Understanding Child Development: Language, Attachment, and Morality

Posted on May 14, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

The Intention to Speak

It’s amazing how a child begins to understand sentences, pronounce words, and how rapidly their language, initially so basic, evolves and grows into something so complex. For Piaget, language is part of overall development, a semiotic/representative capacity. In the beginning, the child’s speech is egocentric, not cooperative, reflecting their intellectual self-centeredness, but this will fade with age, becoming more cooperative and social. Piaget observed children talking to themselves to understand and assimilate new information. Vygotsky, on the other hand, felt that language had a social origin, serving as the instrument for transmitting cultural experiences. Egocentric speech, for him, was the appropriation of social language, which would later fade and become internalized. One of the functions of language, according to Vygotsky, is mediation between people. Ultimately, for Vygotsky, language was the engine of development, leading to higher mental functions.

From birth, a child learns to draw attention through different reactions: crying, screaming, etc. Thus, the child expresses their feelings through reflex reactions, to which caregivers respond. The child learns by creating situations that facilitate regular learning, what Bruner calls the “Language Acquisition Support System (LASS).” This system is associated with the child’s development because it wouldn’t be possible without the surrounding culture and context. Bruner called the interaction between child and adult “proto-conversations,” or the “negotiation of meaning.” They are called “proto” because the child uses sounds and cannot yet speak words. After 10 months, the child will begin saying their first words. These first words will be used in very specific contexts and situations. For example, if a child sees a dog walking on the street, they may also call a cat a dog (or “bow-wow”), as the child associates the word “dog” with a given situation, giving it a much broader meaning than adults do. Once the child has a greater need for communication and a more stimulating environment, their terminology will become more specific and extensive, using each word in different situations and giving them a proper meaning. On the other hand, they will not only use their first words to designate objects, but to show intentions, wishes, requests, relationships, etc. For example, if the child says “puree,” they may also be signaling a desire: ‘I want to eat.’ Gradually, through combinations of words, they express a growing knowledge about the world around them. They acquire more and more words and assimilate the grammatical rules of their language. At five years old, they have virtually mastered the ground rules, but some things still escape them.

However, psycholinguist Chomsky had a theory opposed to that of Bruner, which he called the “Language Acquisition Device (LAD).” It was based on a nativist approach, focused more on the phylogeny and genetics of the child than on culture and context. According to Chomsky, the child has a natural ability to understand and eventually learn language. Language is acquired because humans are biologically programmed to do so, with specialized structures in the brain dedicated to the task. Chomsky argued that imitations were used to learn from others and that corrections made by adults to a child’s errors were not beneficial. Thus, the child’s pronunciations were their own creations and not mere repetitions of other people. However, the theories of Chomsky and Bruner can be seen as complementary: a child with a communicative intention evolves through the LAD and LASS, always guided by their caregivers, with whom there will be a negotiation of meanings, which may be correct or not, but from which the child learns.

The Intent to Speak

There is increasing evidence to suggest that babies are programmed to “tune in” to human speech. Before speaking, babies express their needs and feelings through sounds that progress from crying to cooing and babbling (6 to 10 months). After accidental imitation and later deliberate imitation (9 to 10 months), their ability to recognize and understand speech sounds and use meaningful gestures also increases. These first sounds without associated meaning are known as pre-linguistic speech. At this stage, imitation by parents or caregivers of the child’s sounds affects the rate of learning. It also helps the baby to grasp the meaning of interactive conversation and taking turns.

Babies specifically react to human speech, and by three days old, they are able to distinguish their mother’s voice and prefer it to a stranger’s. They begin to discriminate different patterns of emphasis or certain rhythms and steady sounds like “ba,” “da,” and “ta,” and prefer the sounds of their native language to those of another language. The ability to perceive differences between sounds is critical to language development, and apparently, this ability starts in the womb. Before children connect sounds with meanings, they seem to recognize sound patterns they hear with some frequency, such as their name or “mom” or “dad.” By 6 months, infants have learned the basic sounds of language (losing sensitivity to other sounds that do not belong to their language) and begin to become aware of phonological rules and to relate meaningful sounds. At 9 months, they begin to use gestures that can accompany sounds. These progress from simple gestures like pointing or conventional social gestures with their hand to say goodbye, to nodding or shaking their head, to representational gestures like raising their arms to be held. Symbolic gestures like blowing to indicate that something is hot or aspiring to make a flower often arise at the same time that babies speak their first words and work similarly to them. Gestures appear before children have a vocabulary of 25 words and are abandoned when children can say the word instead of the gesture. Several studies seem to show that gestures are inherent in the process of language and appear to help babies learn to talk.

Between 10 and 14 months or so, babies say their first word. This is the period of linguistic speech in which expressions convey meaning. Their initial repertoire may be restricted to “papa,” “mama,” or may be a syllable that contains more than one meaning depending on context, such as “pa” for “want out” or “Where’s Daddy?” A word that expresses a whole thought is called a holophrase. In this period, up to 18 months, vocabulary will grow gradually. Sometime between 16 and 24 months, there is a “vocabulary explosion” from the child saying about 50 words to saying about 400. At this stage, the help of parents correctly repeating the baby’s words or lengthening sentences containing the word is essential to expand vocabulary. Child-directed speech or baby talk, which occurs in many cultures and languages, is soft-spoken, with exaggerated ups and downs in tone, simplifications, short sentences, and lots of repetition, and seems to facilitate language acquisition. The next step is when the child joins two words to express an idea, such as “Mommy pee.” This milestone varies greatly from child to child, as linguistic speech, unlike pre-linguistic speech, is not associated with chronological age. At first, it is rather telegraphic speech consisting of a few key words, such as function words, ignoring/being, articles, and prepositions. This omission does not mean that the words are unknown but may be difficult to reproduce. They respect the syntactic order of words in a sentence. Between 20 and 30 months, children show increasing competence in syntax and the use of function words. They also become more aware of the communicative purpose of language and whether their words are being understood. By three years old, their speech is very fluid, more extensive and complex, but while they may omit parts of speech, they manage to convey very well what they want.

The Concept of Attachment: Behavioral Characteristics and Evolution in the First Year of Life

Attachment is the emotional bond that a child develops with their parents (or caregivers) that provides the emotional security necessary for the development of psychological and social skills. It is cognitive, behavioral, and emotional, and these components not only ensure the proper psychological development of children but also ensure the survival and emotional security of the infant. Attachment has several behavioral characteristics:

Striving to maintain proximity to the person to whom they are attached
Maintaining contact with the primary attachment figure
Using the attachment figure as a base from which to explore the physical and social world
Seeking shelter in the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of danger or threat

The first to develop an attachment theory to explain why children become emotionally attached to their primary caregivers and the negative emotional effects resulting from separation was John Bowlby. Bowlby’s proposed model was based on the existence of four sets of interrelated behaviors: the system of attachment behaviors, the scanning system, the system of fear of strangers, and the affiliative system:

The system of attachment behavior refers to behaviors that are associated with proximity and contact with the attachment figure (smiles, cries, tactile contact, etc.). These behaviors are activated with increasing distance from the child regarding the attachment figure or situations of threat. This mechanism serves to restore proximity.
The scanning system consists of exploring the outside world. Babies begin to understand the world around them not only by watching but also by using their senses (putting objects in their mouths, touching everything in sight). This system is closely related to the system of attachment behaviors, as they show a certain incompatibility: when attachment behaviors are activated, exploration of the environment decreases.
The fear system is the degree to which the child acts with strangers in the presence or absence of attachment figures. This system also has to do with previous systems because its appearance is a decrease in exploratory behavior and increased attachment behaviors.
The affiliative system refers to the interest shown by individuals in maintaining proximity and interacting with other subjects.

Attachment is not just an instinctive behavior that is activated in the presence of a given stimulus, but also part of a set of behaviors whose activation or deactivation depend on individual and social characteristics. As for the evolution of attachment, one can speak of a sequence of four stages:

Phase 1 occupies the first quarter of life (0-3 months): This stage has a preference for members of the species itself.
Phase 2 occupies the 2nd quarter of life (3-6 months): It has a preference for familiar shapes without rejecting outsiders. The baby begins to recognize faces, voices, and smells. This ability to recognize faces helps the child discriminate the attachment figure from strangers.
Stage 3 (6 to 12 months): The infant shows a preference for the attachment figure and rejects outsiders. Separation creates a series of sensations in the child (anxiety, fear, etc.) and activates mechanisms such as crying to maintain contact with the attachment figure.
Stage 4 (from the first year): The baby takes on a certain degree of autonomy. Independence is having the attachment figure, being able to communicate verbally, and being able to move about freely.

Although we know that attachment occurs between 6 to 12 months, we can speak of a post-attachment phase, where independence will be achieved through the new features that the child develops, such as locomotion, verbal, and intellectual skills. The child will remain unchanged until independence. After 30 months, manifestations of attachment are reduced, emerging only at certain times. Finally, it is worth mentioning that in studying attachment itself, and in childhood, we see a parallel to the relationships we establish in adulthood. In addition, Bowlby argues that in every relationship, the person constructs a model of themselves and a model of the other. Therefore, attachment is not only typical of childhood.

The Paradigm of Strange Situation and Types of Attachment: Limitations of the Model

The fundamental thesis of attachment theory is that the state of security, trust, fear, or anxiety of a child is largely determined by the accessibility and responsiveness of their main figure of affection. When Bowlby refers to the presence of the attachment figure, he does not mean real presence immediately, but both immediate accessibility and responsiveness. The attachment figure should not only be accessible but must respond appropriately to the child’s needs and demands. Attachment relationships that almost all children establish with their caregivers clearly differ in quality. That is, there are individual differences in attachment quality. We might then ask: Does the quality of attachment affect subsequent development? To answer this question, researchers first had to find appropriate ways to measure (evaluate) the quality of attachment.

The technique used to measure (evaluate) the quality of attachment to their caregivers that has been established for children one to two years old is the “Strange Situation” procedure by Mary Ainsworth and colleagues. After experimentation, the results, as expected, concluded that the child uses the mother as a secure base for exploration and the perception of any threat activated attachment behaviors and caused exploration to disappear. With all this data, Ainsworth et al. postulated four types of attachment. The “Strange Situation” is the experimental paradigm par excellence of attachment theory. It is a laboratory situation of approximately 25 minutes duration in a series of eight episodes (3 minutes each) in which attempts are made to simulate natural interactions (meetings/separations, caregivers/outsiders) that expose the child to determine the type of attachment that has been established. By recording and analyzing the behavior (responses) of children in these episodes, a professional observer characterized the child’s attachment to the caregiver in one of four categories of attachment that Ainsworth et al. postulate:

Secure attachment: A secure bond between the child and caregiver, characterized by the child appreciating close contact with their caregiver and using this person as a secure base to explore the environment. The child can be with strangers if the mother is present.
Resistant attachment: An insecure attachment between child and caregiver, characterized by the child’s protests before separation and a tendency to remain close but resist contact initiated by the caregiver, especially after a separation. Children with resistant attachment behave quite unpredictably to strangers, even when the mother is present.
Avoidant attachment: An insecure attachment between caregiver and child, characterized by little protest to separation and a tendency to avoid or ignore the caregiver. These children are sometimes sociable with strangers but usually ignore or avoid them as well as their caregivers.
Anxious-disorganized attachment: An insecure attachment between child and caregiver, characterized by the child being disoriented before the meeting (child-caregiver-stranger) and avoiding the caregiver as soon as they return, i.e., there is a combination of avoidance and resistance patterns reflecting confusion between approaching or avoiding the caregiver.

Practically any child from any sample taken in an investigation can be classified into one of these categories. However, the “Strange Situation” procedure has received some criticism for its limitations, to which many researchers are in favor of using new alternative attachment measures. The “Strange Situation” paradigm has some limitations. Among these, it was criticized at first because it is a form of evaluation that is too embarrassing and potentially invalid for children. Secondly, the behavior of children in these situations is exaggerated and does not represent the child’s daily routine behavior. Thirdly, it is not useful for classifying children over two years old, and finally, it is a “too expensive” procedure. Since these limitations have emerged, an alternative means of evaluating the quality of attachment, the “Attachment Q-Sort,” has recently become very popular. This is a method of observing the child’s attachment behaviors at home. It is valid for children aged one to five years old. This mode of assessment overcomes some of the limitations of the “Strange Situation” but not all. Importantly, data from the “Attachment Q-Sort” often coincide with those obtained in the “Strange Situation.”

The Concept of Object Permanence and its Development

The concept of object permanence refers to our knowledge that objects have an existence that is independent of our perception (regardless of whether we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell them). A toy does not cease to exist because we can no longer feel it. Piaget says that the acquisition of the notion of object permanence is to be understood within the construction of space where the objects exist and in the context of the development of intelligence. He uses his theory of intellectual development, which consists of stages with three aspects. The first of these stages is the sensorimotor stage, where Piaget explains his conception of the concept of object permanence. This stage is further divided into six substages:

