The fact that the Barbies converse with each other is also standard for my daughter's age-range, which is in the established peak of talking to oneself people who allow pet owners to mistreat their pets (Snowman & Biehler 2004). Overall, my daughter's behaviors during her undirected solitary play were fairly standard for her age group, and clearly demonstrated many of the principles and developmental stages that have been identified in the text.
Her performance on Piaget's conservation model assessment also upheld the text, in its criticism of Piaget as having underestimated the abilities of children (Snowman & Biehler 2004). Her immediate assessment of the water's consistent volume (which was, of course, correct) suggest that she is in the operational stage with more solid footing than Piaget predicted for a child a year older than my daughter (Snowman & Biehler 2004). The difference of one year in this single instance might not be compelling evidence of Piaget's shortcomings in and of itself, but combined with the text's analysis it seems likely that despite her stellar performance, my daughter matches her peers in their cognitive development,...
Her specific assessment of the water does fit Piaget's theory that operation are completed based on generalized evidence -- "it's the same water" is no less true for the fact that it is basic, but it is definitely generalized (Snowman & Biehler 2004).
My daughter's moral development, though not perhaps where I would like it to be, is also very much in the normal range for her age. She shows what Piaget would term a "morality of cooperation," insofar as she is able to suspend the sacredness of certain rules in favor of other impulses (Snowman & Biehler 2004). This does not really show an incorporation of an understanding of intent in her determination of an acts morality, however, so this conclusion is perhaps a bit presumptuous (Snowman & Biehler 2004). A more accurate assessment of my daughter's moral stage of development might be somewhere in Level Two -- either stage three or stage four -- of Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning (Snowman & Biehler 2004).
References
Snowman, J. & Biehler, R. (2004) Psychology applied to teaching. New York:
Wadsworth.
