Theoretical Perspectives
The way in which settings plan and support children’s development in play is influenced by a range of theoretical perspectives.
Cognitive Theory
In 1936 Piaget developed the theory of cognitive development and suggested that children move through four different stages of mental development. The theory emphases how children acquire knowledge and focuses on understanding the nature of intelligence in children. Piaget believed that children take an active role in their learning process and develop through making their own experiments, observations, and learning about the world. (https://www.verywell.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457)
Piaget's four stages of intellectual (or cognitive) development
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This important milestone is a sign that their memory is developing. Once babies start being physically mobile this in turn aids their cognitive development. Once babies reach the end of the sensorimotor stage (18-24 months) they start to develop language skills which is a sign that they are developing some symbolic abilities. (https://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1)
Preoperational (toddlerhood, 18-24 months through early childhood, age 7)
From being toddlers through to age 7 young children are able to think about things symbolically and their language vocabulary becomes more and more mature. During this age children also develop memory and imagination and an ability to understand the difference between past and future and participate in make-believe.
However children’s thinking is still developing and still not completely logical and they find it difficult to understand more complex concepts such as cause and effect, time, and comparison. (https://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1)
Concrete operational (ages 7 to
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Bandura (1977) states: "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."
Social learning theory explains human behaviour in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural, an environmental influences. The component processes underlying observational learning are:
Step 1: