OVERVIEW Theorists have suggested that children are incapable of understanding the world until they reach a particular

stage of cognitive development. Cognitive development refers to the development of the ability to thin and reason. Theories of cognitive development see to e!plain the "uantitative and "ualitative intellectual abilities that occur during development. #iaget is widely recogni$ed for his substantial contribution to the study of cognitive development. %is e!periments laid the foundation for much of the early wor that e!amined cognitive development. &uring the '()*s and '(+*s, however, much research "uestioned the timing of #iaget-s stages. .ecause children vary widely as to when a particular stage starts or ends, it is unclear whether cognitive development occurs in stages, as #iaget-s theory suggests, or whether it is a continuous process. /pecifically, many researchers believe that #iaget underestimated the timing of some of children-s abilities and that sometimes children understand a concept before they are able to demonstrate their understanding of it. This 0competence performance gap0 can occur when a child-s motor s ills are not advanced enough or their language s ills are not sophisticated enough to indicate their nowledge and mental processes. #reschoolers, ages three to si!, should be at the 0pre1operational0 stage of #iaget-s cognitive development theory, meaning they are using their imagery and memory s ills. They should be conditioned to learning and memori$ing, and their view of the world is normally very self1centered. #reschoolers usually have also developed their social interaction s ills, such as playing and cooperating with other children their own age. It is normal for preschoolers to test the limits of their cognitive abilities, and they learn negative concepts and actions, such as tal ing bac to adults, lying, and bullying. Other cognitive development in preschoolers are developing an increased attention span, learning to read, and developing structured routines, such as doing household chores

Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thin s, and gains understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. 2mong the areas of cognitive development are information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development, and memory.

#rofile of the child 3ame4 /ara /hahira .inti 5ohamad 6irdaus 2ge4 7 years old .irthdate4 8* /eptember 8**) .irthplace4 #enang %ome 2ddress4 '*1'*, /inar .u it &umbar, 9elutong, #enang /chool4 Twin le Tots :indergarten 5other-s name4 2slina .inti 2li 6ather-s name4 5ohamad 6irdaus .in %umayoon :abeer %obby4 /cribbling, colouring, singing and dancing 6avourite food4 Cucumber, ca es and sweet drin s #ersonality4 Tal ative, easy going, sociable, cheerful and full of self1confidence.

9ean #iaget-s Theory of Cognitive &evelopment 9ean #iaget ;'+(<1'(+*= proposed that children-s thin ing does not develop entirely smoothly4 instead, there are certain points at which it 0ta es off0 and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. %e saw these transitions as ta ing place at about '+ months, ) years and '' or '8 years. This has been ta en to mean that before these ages children are not capable ;no matter how bright= of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. The four development stages as described by #iaget in his theory> '= The sensorimotor stage The sensorimotor stage in a child is from birth to appro!imately two years. &uring this stage, a child has relatively little competence in representing the environment using images, language, or symbols. 2n infant has no awareness of ob?ects or people that are not immediately present at a given moment. #iaget called this a lac of ob?ect permanence. Ob?ect permanence is the awareness that ob?ects and people continue to e!ist even if they are out of sight. In infants, when a person hides, the infant has no nowledge that they are ?ust out of sight. 2ccording to #iaget, this person or ob?ect that has disappeared is gone forever to the infant. 8= The pre1operational stage The preoperational stage lasts from about two years of age until about si! years of age. The most important development at this time is language. Children develop an internal representation of the world that allows them to describe people, events, and feelings. Children at this time use symbols, they can pretend when driving their toy car across the couch that the couch is actually a bridge. 2lthough the thin ing of the child is more advanced than when it was in the sensorimotor stage, it is still "ualitatively inferior to that of an adult. Children in the pre1operational stage are characteri$ed by what #iaget called egocentric thoughts. The world at this stage is viewed entirely from the child-s own

