Jean Piaget: The sensorimotor stage and motor development (Part 2)

From approximately 8 to 12 months, the fourth substage, secondary schemata, takes place. Movement is still critical in the continued development of the intellect. Past modes of movement, designed to interact with the environment, are now applied to new situations, enabling many new behaviors to emerge. These new behaviors are facilitated by increasing movement capabilities such as crawling and creeping, which allow greater exploration of the environment and more contact with new objects and situations. Particularly noteworthy in this substage are the increasing repetition of experimentation and the continued trial-and-error exploration. Through these learning processes, infants develop an ability to anticipate actions or situations that may occur in their environment; they can predict potential occurrences beyond their immediate activity. This ability, according to Piaget, is the onset of intellectual reasoning, and it allows infants to pair objects with their related activities and prepare to act on the basis of that determination. For example, when a ball is rolled to infants 8 to 12 months old, they can crudely return it. More important, the infants then prepare for their turn at receiving the ball because they realize the ball will once again be returned to them. They have associated the ball with playing catch. The secondary schemata substage is followed by the tertiary circular reactions substage. This fifth substage, which covers the first half of the second year, is characterized by the discovery of new ways to produce desired results through active experimentation. In fact, active experimentation now consumes a major portion of the infant’s time. Results of experimentation are incorporated into existing intellectual frameworks to create entirely new knowledge. Piaget believed that reasoning is fairly well developed in this substage and is necessary for the cyclical repetition of activities, which is characteristic of this substage, to occur. Additionally, there is an intensified interest in the surrounding environment as well as constant attempts to understand it. Therefore, the various sensory modalities, especially vision, become extremely important in furnishing valuable information concerning the child’s surroundings. Piaget noted that children in this substage realize that the discovery of a new object and the actual use of the object are separate entities. For example, children recognize that a ball can be thrown to create an enjoyable activity, but they know they do not have to pitch the ball at that time because they have developed the capability of delaying the act until later, with the assurance that the ball will not lose its valuable property. This ability is one of the first signs of a child being capable of visualizing an object beyond its immediate use. However, in this substage, immediate relationships are still the only relationships clearly understood. People become increasingly important in tertiary circular reactions as they become potential sources of resolution of the child’s “problems.” According to Piaget, this event may be a function of children’s improving ability to recognize that they are different from other people. Distinguishing the self from others facilitates the development of the ability to create action through others. For example, children can seek help for their problem-solving situations from parents or older siblings. Piaget claimed that this was a critical skill in the establishment of social development and such important human factors as emotion, competition, and rivalry. We can thus see that cognitive and motor development considerably affect development in the affective domain as well as in each other’s Invention of new means through mental combinations is the last of Piaget’s substages in the sensorimotor stage. Lasting from 18 to 24 months, this substage is a period of metamorphosis from active involvement in movement interactions with the environment to an increased reflection about those movements. This substage is often considered the climax of the sensorimotor stage and a transitional phase into the preoperational stage. In this substage, children clearly recognize objects as independent from themselves and as possessing unique properties. Similarly, children recognize themselves as one object among the many existing in the environment. The child’s interaction with environmental objects has been almost completely manifested via movement activities, which has enabled the child to develop an understanding of the properties of objects such as size, shape, color, texture, weight, and use. However, the child may require a separate cognitive ability for each property. This fact is illustrated by children who respond to statements concerning their yellow ball but who do not understand when the ball is called the “big” ball. In fact, they may often refute such statements by noting that the ball is yellow, not big, when it is actually yellow and big. Perhaps the most important characteristic of this substage is the development of the cognitive ability to consider the self and an object in simple situations in the past, present, and future. This cognitive skill allows contemplation of activities and may be the onset of what Piaget termed semimental functioning. By the end of this substage, “thinking with the body” has been gradually replaced by thinking with the mind. A new skill is made possible. Children can now recall an event without physically reenacting what happened. Furthermore, they can ponder alternatives and predict potential outcomes to situations without having to perform the acts first. Source: «Human Motor Development”-A Lifespan approach (Greg Payne, Larry Isaacs) Recent Articles