Carl J. Dunst1, William R. Brassell1, Regina M. Rheingrover2
1Western Carolina Center Infants' Program, Morganton, North Carolina
2University of Maryland
Tóm tắt
Summary. According to Piaget, cognitive development is characterised by the simultaneous and concurrent emergence of constructs that require the same underlying intellectual processes. Such syncronies in development—structure d'ensemble in Piaget's terms—are a fundamental feature of his stage theory. In the present study, the structural features of sensorimotor intelligence were assessed among three groups of retarded infants and toddlers administered the seven Uzgiris and Hunt Piagetian based scales. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA)—a procedure designed to partition variables into optimally homogeneous groups—was performed on two measures of relationship (stage congruence and intercorrelations) among the responses of the subjects on these scales to determine the methodological utility of the statistical procedure. The results proved positive, and yielded information useful for discerning the unique patterns of organisation of sensorimotor intelligence among the three groups of children. The potential utility of HCA as an analytical technique for studying Piaget's structure d'ensemble stage criteria is illustrated.
