Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Libertador Experimental University

Chair: Child Development II
Prof: Daira Dugarte.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CHILD

DEVELOPMENT

Members:
Juliana García 25,240,710
Zoila Castellano 24,937,293
María Guevara 26.588.28
Aura Velandria 19,732,910
María Villamarin 15,210,714

Guasdualito, March 2023.

 Theoretical foundations of child development:

Studies follow a theoretical foundation, which is part of the research on the

development of cognitive structures in the child. From birth, the child develops
cognitive structures which are configured through experiences. The child's
thinking continues its growth, carrying out several special coherence functions
such as classification, simulation, explanation and relationship. However, these
functions are remade according to the logical structures of thought, which follow
a sequenced development, until reaching the point of abstraction. It is at this
moment, when the child's thinking would work the field of mathematics, and that
his cognitive structure can reach the understanding of the hypothetical
deductive nature.

Piaget conceives intelligence as adaptation to the environment that surrounds

us. This adaptation consists of a balance between two inseparable
mechanisms: accommodation and assimilation. Cognitive development begins
when the child achieves an internal balance between accommodation and the
environment that surrounds him and the assimilation of this same reality to his
structures.

This development follows a certain order, which includes four periods of

development, the sensory-motor, the pre-concrete, the concrete and the formal,
each of these periods is constituted by original structures, which will be built
from the step from one state to another. "This stage constitutes, therefore, due
to the structures that define it, a particular form of balance and mental evolution
takes place in the sense of a more advanced balance."

The human being would always be in constant cognitive development, therefore

each new experience will consist of reestablishing a balance, that is, carrying
out a readjustment of structures. Now, what is the role that accommodation and
assimilation play in reaching a state of balance? The child, as he relates to his
environment, will incorporate the experiences into his own activity, and this is
where the mechanism of assimilation intervenes since the child would
assimilate the external environment to his already constructed cognitive
structures, however he will have to readjust with the experiences already
obtained, which causes a transformation of structures, that is, the mechanism of
accommodation will occur.

However, for thought to move on to other levels of development, a third

mechanism must be present, it is "equilibrium", which provides the balance that
arises between the external environment and the internal structures of thought.
The assimilation of external objects is progressive and is carried out through all
the functions of thought, namely perception, memory, intelligence, practice,
intuitive thinking and logical intelligence. All these assimilations that imply
accommodation generate an adaptation to balance, which entails an
increasingly adequate adaptation to the environment. By knowing the evolution
of cognitive structures, it becomes easier to understand the role that adaptation
and accommodation mechanisms play in educational development. Piaget
marked the beginning of the stages of development with the sensory-motor
period, each period is given by six studies. Each of them consists of certain
characteristics which become increasingly complex. The small child, from birth,
through perceptions of movements will gradually enter sensory-motor
assimilation. When he is born, the first movement he presents is the sucking
reflex, which will present a progressive advance, that is, in the first days, when
the mother begins to breastfeed him, he will present small problems sucking,
however through some days he will assimilate this action. Upon reaching two or
three weeks the child will begin to present what Piaget called "practical
intelligence" that is done exclusively in the manipulation of objects. This
manipulation will allow you to perceive movements, which will be organized into
"schemes" of action. As long as the child continues to handle objects and
experience various behaviors that will cause action schemes to develop and
multiply, however, it should not be lost sight of that this assimilation is at a
sensory-motor level. During the first year, the child will present a marked
egocentrism, this causes causality to be implicit in his own activity as a child,
there is no relationship between one event with another, however, based on
experience, he could verify that there is a pause for each event. Speaking at the
child's level, he realizes that when he pulls a tablecloth and some object is on
top of it, the object will fall to the floor, or if he pulls a cord whose end has a bell
he will know that the bell will ring. Therefore, the child recognizes the causal
relationships before his objective and therefore locates the causes."

An important event in the child's cognitive development is the appearance of

language. The child will use verbal expression to be able to relate his or her
actions, which entails other important events. One of them is the beginning of
socialization. This is the time when the child will interact most closely with the
social environment. Another interesting event also presented at this stage is the
internalization of the word, that is, the child will have his own interpretation of a
word in his mind, until he internalizes actions, which causes thought to be
generated. From two to seven years of age the child will enter the concrete pre-
operational stage presenting two forms of thought formed by pure assimilations,
that is, the thought perceives actions but without incorporating them into new
structures and the next form is when Thought will form schemes, obtained
through the incorporation of new structures, in this way the child will adapt to
reality.

This last type of thinking will be applied to the previous thought and little by little
the formal thinking will be structured. As the child has concrete experiences and
manipulates his environment, he will present pre-logical behavior. Piaget tells
us that "the child will use logic through the mechanism of intuition, simple
internalization of perceptions and movements in the form of representative
images"

From the age of seven or eight, the child will stop acting impulsively in the face
of new events, and from indiscriminately believing every story; he will replace
this behavior with an act of reflection. The child will not be satisfied with the
answers received against any question he asks, it is at this moment when the
child will stop to think before taking any action. The child will carry out an
internal dialogue with himself, it is precisely what Piaget calls "reflection." The
mental exercise that is carried out when designing algorithms helps the
development of the reflection process and when building an algorithm of a
scene the child will stop to think about the succession of a series of steps that
make up such a scene. Now, from the aforementioned age, the child is also in
full development of awareness, leaving egocentrism behind, this will allow the
ability to build new schemes to emerge. The latter is really important since the
beginnings of childhood begin to emerge.

