COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to
develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests.

He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers on the questions that
required logical thinking. He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences
between the thinking of adults and children.

Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development.  His
contributions include a theory of cognitive child development, detailed observational studies of
cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.

Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was that children are merely less
competent thinkers than adults.  Piaget showed that young children think in strikingly different ways
compared to adults.

According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and
evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and
development of human intelligence, first developed by Jean Piaget. It is primarily known as a
developmental stage theory, but in fact, it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans
come gradually to acquire, construct, and use it. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive
reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.
Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between
what they already know and what they discover in their environment.
Piaget's Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

o It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.

o It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information
or specific behaviors.

o It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual
increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.

The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the
child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses. 

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of

biological maturation and environmental experience. Children construct an understanding of the world
around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover
in their environment.

There Are Three Basic Components To Piaget's Cognitive Theory:

1. Schemas (building blocks of knowledge)

2. Processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation
and  accommodation)
3. Stages of  Development:

 sensorimotor,
 preoperational,
 concrete operational,
 formal operational

Schemas

Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing
knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect
of the world, including objects, actions and abstract (i.e. theoretical) concepts.

When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to
be in a state of equilibrium, i.e. a state of cognitive (i.e. mental) balance.

Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development, and described how they were
developed or acquired.
A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to
understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations
and apply them when needed.

For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a
stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and
paying the bill. This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script'.

Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the
situation. The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by infants.
He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate.

The illustration (above) demonstrates a child developing a schema for a dog by assimilating
information about the dog. The child then sees a cat, using accommodation compares existing
knowledge of a dog to form a schema of a cat. Animation created by Daurice Grossniklaus and Bob
Rodes (03/2002).

Piaget believed that newborn babies have some innate schemas - even before they have had much
opportunity to experience the world.  These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying
innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us.

For example babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby's lips.   A
baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person's finger.  Piaget therefore assumed that the
baby has a 'sucking schema'.

Similarly the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby's hand, or
the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, were
assumed to result operations: for example shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas,
grasping and shaking.

Assimilation and Accommodation

Jean Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This
happens through:

 Assimilation – This is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
 Accommodation – This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and
needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.
  Equilibration –This is the force, which moves development along. Piaget believed that cognitive
development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.

Equilibrium is occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through
assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information
cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and
will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will
continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.

Example of Assimilation

A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To
his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Sigler et al., 2003).

Example of Accommodation

In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that
even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly
things to make people laugh

With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit
better to a standard concept of “clown”.

Stages of Development

A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a mental model of the world.

Imagine what it would be like if you did not have a mental model of your world.  It would mean that
you would not be able to make so much use of information from your past experience, or to plan future
actions.
Jean Piaget was interested both in how children learnt and in how they thought.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence, and carried out many of his own investigations
using his three children. He used the following research methods:

Naturalistic observation: Piaget made careful, detailed observations of children. These were mainly
his own children and the children of friends. From these he wrote diary descriptions charting their
development.

Clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and
hold conversations.

Piaget believed that children think differently than adults and stated they go through 4 universal
stages of cognitive development.  Development is therefore biologically based and changes as the child
matures.  Cognition therefore develops in all children in the same sequence of stages.

Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and no stage can be missed out - although some
individuals may never attain the later stages. There are individual differences in the rate at which
children progress through stages. Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain
age - although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average
child would reach each stage.

Piaget believed that these stages are universal - i.e. that the same sequence of development occurs in
children all over the world, whatever their culture.

Stage of Development Key Feature Research Study

Sensorimotor
Object Permanence Blanket & Ball Study
0 - 2 yrs.
Preoperational
Egocentrism Three Mountains
2 - 7 yrs.
Concrete Operational
Conservation Conservation of Number
7 – 11 yrs.
Formal Operational Manipulate ideas in head,
Pendulum Task
11yrs + e.g. Abstract Reasoning

Educational Implications

Piaget did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how
features of Piaget's theory can be applied to teaching and learning.

Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching. For example, a
review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The
result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden report (1967).

Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring - was seen
as central to the transformation of primary school curriculum.

'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of
play in children's learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the
evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is
valuable.'
Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and stages the notion of 'readiness'
important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught. According to
Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate
stage cognitive development.

Within the classroom learning should be student centred a accomplished through active discovery
learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition. Therefore teachers
should encourage the following within the classroom:

o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it.

o Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing "truths".

o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other).

o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child.

o Evaluate the level of the child's development, so suitable tasks can be set.

Evaluation of Piaget's Theory

Strengths

 The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed
how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an
inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge
amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

 His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children,
particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning).

Weaknesses

 Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to
see development as continuous. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies
have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed. For example,
Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and
Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.

 Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological
maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on
cognitive development (re: Vygotsky).

 Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation
than other methods. Because Piaget conducted the observations alone data collect are based on
his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted
the observations with another researcher can compared results afterwards to check if they are
similar.

 As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests
were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g. Martin Hughes, 1975).
  The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner and Vygotsky. Behaviorism
would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an
internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.

 Piaget carried out his studies with a handful of participants (i.e. small sample size) – and in the
early studies he generally used his own children (from Switzerland). This sample is biased, and
accordingly the results of these studies cannot be generalized to children from different cultures.

APA Style References

Central Advisory Council for Education (1967). Children and their Primary Schools ('The Plowden
Report'), London: HMSO.

Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W .J. Lonner &
R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and Culture. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Hughes , M. (1975). Egocentrism in preschool children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Edinburgh

University.

Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology, pp.
211-246. New York: Wiley.

Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1945). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. London: Heinemann.

Piaget, J. (1957). Construction of reality in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

The first stage that any human being goes through according to Piaget, is the schema stage. This is the
foundation of where a child learns everything from. These building blocks are everything a child sees
for the first time. The second stage is a transition stage in which the baby begins to associate schemas
they have seen before to actual [Link] last stage is four steps and each is a progression of
applying the building blocks from which they originally started with. Piaget infers that adults minds
come from their childhood schemas and the two minds are completely different. Piaget mainly deals
with children's minds and how they associate different things.
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Crystal Spearman · 91 weeks ago

Continued: Assimilation is when the child has seen something before and applies to the current
situation. Association is where the child needs to decipher between what he or she has seen before and
whether it matches what the child is seeing that instant. A schema is a learned idea in which babies
acquire. Piaget's ideas are more biased than others. He based these principles on his own children. He
categorizes them based on their age. The ranges are from ages zero to 11 years and older. Everything
stems from when a child is a baby. Parents have to be careful what they expose their children to as
they may later on become bad habits or something parents wouldnt want their children doing. Piaget's
first stage of schema to the last stage of progression categorizes what children up to adults mainly
become. The stages are pretty accurate. Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal
operational are the last stages in Piaget's theory. Kids begin understanding and using logic and
reasoning for thinking skills. They are not all about concrete things but begin to have better reasoning
and judgement skills as they are maturing. They begin to think beyond the realm of the normal and
begin thinking more deeply and intuitively.