Adolescent Cognition

Piaget’s Theory

Piaget created the cognitive developmental theory which focused on different developmental milestones in an individual’s life.

At the third stage of his theory is the concrete operational stage: when children can reason logically about concrete events and objects, makes gains in the classification and relationship between classes and objects.

The Formal Operational Stage

This is the fourth and final stage of Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. This stage occurs around the age of 11.

In this stage thought is more abstract: Things like love become important, personal ideals, enhanced imagination, hypothetical thinking comes in to play, and logical reasoning .

At this stage in development children began to think more of them and are occupied with their own thoughts.

Problem solving skills move away from trial and error to a more scientific approach. Such as devising plans to solve problems, systematically testing solutions. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning- involves creating a hypothesis and understanding the possible outcomes of an event.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

Criticism More individual variation then he thought: About 1

and 3 adolescents are formal operational thinkers, many American adults never become this type of thinker

Culture and education have stronger influence then Piaget maintained

Cognitive development is not as stage like, children can be trained to reason at a higher level.

Some abilities emerge later then thought others earlier.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

ContributionsHe is the founder of present field of cognitive

developmentConcepts such as: assimilation,

accommodation, object permanence, egocentrism, and conservation and be attributed to Piaget

The idea of children being active and constructive thinkers

Adolescent Egocentrism

Which is the heightened self-consciousness of adolescents.Two key components of adolescent egocentrism • Imaginary Audience- the belief that others are as interested in them as they themselves are, and attention getting behavior. Ex. If a 9th grader walks in the classroom they think all eyes are on them. • Personal Fable- is a sense of uniqueness and invincibility. Ex. No one understands me especially my parents. Ex. Of invincibility that won’t happen to me or I won’t get hurt.

Information Processing

According to Kuhn it is important that adolescents improve Executive Functioning- which is higher order cognitive activity such as reasoning, making decisions, monitoring thinking critically, and monitoring one’s cognitive progress. Improves: Effective learningAllocation of attentionMake decisions and use critical thinkingDecision Making Adolescent thinking has a dual-process model-

One is analytical and the other experiential.

The Transition To Middle Or Junior High School

At this stage adolescent experience the top-dog phenomenon – moving from being the oldest, biggest, and most powerful student to being the youngest, smallest, and least powerful. Some positive aspects:

Feeling grown upMore subjects to select fromSpend time with peers, find compatible

friendsIncreased independence, challenge by

academic work

High School

In the late 20th and first several years of the 21st century U.S. high school dropout rates declines. In the 1940 more than half of 16-24 years olds dropped out of school by 2006 the figure decreased to 9.3 percent. The dropout rate for Latinos remains highs, but is highest among Native Americans. Ways to decrease dropout rates:

Early reading programs Tutoring Counseling and mentoring

Extracurricular Activities and Service Learning

Benefits of Extracurricular Activity•Higher grades, school engagement, lower dropout rates•More likely to go to college, lower delinquency and substance abuse.

Service Learning- is a form of education that promotes social responsibility and service to the community. An important goal of service learning is that adolescents become less self-centered and motivated to help others.

•Adolescents engage in tutoring, helping older adults, working in a hospital, assisting in child-care, and cleaning up.