Intellectual Development

 Mental ability forms a part and parcel of one’s persona.

 Intellectual development in children happens quickly using the kind of experiences that they gain.
With time and experience, their memory, problem-solving skills, reasoning and thinking abilities
get honed and developed.

Assimilation
 Assimilation occurs when new information is introduced to a person. The person begins to
integrate the new information into existing files, or "schema".

Accommodation
 Accommodation occurs when the person reorganizes schema to accommodate himself or herself
with the environment.

Intellectual Development In Children Theory

by Jean Piaget, 1936

The intellectual/ cognitive development provides an understanding on how individuals actively construct
their understanding of the world.

Each of these age-related stages consists of distinct ways of thinking:

1. Sensorimotor Stage
 From birth – 2 years old.
 Infants are busy discovering relationships between their bodies and the environment.
 The child relies on seeing, touching, sucking, feeling, and using their senses to learn things
about themselves and the environment.
 Piaget calls this the sensorimotor stage because the early manifestations of intelligence
appear from sensory perceptions and motor activities.
 Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov
 Operant Conditioning – B.F Skinner (Burrhus Frederic Skinner)
 Object Permanence

2. Pre-Operational Stage
 Age of 2 to 7 years – young children are able to think about things symbolically. They begin
to represent the world with words, images and drawings.
 Games with simple rules are comprehensible to the child now. This is the intuitive phase.
 From the age of 2 to 4 years, language skills of the child develop. His or her speech,
however, is not highly logical. The child can recall and talk about objects that are not
presently in sight. This is the pre-operational phase.
 The age from four to seven years sees the child develop his speaking skills. The talk makes
more sense and the child is able to recognize and use simple logic.
  Symbolic Function Sub-stage

Egocentrism - a child is unable to distinguish between their own perspective and that of another person.
Children tend to stick to their own viewpoint, rather than consider the view of others.
Symbolic Thinking - symbolic thought refers to the ability to represent people, objects and events --
even those that are not present -- by using internal symbols or images.
Animism - the belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities.
Artificialism - refers to the belief that environmental characteristics can be attributed to human actions
or interventions.

 Intuitive Sub-stage

Centration - is the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic or dimension of a situation, whilst
disregarding all others.
Conservation - is the awareness that altering a substance's appearance does not change its basic
properties.
Irreversibility - refers to when children are unable to mentally reverse a sequence of events.

3. Concrete Operational Stage

This intellectual child development stage comprises of the mental growth taking place in the child from
the age of 7 to 11 years.
• The child is now able to understand logical patterns and also use them. The mental faculties are
now taking a turn towards solid understanding and cognition of what is to be done for what.
• The child is able to understand categories now and can also solve problems logically and correctly.
• Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or
events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks. Understanding and knowing how to use
full common sense has not yet been completely adapted.

4. Formal Operational Stage

This is the period of development that takes place from the age of 11 years and above.
• It is in this final stage of intellectual development that the child is able to start understanding and
thinking about abstract concepts.
• Logic and deductive reasoning becomes comprehensible to the child. Complex logical and abstract
sequences becomes easy for the child to think about and apply in problem-solving.
• They become more systematic and develop hypothesis and testing it.
 Erikson’s Psychosocial Child Development Theory
by Erik Erickson, 1902 to 1994
• The totality of an individual.
• Every uniqueness is a result of an individual’s relationship with the significant others as he goes
along performing his everyday tasks.
• The impact of social experience across the whole lifespan.
• Proponent: Erik Erikson
Stage 1: Infancy (birth to 18 months)  Basic Conflict: Identity vs. Role Confusion
 Important Events: Social Relationships
 Basic Conflict: Trust vs. Mistrust  Outcome: Teens need to develop a sense of
 Important Events: Feeding self and personal identity. Success leads to
 Outcome: During the first stage of an ability to stay true to yourself, while
psychosocial development, children develop failure leads to role confusion and a weak
a sense of trust when caregivers provide sense of self.
reliability, care, and affection. A lack of this
will lead to mistrust. Stage: Young Adulthood (19 to 40 years)

Stage 2: Early Childhood (2 to 3 years)  Basic Conflict: Intimacy vs. Isolation

 Important Events: Relationships
 Basic Conflict: Autonomy vs. Shame and  Outcome: Young adults need to form
Doubt intimate, loving relationships with other
 Important Events: Toilet Training people. Success leads to strong
 Outcome: Children need to develop a sense relationships, while failure results in
of personal control over physical skills and a loneliness and isolation.
sense of independence. Potty training plays
an important role in helping children Stage: Middle Adulthood (40 to 65 years)
develop this sense of autonomy. Children
who struggle and who are shamed for their  Basic Conflict: Generativity vs. Stagnation
accidents may be left without a sense of  Important Events: Work and Parenthood
personal control. Success during this stage  Outcome: Adults need to create or nurture
of psychosocial development leads to things that will outlast them, often by having
feelings of autonomy, failure results in children or creating a positive change that
feelings of shame and doubt. benefits other people. Success leads to
feelings of usefulness and accomplishment,
Stage 3: Preschool (3 to 5 years) while failure results in shallow involvement
in the world.
 Basic Conflict: Initiative vs. Guilt
 Important Events: Exploration Stage: Maturity (65 to death)
 Outcome: Children need to begin asserting
control and power over the environment.  Basic Conflict: Ego Integrity vs. Despair
Success in this stage leads to a sense of  Important Events: Reflection on life
purpose. Children who try to exert too much  Outcome: Erikson's theory differed from
power experience disapproval, resulting in a many others because it addressed
sense of guilt. development throughout the entire lifespan,
including old age. Older adults need to look
Stage: School Age (6 to 11 years) back on life and feel a sense of fulfillment.
Success at this stage leads to feelings of
 Basic Conflict: Industry vs. Inferiority wisdom, while failure results in regret,
 Important Events: School bitterness, and despair. At this stage, people
 Outcome: Children need to cope with new reflect back on the events of their lives and
social and academic demands. Success leads take stock. Those who look back on a life
to a sense of competence, while failure they feel was well-lived will feel satisfied
results in feelings of inferiority. and ready to face the end of their lives with
a sense of peace. Those who look back and
only feel regret will instead feel fearful that
their lives will end without accomplishing
the things they feel they should have.

Stage: Adolescence (12 to 18 years)