Substage 1 (0-1 months) is characterized by the use of reflexes. Infants use their innate reflexes and gain some control over them. For example, they suck up whatever is near their mouth and grab anything that touches their palm. For the baby, there is no object permanence; it is entirely lacking.
Substage 2 (1-4 months) involves early changes in behavior to adapt to a new situation.
Substage 3 (4-8 months) is said to be the principle of intentional action. It coincides with the time that their interest in reaching and manipulating objects in the environment is born (bottle, sucking, etc.).
Substage 4 (8-12 months) involves beginning to anticipate events and using previous schemes to solve problems in actual situations. Children see and take a look at a rattle or a toy across the room and crawl towards it.
Substage 5 (12-18 months) is the first stage in which the child essays new activities rather than just repeating old ones. Its purpose is to explore (tertiary circular reaction). For example, a child crawls into a box, lies on it, then puts it on their head or tries to get it to the cat.
Substage 6 (18-24 months) is the stage at which the child thinks (plans) before doing things. They make mental pictures of events and do not act only by trial and error. Object permanence is quite developed, even for what has been hidden.

Piaget’s research suggests that, at first, children do not understand object permanence and that this understanding would develop gradually throughout childhood. In the first two substages, babies do not give any evidence to realize that objects exist independently of their own actions on them. It would only be from the third substage when children begin to search for objects that disappear. And at last, when they have the notion of the object, they can represent its trajectory. However, some studies (Bower, 1974; Harris 1983, 1989) indicate that already in the second substage, some children know that objects continue to exist even when they have been hidden behind a screen, and that their failure to search for them is due to a limitation other than a lack of the concept of object permanence.

Meaning and Evolution of Circular Reactions

This theory of Piaget arises within his research on the development of intelligence in humans. Intelligence is adaptation to the environment through the processes of assimilation (incorporation of new experiences into existing behavior patterns) and accommodation (effort to incorporate new experiences). Importantly, schemes are the basic units of behavior in children, as they are repeatable, generalizable, and perfectible behavior patterns that we follow throughout our lives. In the sensorimotor stage of intelligence, the baby relates to the world through the senses and action, establishing relationships between objects and actions. This will develop schemes that are classified according to their complexity by circular reactions, which are segments of the baby’s behavior associated with a result that leads them to repeat such conduct. The result of circular reactions, achieved through repetition, is the strengthening of motor schemes. Repetition is a condition for the consolidation of schemes. The sensorimotor development model proposed by Piaget is as follows:

Reflexes are the minimal behavioral repertoire, but enough to survive. Some evolve, while others disappear. The evolution of innate behavior, both through the differential practice of reflexes and the diversifying influence of the environment, announces the first adaptations of the newborn and initiates the construction of sensorimotor schemes. For example: hunger, sleep, sneezing, contraction of the lips in search of the nipple, sucking, etc.
Primary circular reactions are simple schemes that the baby acquires by chance in trying to repeat what was pleasant and avoid what they did not like. Habits are acquired. They come from reflexes. These reactions are considered primary because the initial effect occurred by chance and because the actions that the child repeats routinely are focused on their own body. For example: orientation to sound, visual control, movement of an arm, etc.
Secondary circular reactions are coordination schemes that are initially simple causal consequences. The imitation of a model is deliberate and systematic, both in terms of sounds and movement, with two differences from the primary: the child mimics the behavior visible only in their own body and present in their previous repertoire. They perform behaviors to seek satisfaction from the results of their actions. They are also able to anticipate. For example: crying to get attention, crying because an adult ceases to conduct that the child likes, hitting a bell with their hand because they like the sound, etc.
Tertiary circular reactions are schemes that coordinate flexibly, experimenting with new ways that lead to the desired effect. They serve to “see what happens” with the properties and relationships of objects. They involve the understanding of causality and fully intentional conduct. They occur when a previous scheme is not effective. Causation is less magical. For example, the child discovers the correct use of the rake and plays by zooming in and out objects; if they lose a ball, when searching under the couch and not finding it, they look under the table; the father gives them a pacifier and they throw it down again, etc.

After the tertiary circular reaction, children are able to represent the learned patterns without the need for action. This involves the passage from sensorimotor intelligence to symbolic intelligence. We conclude that the development of sensorimotor intelligence starts with the child’s inborn reflexes. Then, they repeat actions that were pleasant (primary circular reactions). Then, they take action to reach a certain goal (secondary circular reactions). Then, they take action to “see what happens” and reach their objectives through innovative ways (tertiary circular reactions). Finally, they acquire symbolism and are able to represent patterns.

