with appealing colors, catching sound(not too much for the ear) and texture would be a great help for the development of this stage. But these toys will be useless and even hazardous without guidance of an adult or an older significant other.

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