Piaget tells us that "logic constitutes precisely the system of relationships that
allows the coordination of life instincts between all the points of view
corresponding to different individuals and ending where those that correspond
to successive perceptions and intuitions of the same individual" And it is
precisely the logic which constitutes the construction of algorithms.

The progress that thought is presenting, in relation to the previous stages, is

evident. However, it does not arise simply from the fact of passing from one
year to another, but some basic concepts have to be established such as
classification, relationship, explanation, relationship and contamination, which
are presented at the moment in which thought can deduce the starting point of
an action. For example, we can say that the child has acquired the concept of
conservation when he knows that the material can undergo transformations,
conserving the same volume and space. If the child is presented with two
glasses of water and a sugar cube is added to one of these, when the child
proves that the lump is still in the glass, even though it cannot be seen, the
child's thinking has the notion of conservation.

He also acquires the other concepts little by little, driving, and therefore,
knowing his environment. Over the course of eight to ten years, the child enters
the stage of concrete operations, where little by little he will present an
increasingly deeper cognitive development. From a series of operations, the
child reaches another level of thinking, the problems that were presented in the
previous stage are now difficult to resolve thanks to internalizations. These
direct thinking to a general form of balance and are They will begin to form, as
stated above, another series of operations such as: "reunions and dissociations
of classes, classification and storage of relations, variations, correspondences."
Although they require a very rich variety of operations at this stage, they should
not be lost. of view that the child is thus in the concrete stage, that is, that the
child's field of action is very limited since he will only act on objects and not on
hypotheses or verbal statements. However, by performing a series of exercises
presented in a concrete way, the child will be able to exercise his thinking to be
able to reach another mode of reasoning based on firm voices. Thus reaching
the last stage of development, the formal stage, where thinking acts on a
hypothetical-deductive level. The series of cycles discussed previously refer to
problem-solving techniques, that is, to the proposal of algorithms, which can be
taught in the stage of concrete operations. At this stage the algorithms are
presented in graphic form and consist of a few actions so that the child
becomes familiar with other types of exercises. The seventh stage in which the
child could learn problem-solving strategies is described below.

Principles of development: There are several underlying principles of

development to keep in mind:

 Development is permanent and change is evident throughout life

(although this text ends with adolescence). And early experiences affect
later development.
 Development is multidirectional. We show gains in some areas of
development, while losses in other areas.
 Development is multidimensional. We change across three general
domains or dimensions; physical, cognitive, emotional and social.
 The physical domain includes changes in height and weight, changes in
gross and fine motor skills, sensory abilities, the nervous system, as well
as the tendency to illness and disease.
 The cognitive domain encompasses changes in intelligence, wisdom,
perception, problem solving, memory and language.
 The social and emotional domain (also known as psychosocial) focuses
on changes in emotion, self-perception, and interpersonal relationships
with family, peers, and friends.
 The three domains influence each other. It is also important to note that a
change in one domain can cascade and cause changes in the other
domains.
 Development is characterized by plasticity, it is our capacity for change
and that many of our characteristics are malleable. Early experiences are
very important, but children are remarkably resilient (able to overcome
adversity).
 Development is multi-contextual. We are influenced by both nature
(genetics) and nurture (environment) when and where we live and our
 actions, beliefs and values are a response to the circumstances around
us. The important thing here is to understand that behaviors, motivations,
emotions, and choices are parts of a larger picture.

Particularities of child development: As children grow, they develop in different

ways. Child development includes physical, intellectual, social and emotional
changes.

Children grow and mature at very different speeds. It is difficult to define what is
"normal." There can be large differences in height, weight, and build among
healthy children depending on diet, exercise, and genes. Some children begin
or are close to puberty before they are teenagers.

Children begin to be more independent from their parents. They can become
rebellious. They also admire external things, such as their friends, who are
usually of the same sex. Peer approval is very important. Your child can try
some new behaviors to be part of the "group."

This may be a time when parents or teachers identify learning disabilities or

behavioral problems in children. These problems can worsen as time goes by,
so it is important that there are two factors involved in psychoevolutionary
development:

External factors: food, nutrition, environmental variables, emotional climate,

stimulation or experiences of the child, that is, cultural heritage and social
learning. The current that defends this type of factors is the environmentalist
current.

Internal factors: genetic potential or the hereditary load of the child and its
particular maturation of the nervous system, that is, genetic inheritance and
organic maturation. The current that defends this type of factors is the organicist
current.

Nowadays it is considered that these two factors, in interconnection, are the

determinants of development, determined by the interactionist or constructivist
current, whose main representatives are Piaget and Vygotsky, according to
which the child constitutes his knowledge and mental structures in the
exchange with the medium. They are not the result of genetics or the
environment, but of the child's own activity, which reorganizes the data
qualitatively.

All of us, through maturation alone, can develop what Jacob calls “closed
contents” (beard, an ear...) or phylogenetic characteristics (crawling, walking...),
but only through stimuli and social learning, will we develop the “open contents”
(language...) and ontogenetic characteristics (riding a bike...). It is important to
seek help as soon as possible.