The Mt Kenya Times 
Mental Maturation In Children.
By: Wanjohi. P. Mugambi
Worth Noting:
- Given the existence of such a development and the integrative direction that can be seen in it a posteriori, the problem is to understand its mechanism. This is, in fact, an extension of the problem embryologists raise when they wonder whether ontogenetic organization results from preformation or from epigenesist, and what causal processes are involved.
- As yet we have reached only provisional solutions, and future theories will be acceptable only if they succeed in integrating interpretations of embryogenesis, organic growth, and mental development into a harmonious whole. Meanwhile, we must be content with a discussion of the four general factors so far assigned to mental development:
- The first of these is organic growth and especially the maturation of the nervous system and the endocrine systems.
Basically the mental development of the child appears as a succession of three great periods. Each of these extends the preceding period, reconstructs it on a new level, and later surpasses it to an ever greater degree. This is true even of, the first period, for the evolution of the sensorimotor schemes extends and surpasses the evolution of the organic structures which takes place during embryogenesis. Semiotic relations, thought, and interpersonal connections internalize these schemes of action by reconstructing them on the new level of representation, and surpass them until all the concrete operations and cooperative structures have been established. Finally, after the age of eleven or twelve, nascent formal thought restructures the concrete operations by subordinating them to new structures whose development will continue throughout adolescence and all of later life (along with many other transformations as well). The integration of successive structures, each of which leads to the emergence of the subsequent one, makes it possible to divide the child’s development into long periods or stages and subperiods or substages which can be characterized as follows:
Their order of succession is constant although the average ages at which they occur may vary with the individual, according to his degree of intelligence or with the social milieu. Thus the unfolding of the stages may give rise to accelerations or retardations, but their sequence remains constant in the areas (operations, etc.) in which such stages have been shown to exist. Each stage is characterized by an overall structure in terms of which the main behavior patterns can be explained. In order to establish such explanatory stages it is not sufficient to refer to these patterns as such or to the predominance of a given characteristic (as is the case with the stages proposed by Freud and Wallon). These overall structures are integrative and non-interchangeable. Each result from the preceding one, integrating it as a subordinate structure, and prepares for the subsequent one, into which it is sooner or later itself integrated.
Given the existence of such a development and the integrative direction that can be seen in it a posteriori, the problem is to understand its mechanism. This is, in fact, an extension of the problem embryologists raise when they wonder whether ontogenetic organization results from preformation or from epigenesist, and what causal processes are involved. As yet we have reached only provisional solutions, and future theories will be acceptable only if they succeed in integrating interpretations of embryogenesis, organic growth, and mental development into a harmonious whole. Meanwhile, we must be content with a discussion of the four general factors so far assigned to mental development:
The first of these is organic growth and especially the maturation of the nervous system and the endocrine systems. There is no doubt that a number of behavior patterns depend on the first functioning’s of certain structures or circuits. This is true of the coordination of vision and comprehension at about four and a half months. The organic conditions for visual perception are not fully realized until adolescence, whereas retinal functioning is quite early
Maturation plays a role throughout mental growth. But what role? We have little detailed knowledge about maturation, and we know next to nothing about the conditions that permit the formation of the general operatory structures. Where we do have some data, we see that maturation consists essentially of opening up new possibilities and thus constitutes a necessary but not in itself a sufficient condition for the appearance of certain behavior patterns. The possibilities thus opened up also need to be fulfilled, and for this to occur, the maturation must be reinforced by functional exercise and a minimum of experience. In addition, the further the acquisitions are removed from their sensorimotor origins, the more variable is their chronology, meaning not their sequence but the time of appearance.
Maturation is only one of many factors involved and the influence of the physical and social milieu increases in importance with the child’s growth. Organic maturation is undoubtedly a necessary factor and plays an indispensable role in the unvarying order of succession of the stages of the child’s development, but it does not explain all development and represents only one factor among several.
A second fundamental factor is the role of exercise and of acquires experience in the actions performed upon objects (as opposed to social experience). This is also an essential and necessary factor, even in the formation of the logico-mathematical structures. But it does not by itself explain everything, despite the claims of empiricists. It is highly complex, because there are two types of experience: (a) physical experience, which consists of acting upon objects in order to abstract their properties (for example, comparing two weights independently of volume) ; and (b) logic mathematical experience, which consists of acting upon objects with a view to learning the result of the coordination of the actions (for example, when a child of five or six discovers empirically that the sum of a group of objects is independent of their spatial disposition or the order in which they are counted). In (b), knowledge is derived from action (which organizes or combines) rather than from the objects; experience in this case is simply the practical and quasi-motor phase of what will later be operatory deduction, which is not to be equated with experience in the sense of action of the external milieu; on the contrary, it is a question of constructive action performed by the subject upon external objects. As for (a), physical experience is by no means a simple recording of phenomena but constitutes an active structuration, since it always involves an assimilation to logic mathematical structures (thus, comparing two weights presupposes the establishment of a relation, and therefore the construction of a logical form).
The third fundamental factor is social interaction and transmission. Although necessary and essential, it also is insufficient by itself. Socialization is a structuration to which the individual contributes as much as he receives from it, whence the interdependence and isomorphism of “operation” and “cooperation.” Even in the case of transmissions in which the subject appears most passive, such as school teaching, social action is ineffective without an active assimilation by the child, which presupposes adequate operatory structures.
Finality is a subjective notion, and an oriented development (a development that follows a direction: noth-in(y more) does not necessarily presuppose a pre-established plan: for instance, the entropy in thermodynamics. In the development of the child, there is no pre-established plan, but a gradual evolution in which each innovation is dependent upon the previous one. Adult thought might seem to provide a pre-established model, but the child does not understand adult thought until he has reconstructed it, and thought is itself the result of an evolution carried on by several generations, each of which has gone through childhood. Any explanation of the child’s development must take into consideration two dimensions: an ontogenetic dimension and a social dimension (in the sense of the transmission of the successive work of generations). However, the problem is somewhat analogous in both cases, for in both the central question concerns the internal mechanism of all constructivism.
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Aoma Keziah