Piagetian Preoperational Characteristics and Critical Thinking

The preoperational period extends approximately from 2 to 7 years. The child is involved in a reality that encompasses several aspects: a social world formed by individuals (people), physical objects and the relationships between them, and an inner world of representations and schemes that are formed and modified over time. For Piaget, this is a preparatory stage for the development of concrete operations. The symbolic function is responsible for enabling the formation of mental symbols that represent absent objects, people, or events. It includes not only the symbol but also what it represents. For example, in drawing and play:

Drawing → Children draw what they see, but also what they feel and what they know, which allows drawing a diagnosis of the intelligence and personality of children.
Play → Creating involves invented symbols and a deformation of reality through assimilation. In play, the child is released from the pressures and demands for accommodation that are present in reality, allowing them to represent functionally for pure pleasure. Play encourages a variety of mental activities such as language, memory, reasoning, imagination, creativity, and planning.

Features:

Perceptual Appearance (observable traits): The child is dominated by the perceptual aspects of objects.
Concentration (decentration): The child focuses on single aspects of the situation or a single point of view (their own), ignoring other possible dimensions or points of view. Egocentrism.
States (transformations): They do not relate the initial and final states of a process, ignoring the dynamic changes in between.
Irreversibility (reversibility): They cannot mentally redo the process followed to return to the initial stage.
Transductive Reasoning (logical thinking): They make connections through immediate associations between things, reasoning from the particular to the particular.

Reviews

There is a lot of data accumulated in the last two decades that shows an underestimation of the child’s competence at this stage by Piaget. It is thought that many of the tasks or problems designed to assess cognitive abilities in children of this age helped to create a profile of them that is not very competent. The contents of the tasks are often unfamiliar and scarcely respectful of the interests of children.

Social and Cognitive Egocentrism

The word “egocentricity” refers to the tendency to make one’s point of view the only one, discarding others. It is an excessive concentration on the actions and representations of the subject themselves. Self-centeredness is one of the aspects of preoperational thought that occurs from 2 to 7 years of age or so. This stage is a continuation of the sensorimotor stage, in which the symbolic function is reinforced, with schemes that are both representative and practical. Piaget speaks of autistic thought to characterize an intermediate form between symbolic thought described by Freud and the socialized way of thinking and logic of the adult. Autistic thought, according to Piaget, is a private, incommunicable, and pre-logical thinking, where there is a search for and some adaptation to reality, but it remains focused on the subject and difficult to communicate. Piaget applies the egocentric character to preoperational thought and distinguishes it from both the practice of sensorimotor intelligence and the conceptual thinking characteristic of concrete operations. The term “self-centered” almost completely disappears from Piaget’s vocabulary due to the many criticisms and misunderstandings. The concepts of concentration and indifference become the most widely used to characterize the features of this thought. The child has a tendency to feel and understand everything through themselves. It is difficult for them to distinguish what belongs to the outside world and other people and what belongs to their subjective view, and therefore they will have difficulty being aware of their own thought. This general characteristic of children’s thinking at this age may manifest in different forms: phenomenalist, finalist, artificial, animistic, etc. Another type of egocentrism that Piaget described (egocentric speech) is manifested in the speech of young children and consists of speaking only of themselves, not being interested in the speaker’s point of view, or being in relationship with them. This inability to consider another point of view and tendency to take their own as the only possible one is closely linked to the trend that children themselves have to focus on one aspect of reality (which they perceive) and their difficulty in considering the transformations that move from their point of view to that of others.

Transition from Preoperational to Operational Thought and Criticism of the Piagetian Position

From 2 to 7 years of age or so, there lies a very important stage in child development, termed by Piaget the preoperational period. This stage reinforces the symbolic function, which has multiple forms (language, imagination, pretend play). The mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation act with their constant search for balance, but now they do so on representative schemes. The preoperational period does not include a real stage but must be seen as a substage, a time for preparation for concrete operations. Actions are internalized and organized at a representative level, showing that the child is finally able to reason in a totally logical way in relation to specific situations. What at first is merely an action becomes progressively internalized into an operation. Preoperational intelligence is capable of simultaneously covering different events and situations, being reflective and seeking knowledge as such (looking for an explanation of a phenomenon, checking, sorting, etc.). As a representation of reality, it can become socialized and shared thanks mainly to the social system encoded in linguistic signs.

Piaget distinguishes two stages:

Symbolic and preconceptual thought (one and a half to four years)
The symbolic function appears in its various forms (language, symbolic play, etc.). Piaget calls “prejudices” the first notions that children use in their language acquisition. The corresponding reasoning does not become a true deduction. The child focuses on a striking feature of a position that interests them and draws a conclusion on both, wrongly assimilating another situation.
Intuitive thought (4 years to 6-7 years)
From 4 years old, it is possible to reason with the child and suggest a conversation based on brief experiences in manipulating various objects. An example would be when presented with two identical containers with the same amount of liquid, one poured into a tall and narrow bowl, and the other into a wider but lower container. A child of 4-5 years old will most likely respond that there is more in the tall container (if they focus on the height) or less (if they focus on the width).