perspective. Other than that, #iaget-s theory also emphasi$e that pre1operational stage children are more developed in terms of memory and imagination, language s ills, and they practice non1logical thin ing. @= The concrete operational stage The concrete operational stage begins around age seven and continues until appro!imately age eleven. &uring this time, children gain a better understanding of mental operations. Children begin thin ing logically about concrete events, but have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts. #iaget determined that children in the concrete operational stage were fairly good at the use of inductive logic. Inductive logic involves going from a specific e!perience to a general principle. On the other hand, children at this age have difficulty using deductive logic, which involves using a general principle to determine the outcome of a specific event. A= The formal operational stage The formal operational stage begins at appro!imately age twelve to si!teen and lasts into adulthood. &uring this time, people develop the ability to thin about abstract concepts. / ills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning also emerge during this stage. While children tend to thin very concretely and specifically in earlier stages, the ability to thin about abstract concepts emerges during the formal operational stage. Instead of relying solely on previous e!periences, children begin to consider possible outcomes and conse"uences of actions. This type of thin ing is important in long1term planning.

5ET%O&OBOCD The main methodology used in this study is the techni"ue of participation observation.

The ob?ective of this study was to observe the child-s refle! actions and responds towards the studying tools. Other than that, this study is done to see the child-s development in cognitive s ills such as language and motor development. Cognitive activities should challenge and encourage growth. It is easy to confuse thin ing s ills with ac"uiring information. 2 child can learn to memori$e facts and information> nonetheless, there may be little change in his thin ing s ills. 1 Banguage activity Cognitive development is lin ed to language development and children develop language s ills in interaction with other people. It is important to use a language that encourages your child to participate and be involved in the discussion.

In this case, since the child comes from a 5alay family, therefore she is more comfortable with 5alay language. 2 conversation was held with her to test her language s ills. /he was as ed about her personal particulars such as name, age, school name, her parents- name and what was her favourite past time. %er refle! actions and body language were observed during the interview.

1#hysical activity Thin ing s ills can also be promoted by engaging in physical activities. 2part from the health benefits and promoting the development of gross and fine motor s ills, physical activities also involve thin ing s ills. In this study, the children played a game of -Throwing the .and-. /he has to throw certain number of rubber bands into a s"uare tile and ma ing sure that all fall into the appro!imate s"uare. This game will test her ability to predict the distance between her and the tile. 1Came

Information processing is an approach to the cognitive development of a human being, which deals with the study and the analysis of the se"uence of events that occur in a persons mind while receiving some new piece of information. In short, it is the analysis of the way a human being learns something new. 3e!t, the child is taught to play -The /tac ing Came-. /he was showed on how to play the game correctly which is to pull out a bloc from the stac one by one and ma e sure that the stac does not fall down. /he was showed a few e!amples on the method of playing until she understood. Then, she started to play on herself. 1Colouring activity 3e!t, the child got a drawing of a traffic light post. /he was told that the picture was of a traffic light. /he was supposed to colour the traffic light according to her nowledge and memory. This activity is to test her memory power as one of the cognitive development study.

T%E 6I3&I3C 23& &I/CE//IO3/ The research was successfully done for three conse"uent days. The research method applied was participation observation. In this method, the child was observed through her participation and through informal interview. The first activity, which is the conversation that too place in the child-s house was done in the presence of her mother so that she will feel comfortable. The child is also the niece of the interviewer, therefore she is not afraid and very responsive to the "uestions as ed. The conversation was done in 5alay because the child is fluent with the language. Overall, she managed to answer the entire "uestion perfectly such as her name, her parents- name, her favourite food and others. /he was nervous at first, but later on became more sociable and ept on tal ing. 6rom observation, it can be seen that this

child had developed her language ability very well that she can understand and converse to people in 5alay language. %uman beings are born to spea > they have an innate gift for figuring out the rules of the language used in their environment. The environment itself is also a significant factor. Children learn the specific variety of language ;dialect= that the important people around them spea . In this case, the girl was brought up in a 5alay spea ing family and since they are living in #enang, she is using northern 5alaysian accent. Children-s vocabulary grows as they learn the meanings of more words and understand that some words have more than one meaning. Children at this stage also become better communicators with the advancement of cognition, but they still learn language mostly from the conte!t of conversation. In align with #iaget-s theory, this finding suggest that children-s language development improves as they get older. 3e!t activity which is a physical one is throwing the rubber band into an ac"uired space. #redicting distance is an ability that is developed as a cognitive ability. This game re"uires the child to predict the distance between the place where she is standing and the tile. /he has to predict the right distance and the right amount of force in order to get the bands inside the tile. /he only managed to get four out of ten bands inside the tile. Children at this age tend to underestimate distant ob?ects- si$es and report no strategy use. These findings suggest that developmental changes in far1distance si$e estimation accuracy may result from the development of reasoning abilities needed to use deliberate strategies for ?udging si$e. 2t the age of five, her reasoning abilities are not yet fully developed, therefore she had a problem to find the right strategy to ma e sure that the bands fall in the ac"uired space. This situation agrees as what #iaget suggested that children develop spatial reasoning during middle childhood. /patial reasoning is the ability to understand and to reason ;to draw conclusions= using cues in the environment that convey information about distance or direction. &uring middle childhood, children become able to discriminate ob?ects that are nearby and far away

