Critically evaluate the evidence that Piaget underestimated childrens Essay

Critically evaluate the evidence that Piaget underestimated childrens abilities in the pre-operational stage - Essay ExampleThis stage of development lasts from age two to six.Critics create stated that Piaget underestimated childrens abilities in the pre-operational stage and this is based mainly on the following grounds (a) the child in the pre-operational stage is unable to conserve the blood between the different dimensions of an event (b) Piagets theory held that children in the preoperational stage may be unable to understand object permanence (c) Piaget has underestimated the ability of children to consider the world from another persons viewpoint and referred to this as egocentrism.One of Piagets major findings about the pre-operational stage was that children cannot conserve different dimensions of an event. For example, when a fragment of clay is molded into two different shapes, the child is unable to understand that although the shape is different, the piece is essent ially the same.(Salkind, 2004, pp 249). However, in experiments conducted by Wynn (1992), on five calendar month old infants, the findings appear to suggest that infants may even be able to calculate results for simple arithmetic operations on a small snatch of items. Human beings may therefore possess innate arithmetical abilities. Similarly, Xu and Spelke (2000) have also shown that when extraneous variables are controlled, infants are able to discriminate between bounteous sets of objects on the basis of numerosity. This suggests that Piagets findings may be lacking in some aspects.Piaget appears to have underestimated the timing of development of childrens abilities and one example of a cognitive defect attributed to the pre-operational stage is the inability to comprehend object permanence, i.e, that an object continues to exist even when it is moved out of sight.(Hetherington and Parke, 2003). In examining object permanence, Piaget concluded from his observations that one-y ear-old children appear to view objects as ephemeral entities which are constantly made and unmade