Specific characteristics of preoperational thought:

Lack of balance: Preoperational thought lacks a stable balance between both mechanisms.
Mental experience: It is a way of learning reality that tends to be closer to actions and results than to abstract and schematic construction.
Centering: Tendency to focus on some aspects of the situation, discarding others, and thereby causing a deformation of thinking or reasoning.
Irreversibility: Preoperational cognition, being close to action and reality, lacks the specific mobility characteristic of reversible mental acts.
Statism: Preoperational thought tends to focus on perceptual configurations.
Egocentrism: Tendency to take one’s own point of view as the only one, discarding others. Since the child has a tendency to feel and understand everything through themselves, it is difficult for them to distinguish what belongs to the outside world and other people and what belongs to their subjective vision. For this reason, they have difficulty being aware of their own thinking.

The preoperational period is a preparation for the advent of concrete operations. These operations are consolidated and organized from 6-7 years to 11-12 years. It is the phase of consolidation and organization of the evolution of representative intelligence. The passage from intuitive to operative thinking is a fundamental step, moving beyond the changing, unstable, and subjective preoperational thought to a sense of greater stability, consistency, and mobility. Thinking becomes truly logical. Intuition is internalized into an action. The child of 5-6 years no longer needs to act effectively on things; they can represent and act on reality in a mediated way (via symbols, signs, etc.).

An operation is an internalized action integrated into a system. This enables operational thinking to achieve a balance that is absent in intuitive thinking.

Diversity: Psychologically, there is a wide variety of operations depending on the scope. For example, the operation of assembly can be applied to classes (the class gathering of roses and daisies to constitute a class of a higher order, flowers).
Organizational structure: According to Piaget, an operation is always integrated into a system of other operations, and it is precisely because it is susceptible to grouping that it becomes an intuitive operation. This grouping of operations has, according to Piaget, five cognitive properties that match what Piaget called “bundling.”
Decentration, conservation, and reversibility: The same thought is to continue operating on the successive transformations of reality through all paths and possible detours, and instead of proceeding from a unique vantage point, get to coordinate the different views. The operative aspect of thought is further studied by Piaget through conservation. Because the subject can combine measures and is not a victim of isolation as they once were, things are preserved.

One of the limitations that Piaget presents is assigning a cognitive or other acquisition to a certain age. Many children manage their mental operations before others. Studies have shown these variations, but the purchase order is generally always the same.

Other scholars have developed theories on child development that are not based only on the cognitive area of the child, as Piaget’s is, but also take into account the environmental development where the child grows and the social environment in which they live. Vygotsky and Bruner, for example, developed their theories based on other concepts that are not influenced by Piagetian theory. For example, they place greater emphasis on play and language development and the important role of parents for children to learn and assimilate concepts at different ages.

Others argue that Jean Piaget obviated some key issues that may arise in development, such as affectivity and social influence, and he is presented as a researcher who does not take into account culture, where the subject appears to be a solitary body learning only in relation to objects in their environment.

Restricted Concept of Learning and Comprehensive Learning in the Geneva School

The Geneva School argued that, according to Piagetian knowledge, cognitive development and intelligence are achieved through active and constructive learning in which the subject creates their own drawings in a context of interaction with adults, peers, culture, and institutions. These agents promote and regulate the behavior of the subject, who develops mental skills (thinking, attention, memory, will, personal reflection, creativity) through discovery and the process of internalization, which allows them to appropriate the signs and instruments of culture and to rebuild their meanings. It is thus that through experience, manipulating objects, and interacting with people, knowledge is constructed, modified, and activated in the cognitive schemes of the world around them through the process of assimilation and accommodation of reality.

The difference between restricted and comprehensive learning is that the former is a tour of teaching, directed and imposed from outside the child, where they get specific and concrete information about the environment, while comprehensive learning involves a qualitative progress in cognitive structures leading to equilibration. For this equilibration to take place, the child will experience problems in which an imbalance will occur, and then cognitive restructuring and a change in the initial valence will be produced.