#laying the stac ing game is a strategy game. /ince she doesn-t now how to play the game, she was introduced to the game and was taught the correct way of playing it. It too a while before she could really understand the correct way of playing. 2fter showing her some demonstration plus e!planation on how to play, then only she started to remove the bloc s from the stac . The information on how to play the game that she ac"uired too a while for it to be understood by her. This is caused by the process of information processing as was suggested by its theory. The theory is based on the idea that humans process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli. This perspective e"uates the mind to a computer, which is responsible for analy$ing information from the environment. The theory emphasi$es a continuous pattern of development, in contrast with cognitive developmental theorist, 9ean #iaget, that thought development occurred in stages. 2ccording to #iaget, memory and imagination are developed during pre1 operational stage, which is from two to si! years old. In children under the age of A, the memory storage capacity limitation constrains comple! comprehension processes. Evidence indicates linear increases in performance of wor ing memory from age A years through to adolescence. 2s the child grows older however, less processing is necessary which opens more storage space for memory. When the girl was given a picture of a traffic light post and was as ed to colour it with the correct colours, she didn-t have any "uestion or difficulty in understanding it. Without her reali$ing it, she has ept the information of the traffic light colours in her memory and when she was given the picture, she new e!actly what the colours are and the nowledge that she had solely depended on her memory. This is a proof of how organi$ing memory s ills develop at this stage.

CO3CBE/IO3 The study that had been carried out shows certain agreement with #iaget-s theory of cognitive development that happens in stages, especially in pre1operational stages. The result on the activities that test the memory, language s ills, and spatial reasoning were all accordance with the theory that was presented by #iaget e!cept for the information processing s ills that can be seen by observing the child-s behaviour when she was playing the stac ing game. 5ost developmental theorists have agreed that #iaget has provided us with an accurate account of age1related changes in cognitive development. #iaget-s suggestion, that cognitive performance cannot be attained unless cognitive readiness is brought about by maturation and environmental stimuli, nevertheless has been instrumental in determining the structure of educational curricula. #iagetFs theories of child cognitive development were based on his observations of his own three children. While this clearly presents problems with the sample si$e, #iaget also probably introduced confounding variables and social desirability into his observations and his conclusions based on his observations. It is entirely possible #iaget conditioned his children to respond in a desirable manner, so, rather than having an understanding of ob?ect permanence, his children might have learned to behave in a manner that indicated they understood ob?ect permanence. The sample was also very homogenous, as all three children had a similar genetic heritage and environment. /urely, #iaget-s theory has influenced the wor of other developmental psychologists such as Bev Vygots y who used his theory as a base nowledge and developed it according to his added nowledge of child cognitive development. One of the most important contributions of 9ean #iaget-s theory is that during the '()*s and '(+*s, his wor s had inspired the transformation of European and 2merican education system, including both theory and practice, leading to a more Gchild1centeredF approach.

RE6ERE3CE '. Cognition. Retrieved on 8* 5arch 8*'8 from http4HHen.wi ipedia.orgHwi iHCognition 8. :ang Bee ;8***=. Childhood Cognitive &evelopment. 5assachussets4 .lac well #ublisher-s Inc. @. Baura Taylor ;8**7=. Introducing Cognitive &evelopment. 3ew Dor 4 #sychology #ress Inc. A. #iaget-s &evelopmental Theory. Retrieved on '7 5arch 8*'8 from http4HHwww.learningandteaching.infoHlearningHpiaget.htm 7. /aul 5cBeod ;8**(=. 9ean #iaget. Retrieved on 8* 5arch 8*'8 from http4HHwww.simplypsychology.orgHpiaget.html