set gDates = [[], [0, 0, "The Times, Aug 23, 1971"], []]
set gName = getat(["Piaget"],1)
@[]##RESEARCH THROWS DOUBT ON TEACHING THEORIES@[]
Originally a zoologist and then a follower of Jung, as Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Geneva, Piaget made a revolutionary study of children's acquisition of understanding.#Something of a child prodigy himself, at the age of 10 Piaget published an article on an albino sparrow. By 15, he was known to specialists outside his native Switzerland for his writings on molluscs#Piaget attacked theories of cognitive development that stressed heredity. He believed there was a fixed and universal timetable for the growth of the mind - a "genetic epistemology" a little like the theory of universal language skills proposed by Chomsky#Piaget's work was based largely on detailed observation of his own three children#Many young children think that a short, wide glass holds more milk than a tall, thin glass. Piaget maintained that he could chart the ages and stages when such beliefs are held or change#Piaget's ideas have had a new lease of life with recent research into artificial intelligence and robotics, and into the chemical structure of the brain#Piaget described himself as a structuralist (though he believed that the structures must be co-ordinated with notions of development), and his semiotic analysis of mental categories owes something to the early linguistic work of his fellow Swiss, Ferdinand de Saussure
