Cognitive development

Does anyone agree that cognitive development is an apprenticeship in which children advance by interaction with others more mature?

No, not entirely. What ever happened about learning things on their own too - i.e. through trial and error? Plus, figuring out things with your friends (who are of similar maturity) is also a way of cognitively developing.

Kevin

Do you feel like doctors are too quick to diagnose children ADHD?

In today's society which parenting style is preferred?

1. authoritative
2. authoritarian

Your second question is open to debate, and as such i'm not going to answer. Whatever answer I give will just be disputed by someone else, and so I'm going to save myself a lot of time by not answering. Regarding the other question, I feel that - overall - children should not be diagnosed as early as they currently are, unless it's absolutely clear that - firstly - they actually have the disorder and - secondly - that a diagnosis would help them. I believe that in many cases the diagnosis makes the child's prospects much worse.

Kevin

dwight07 wrote:Does anyone agree that cognitive development is an apprenticeship in which children advance by interaction with others more mature?

I agree that it is a very effective way for the child. Children learn through many means. Modeling allows them to learn as a whole. When they take after someone they admire, they take on (so long as their model is positive) many positive aspects. How the person (mentor) arrives at decisions becomes apparent after the child sees a pattern of cause and effect. Through discussion, the child is exposed to methods of thought as well as new information. They see how the mentor prioritized, processed and acted on the information. It is very efficient and is the way the world generally operates. It is the child who never looks upward to learn that is kept in perpetual adolescence. Actually, reading books is apprenticing to the author. School is supposed to be the same thing. So far as structured learning...it is either.. learning from the learned...or the blind leading the blind.

Chucky wrote:No, not entirely. What ever happened about learning things on their own too - i.e. through trial and error? Plus, figuring out things with your friends (who are of similar maturity) is also a way of cognitively developing.

Kevin

Yes, it is. The question is one of efficiency and efficacy. Should the child be naturally intelligent, he will be curious. He will notice all things around him and will see patterns, correlations, and anomalies. He will be able to establish causation naturally. He will rarely need to learn through trail and error as he will have foresight.

To learn something through trail and error...I don't feel is efficient...unless the child can generalize the lesson and apply it to a larger group of thought. It is, otherwise, a way to learn how to NOT do something...there are an infinite number of ways to do something wrong. Now if we are talking about running mental trail and error experiments...that is a part of forethought. Having to experiment on something that had adequate evidence at hand and to not be able to figure out a correct path ahead of time is only an exercise in a method of learning for future situations where adequate evidence is not at hand. Learning through trail and error is more accidental I would think (we are talking children here...not part of the scientific method). To learn through exploration is an effective and efficient way to learn. As one goes through life...many lessons present themselves. To ignore those lessons is to ignore experience in life. I think that learning through exploration comes about naturally. All a child needs is opportunity. Yes, playing with children of equal cognitive capability is important...however...being with children of higher capabilities would benefit the child much more I would think.