Foetal Alcohol Syndrome

This paper will attempt to concisely elucidate the prevalence and the effects of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), in South Africa, with reference to Jean Piaget's theory on cognitive development. Subsequently a brief overview of Jean Piaget's theory of development with the emphasis on each developmental stage will be discussed. This essay will then, identity and discuss the effects FAS, its occurrence in South Africa and its effect on physical development and how it relates to changes in the brain and its behaviour. Finally the strengths and weaknesses of Jean Paige's cognitive developmental psychology will be discussed.

"Cognitive processes involve thought, intelligence and language and it refers to how these processes change as people mature". Santrock, J. (2007). Jean Piaget's view of how children's minds work and develop has been very significant, particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation in children's increasing ability to understand their world. He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly; instead, there are certain points at which it takes of and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these changes as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. "The child's cognition is qualitatively different from one stage to the next". Santrock, J. (2007).

The Sensori-motor stage last from birth to about two years and in this stage the infant learns to distinguish from self and matter. The infant will recognize the self as a mediator and begins to act intentionally. The infant will also realize that things continue to exist even when it is no longer there. By the end of this stage the child has developed a sense of object permanence (memory). The second stage is called the Pre-operational stage and last from two to seven years. Here children do not understand that objects conserve such properties as number, length, volume, area, and mass after the shape or arrangement of the objects has changed. The infant learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words. Thinking rationally for the infant is still selfish and the infant has difficulty taking in the viewpoints of others. The child classifies objects by a single feature and once the child reaches a basic level of understanding then moves to the third stage of Jean Piaget's cognitive stages, which is the Concrete operational stage and occurs from the age of seven years to fourteen years. During this stage the child can think rationally about events and objects and achieves conservation of "combing, reversing, and forming associations". Morris, C. G. (1976) pg.93. The child can classify objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. "Although quite logical in their approach to problems, children in this stage can only think in terms