Intellectual Development and Day Care

Intellectual development in terms of age
Childhood age: Intellectual development in early childhood focuses on two main stages that are given below:

Preoperational thought: In this stage the child gains the ability to mentally represent any object that is not physically present. This thought is based on things that a child has observed. For instance a child draw a figure of a tree that represents symbolic thought that was earlier encountered.

Concrete operational thought: This thought depends on logic. In this stage a child focuses on different characteristics rather than on only one aspect of the object. In this stage thinking process of a child becomes more flexible. For instance a child has to solve a problem, the child in this stage not only thinks about one alternative but many other alternatives as well.

Adolescence age: Adolescents thought becomes more abstract, logical as well as idealistic, the capability of examining own thoughts and other thoughts gets developed. Adolescents developing ability to reason gives them a new level of cognitive as well as social awareness.Throughout this age, adolescents’ thought is extended beyond real concrete observations.As adolescents begin,is to think more in abstract terms and reason about things as well. Adolescents begin to think about the ideal characteristics and make a comparison. For instance adolescent compare ideal standards to parents. Logical thoughts are more influences in adolescents. During adolescents the hypothetical deductive reason gets developed which means when something happened, adolescents finds the reason behind that thing that has happened in such a way. For instance if mother punishes the child; adolescent will think the reason behind mother’s punishment. Moral thoughts are also developed in adolescents. For instance the adolescent thinks of doing something bad but will make a logical reason that doing something bad is unethical that will affect certain principles. Ethics gets developed in this stage, as the adolescent will focus on the basis principles about right as well as wrong.

Theory of Intellectual development
The theory of intellectual development that was given by P comprises of four stages:

Sensory-motor stage: During this stage infant explores the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. This stage begins from 0-2 years.

Preoperational stage: In this stage symbolic thoughts get developed. The object permanence is also established but the child cannot coordinate different physical attributes of an object. This age starts from 2-7 years.

Concrete operational stage: The child in this stage can reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets. The child can also perform mental operations on representations of the object. This is from 7-11 years of age.

Formal operational stage: In the last stage of intellectual development that starts from 11- 15 years of age.

Importance of intellectual development:
Child’s intellectual development focuses on intellect, attention, working memory.

A child has the ability to make comparison between things.

The ability to critically evaluate things gets developed.