We can say that with restricted learning, abilities can be acquired, but according to the Geneva School, the knowledge acquired by these means is not as robust as with comprehensive learning. The fundamental principles of comprehensive learning are the following:

Learning has to be robust over time: what we learn today must be constant throughout our lives.
Learning has to be generalizable to other disciplines: it should be usable outside the context in which we learned it, in different situations, and allow us to construct new meanings or solve problems. This becomes a powerful indicator of evaluation.
Learning should be verbally explainable: learned concepts must be able to be transcribed into words and expressed to others.
Learning should be resistant to contradiction: When we learn something, we resist change. But in a situation of insecurity, the subject is forced to modify their approaches, which brings us back to a position of resistance to change.

For the Geneva school, especially for Piaget, learning in the general sense can be simplified to “learning to learn is to reorganize knowledge.” Basically, for Piaget, the teacher should be a guide, guiding the process of teaching and learning. That is why they relegate the importance of social relationships by giving more prominence to the creation of operative structures. The emphasis is on the individual process of knowledge construction that favors the development of learning. In contrast, Vygotsky presents his model of cultural learning, explaining the acquisition of learning as forms of socialization. He conceives of man as a social rather than biological being, where the higher functions are the result of cultural development and involve the use of mediators.

Relationship Between Behavior and Moral Reasoning

. According to Shaffer, both in social and moral levels, involving personal, family, school, social and cultural rights. The key objective is that the child becomes a competent and appropriate, morally responsible policy framework that is in the society to which it belongs. Each society has its norms to regulate behavior and coexistence among its members and their fulfillment depends on the functioning of it. In the rulebook, the moral is one of the basic dimensions for the achievement of social order. The development of morality is a process by which children and teens will understand the rules of social conduct and personnel conducting behaviors consistent with those standards. Involves three interrelated building blocks:- Emotional. So that the subject may or may not feel responsible for their actions. – Cognitive. Is to understand and reason what is right and wrong. They can then make judgments about right and wrong of a situation. – Behavior. Depending on the emotional and cognitive component, a behavioral issue …. There are three theories that have addressed the study of moral development and helped to understand better: psychoanalytic theory, which emphasizes the role of feelings of guilt and shame in the moral behavior, cognitive theory, which has been concerned about the moral reasoning, and behavioral theory, which has focused on explaining moral conduct as the result of learning, so that the man is not responsible for their actions but their behavior depends on external stimuli … Jean Piaget, great epistemologist and author with more empirical and theoretical capacity of evolutionary psychology, focused primarily on the study of moral reasoning, that is, the criteria by which people judge moral behavior and reasoning about them .. . He argued that peer interaction, and without adult supervision was essential to moral development. Thus, children, build a system of rules and norms based on equality, consensus and cooperation. Through these interactions, individuals are more aware that people may have different perspectives and are concerned about the welfare of others. The aim is to reason, discuss, understand, and so on. They also learn that sometimes there may be good reasons to break a rule, which leads to moral relativism, which gives the rules be flexible … Each culture creates its own codes so that each behavior must be placed in context and interpret it from him. The moral code handed down from generation to generation, ensuring their survival … For example, Western culture is individualistic in nature and therefore the moral responsibility lies with the individual rather than group. However, in Eastern cultures, the group is the central reference point of morality … In any case, it is usual to give discrepancies between social norms and personal moral convictions. Even the same person, there are irregularities between what they think and their actions. Are they good people reason morally right? There are many who preach a moral, socially frowned upon, and behave inconsistently with it. For example, a person says they never steal. However, it has been unemployed and has three children to be fed, and in a moment of desperation, steals food … Studies show that moral reasoning is not a good predictor of behavior because it can be modified by the characteristics of the situation by the biography and the personal characteristics of people.

