While being dressed for bed, 7 month old Darnell picked up the new comb that his mother had just bought for him. Darnell had nev
er seen this before and didn't know how it was supposed to be used, so he tried to put it in his mouth. Piaget would say that Darnell was ____________________________.
The correct response is Option A: assimilating the comb into his existing schemes.
Explanation:
Jean Piaget is a well-known psychologist who specialized in the development of children. He developed several influential theories about the cognitive development of children. Infants at the age of 7 months like Darnell are just beginning to experience their world in a sensorimotor scheme where they learn by touching objects and often putting what they find into their mouths. Before Piaget’s theories became widely known, the common assumption was that children think like adults but are only less competent at it. Piaget's work was ground breaking because he showed that young children think in different ways than adults.
Education is one of the best ways to prevent intolerance, by revealing similarities between people and spreading a healthy respect for differences. Nor should tolerance be confused with indifference.
