A study in child thought, language and logic : observations of a six-year-old child, individually at home, and together with his play and school groups : experimental tests and analysis of observations, in accordance with the theories of Piaget

Abstract

It must be made clear in the very beginning that the basis for this thesis is the two volumes by Dr. Jean Piaget, Institut J. J. Rousseau, Geneva, Switzerland, The Language and Thought of the Child and Judgement and Reasoning in the Child; hence the very small bibliography, the material used being observations and experimental tests based on these volumes.1 Much has been written heretofore on the vocabulary and phonetics of child language, piling up statistics on the number of words various children have acquired at different ages and on the sentence structure (number of adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc.) used at different ages.2 In the division of the year book referred to, on studies in language development, one hundred forty-three books are listed and various others referred to in the discussion of the problems. The distinguishing feature of this world of child thought is egocentrism (intellectual, not ethical, and by no means to be thought of as secretive), the child\u27s self being bound up with his every concept and bit of reasoning. However, the child is entirely unconscious of this situation. Only by socioalizing processes is change wrought in the child\u27s mind and he comes finally to develop pure reasoning