42. Preconventional and conventional morality Kohlberg. Kohlberg refined and expanded the moral theory of Piaget. Using clinical interviews as methods, Kohlberg found that moral reasoning seems to be evolving and increasingly complicated throughout adolescence into young adulthood, as they depend on the development of certain cognitive abilities evolve according to an invariable sequence. Careful analysis of responses to various moral dilemmas led him to conclude that the moral growth progresses through an invariant sequence of three levels, each of which consists of two different moral stages. Each stage reflects a method of reasoning about the dilemmas but not valued in the decision itself. Kohlberg claimed that despite the close link between moral development and cognitive development, growth of the latter was not sufficient to ensure moral development.- Level I. Preconventional Moral: People acting under external controls. They obey rules to avoid punishment and obtain rewards or selfishness. It is typical of children 4 to 10 years. – Stage 1: Orientation toward punishment and obedience. The goodness or badness of an act depends on its consequences. – Stage 2: Hedonism naive. People follow the rules for selfish ends. It assesses an act in terms of the needs met …. – Level II. Conventional: People act guided by a desire to gain approval from others or to maintain social order. This level is reached after 10 years but many people never reach even in adulthood. – Stage 3: Orientation of the child “good” acts are valued according to indulge, help or are approved by others. We evaluate the intent of the actor and takes into account the circumstances. – Stage 4: concern and social conscience. It takes into account the wishes of society reflected in the law. The right thing is obedience to the rule, not for fear of punishment but by the belief that the law maintains social order. Should not be transgressed unless there is a reason as required … – Level III. Postconventional: We define good and evil based on broad principles of justice that could be in conflict with written law. The judgments are themselves based on the principles of right, fairness and justice. This level is not reached until adolescence or more commonly in early adulthood, if it is reached. Step 5: The orientation of the social contract. People think in rational terms, value the will of the majority and the welfare of society. The laws that compromise human rights and dignity are considered unfair and deserve challenge. However, obedience to the law is considered best for society in the long term. Stage 6: Morality of universal ethical principles. The individual defines right and wrong based on ethical principles chosen by himself, his own conscience. They act according to internalized norms and acts badly if you go against these principles. They are based on abstract rules of justice and respect for all human beings that transcend any law or social contract ….. This stage in Kohlberg’s moral reasoning is ideal, but because of its rarity was considered a hypothetical construct. He later proposed a seventh cosmic stage on which people consider the effect of their actions not only on others but also about the universe as a whole. Kohlberg also proposed a transition level between levels II and III, when people do not feel bound by the moral standards of society have not developed rationing principles derived from justice, therefore their moral decisions based on personal feelings.

43. Gilligan’s critique of the Kohlberg moral approach. Carol Gilligan criticized Kohlberg grounds that his theory did not adequately represent women’s moral reasoning. The fact that the first data collected by Kohlberg were based only in male participants and the scores for women putting them at a lower stage to the men seemed to agree. Gilligan argued that the definition of gender that caused children to adopt a morality of justice, itself a stage 4, based on values of honesty and fairness, and are trained in the independence and affirmation. Instead, girls are expected to adopt a morality of care, proper stage 3, based on values of compassion, responsibility and self-sacrifice, and teaches them to be quality, empathetic and concerned for others.Despite these arguments, research has not supported the criticism of Gilligan, and moreover, seems to show that differences occur in early adolescence, encouraging women with higher scores than men. This seems to be because they generally develop earlier and are at that age, more intimate social relationships. Therefore can not confirm the existence of a different moral value system based on gender … Perhaps, it would have to stay in this controversy is that Gilligan has expanded the thought of Kohlberg, who initially kept a very legalistic look about good and evil, providing a higher vision of moral reasoning when considering the importance of both sexes interact with other criteria of responsibility, compassion and care. In this sense, the inclusion of a seventh stage “cosmic” by Kohlberg seems to positions closer to the position of Gilligan.

44. Children’s friendships between equals and unequal age. Advantages and disadvantages. For the good social development of a child no longer enough just to love, the company … of the parents, they, to learn to socialize, they need the company of other children, whether of the same age, more or less. Playing the children burn off some energy, get ready for the duties of life, achieve difficult goals and alleviate frustration. They get physical contact, discharge needs of competence, act aggressively in socially acceptable ways, they learn to get along with others. Give free rein to their imagination, learn the specifics of their culture, develop skills and learn appropriate sexual behavior … In middle childhood peer group itself becomes important. During these years, children spend more time away from their parents and more time with other children. Peer groups serve many purposes in the lives of children: they learn that such behavior is considered appropriate in different situations, as is seeing a variety of things that other children do, and how to relate to other people … The children in group activities and help shape values. The kids seem more influenced by the values of the group of girls and antisocial behavior or reflect greater negative influence of peers. Peers also provide emotional security, sometimes another child may provide some support that an adult can not. Peer groups tend to be homogeneous with respect to age, race, gender and socioeconomic status. But sometimes, kids have friends over, this can have positive or negative, as being older, can protect them, give them bad advice or good guide them better or worse, abuse them using their physical superiority, and so on. But turn, children being children, want to seek by all means acceptance of these show that they are equal, no matter the age difference, the games try to compete at the top to prove themselves, and so on. and this can lead to frustration …. In short, children need other children to learn to socialize as they do not just enough to the education given by parents. There are aspects that can only be developed with the help of other children, who are much needed, and not only in the area of socialization, but in many ways. A good childhood friends, is essential for an individual to his good intellectual development, a team player, to avoid psychological disorders. But in turn, should take precautions, because not all friendships can contribute to good child development.