Page 147 - Meeting with Children Book
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fairness and equality reasoning and they can also reason
how rules are necessary to avoid getting hurt.
Piaget (1896-1980) was a researcher who was interested in
understanding the development of understanding. His
theory has been widely influential and studied over time.
Piaget's stages are defined sequentially and qualitatively
and therefore it is important to consider the point that the
age of the child is less important than the conceptual
milestones and their sequences when looking at cognitive
development. For those doing actual formal assessments
the issues that get in the way of identifying capacities of
various aged children are more often related to the child's
motivation, attention, compliance, language and/ or
expression of anxiety (Garber, 2010). When Meeting With
Children, it is important to consider these factors before
saying a child does or does not demonstrate a particular
cognitive ability or skill.
According to Piaget, children 7-11 years, are in the Concrete
Operations stage of cognitive development. The concrete
operational stage is the third stage of Piaget's theory and
follows the preoperational stage. During this stage, a child's
thought processes become more mature and "adult like".
Children start solving problems in a more logical fashion but
they can only solve problems that apply to concrete events
or objects.
What can be expected from a normally
developing 8 - 12 year old?
In summary, Davies (2004) p. 387, identifies the
following for observation purposes:
