Psychology Piaget Theory

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I. Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology during the 20th century. Piaget originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy and considered himself a "genetic epistemologist." He was mainly interested in the biological influences on "how we come to know." He believed that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is our ability to do "abstract symbolic reasoning." Piaget's views are often compared with those of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who looked more to social interaction as the primary source of cognition and behavior. This is somewhat similar to the distinctions made between Freud and Erikson in terms of the development of personality. The writings of Piaget (e.g., 1972, 1990; see Piaget, Gruber, & Voneche) and Vygotsky (e.g. Vygotsky, 1986; Vygotsky & Vygotsky, 1980), along with the work of John Dewey (e.g., Dewey, 1997a, 1997b), Jerome Bruner (e.g., 1966, 1974) and Ulrick Neisser (1967) form the basis of the constructivist theory of learning and instruction. While working in Binet's IQ test lab in Paris, Piaget became interested in how children think. He noticed that young children's answers were qualitatively different than older children which suggested to him that the younger ones were not dumber (a quantitative position since as they got older and had more experiences they would get smarter) but, instead, answered the questions differently than their older peers because they thought differently. There are two major aspects to his theory: the process of coming to know and the stages we move through as we gradually acquire this ability. Process of Cognitive Development. As a biologist, Piaget was interested in how an organism adapts to its environment (Piaget described as intelligence.) Behavior (adaptation to the environment) is controlled through mental organizations called schemes that the individual uses to represent the world and designate action. This adaptation is driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment (equilibration). Piaget hypothesized that infants are born with schemes operating at birth that he called "reflexes." In other animals, these reflexes control behavior throughout life. However, in human beings as the infant uses these reflexes to adapt to the environment, these reflexes are quickly replaced with constructed schemes. Piaget described two processes used by the individual in its attempt to adapt: assimilation and accommodation. Both of these processes are used throughout life as the person increasingly adapts to the environment in a more complex manner. Assimilation is the process of using or transforming the environment so that it can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures. Accommodation is the process of

changing cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment. Both processes are used simultaneously and alternately throughout life. An example of assimilation would be when an infant uses a sucking schema that was developed by sucking on a small bottle when attempting to suck on a larger bottle. An example of accommodation would be when the child needs to modify a sucking schema developed by sucking on a pacifier to one that would be successful for sucking on a bottle. As schemes become increasingly more complex (i.e., responsible for more complex behaviors) they are termed structures. As one's structures become more complex, they are organized in a hierarchical manner (i.e., from general to specific). Stages of Cognitive Development. Piaget identified four stages in cognitive development: 1. Sensorimotor stage (Infancy). In this period (which has 6 stages), intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited (but developing) because it‘s based on physical interactions / experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about 7 months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbolic (language) abilities are developed at the end of this stage. 2. Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood). In this period (which has two sub stages), intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a non logical, nonreversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates. 3. Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence). In this stage (characterized by 7 types of conservation: number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes. 4. Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood). In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood. Many pre-school and primary programs are modeled on Piaget's theory, which, as stated previously, provides part of the foundation for constructivist learning. Discovery learning and supporting the developing interests of the child are two primary instructional techniques. It is recommended that parents and teachers challenge the child's abilities, but NOT present material or information that is too

far beyond the child's level. It is also recommended that teachers use a wide variety of concrete experiences to help the child learn (e.g., use of manipulative, working in groups to get experience seeing from another's perspective, field trips, etc). Piaget's research methods were based primarily on case studies [they were descriptive]. While some of his ideas have been supported through more correlation and experimental methodologies, others have not. For example, Piaget believed that biological development drives the movement from one cognitive stage to the next. Data from cross-sectional studies of children in a variety of western cultures seem to support this assertion for the stages of sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operations (Renner, Stafford, Lawson, McKinnon, Friot & Kellogg, 1976). ****************************************************************** Theories of cognitive development: Jean Piaget. Our first years of life are an incredible, but dangerous journey. Thousands of sperm died trying to make us, and only one made it. From our journey as an embryo to a fetus – the size of a single cell to a fully sized baby – we develop more than we will our entire lives. From birth until we‘re a few years old, our development is still incredibly rapid; we have so much to learn in such little time! It is advantageous to learn quickly, that way we‘re more likely to survive in the cruel, unforgiving world. Piaget’s background Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was actually not a psychologist at first; he dedicated his time to mollusc research. In fact, by the time he was 21 he‘d already published twenty scientific papers on them! He soon moved to Paris, and got a job interviewing mental patients. Before long, he was working for Alfred Binet, and refining Burt‘s reasoning test. During his time working at Binet‘s lab, he studied the way that children reasoned. After two years of working with children, Piaget finally realized what he wanted to investigate – children‘s development! He noticed that children of a younger aged answered questions qualitatively different than those of an older age. This suggested to him that younger children were not less knowledgeable, but gave different answers because they thought differently.

He spent over 10 years perfecting his theory, and it is widely acknowledged as one of the most valuable developmental theories – especially of it‘s time. It‘s no lie that there are many new, possibly more valid theories now, but Piaget‘s theory has had a lot of influence on schools, teaching and education all over the world. So, let‘s begin exploring Piaget‘s theory, the key concepts and the stages. Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Background: Piaget‘s theory is based on stages, whereby each stage represents a qualitatively different type of thinking. Children in stage one cannot think the same as children in stage 2, 3 or 4 etc. Transitions from one stage to another are generally very fast, and the stages always follow an invariant sequence. Another important characteristic of his stage theory is that they are universal; the stages will work for everyone in the world regardless of their differences (except their age, of course, which is what the stages are based on!) Piaget acknowledged that there is an interaction between a child and the environment, and this is a focal point for his theory. He believed a child cannot learn unless they are constantly interacting with their environment, making mistakes and then learning from them. He defined children as ―lone scientists‖; he did not identify any need for teachers or adults in cognitive development. Children have all the cognitive mechanisms to learn on their own, and the interaction with their environment allows them to do so. To put this in perspective, another theory by Lev Vygotsky suggested that the interaction is not important at all; the child will learn when encouraged to with an adult‘s assistance. I will be explaining then

contrasting Vygotsky‘s theory to Piaget‘s in my next post – so be sure to check back for that! With the background of his theory explained, let‘s look at The Key Concepts of Piaget’s theory: Before explaining the main part of Piaget‘s theory (the four stages), it‘s very important to look at some of the underlying principles behind it. Rather than write a stupidly long paragraph explaining it all, I will write the key terms in bold, then explain them in bullet points – just to keep things simple!






Schema (pl. Schemata, although some say “Schemas” for the plural) Possibly one of the most important concepts put forward by Piaget, Schemata help individuals understand the world they inhabit. They are cognitive structures that represent a certain aspect of the world, and can be seen as categories which have certain pre-conceived ideas in them. For example, my schema for Christmas includes: Christmas trees, presents, giving, money, green, red, gold, winter, Santa Claus etc. Someone else may have an entirely different schema, such as Jesus, birth, Church, holiday, Christianity etc. Of course, there are schemata for all kinds of things – yourself (self schemata), other people (people schemata), events/situations (event schemata) and roles/occupations (role schemata). With regards to Piaget‘s theory, a child might have a pre-conceived schema for a dog. If the household has a small West Highland White Terrier as a dog, the schema might be ―small, furry, four legs, white‖. When the child interacts with a new dog – perhaps a Labrador, it will change to incorporate the new information, such as ―big, golden, smooth etc.‖ This is known as: Assimilation Simply the process of incorporating new information into a pre-existing schema. So with the ―dog‖ example, the child assimilated the Labrador‘s information into the old dog schema. Assimilation is essentially fitting new information into schemata we already have in place. Unfortunately, this can lead to stereotyping. For example, if an old lady sees a teenager mug another person, she might assimilate ―violence‖ or ―crime‖ into her teenage schema. Next time she sees a teenager, her schema will be applied to them – and although they may be a kind person, she will probably show prejudice. Assimilation is normally a simple process, as new information already fits the pre-existing categories. Accommodation When coming across a new object for the first time, a child will attempt to apply an old schema to the object. For consistency, let‘s use the dog example





again. The child may have ―four legs, furry‖ in their dog schema. When coming across another similar animal, such as a cat, they might say ―Look, a dog!‖ – that‘s assimilation. However, when told that it‘s actually a cat – not a dog – they will accommodate the new information into another schema. They will now form a ―cat‖ schema; ―not all four legged furry an imals are dogs – some are cats too!‖. They have accommodated the new information. The process just mentioned – of assimilation then accommodation is known as Adaptation Assimilation and accommodation are the two parts of adaptation – which is simply what it says – adapting our schemata to make an accurate (enough) model of the world we live in. It is a form of learning, but an entirely different form to the kind you‘d see in behaviourist psychology for example (such as operant/classical conditioning). Equilibrium Piaget suggested that humans naturally strive to achieve a cognitive balance; there must be a balance between applying prior knowledge (assimilation) and changing schemata to account for new information (accommodation). Piaget suggested that when a child has a schema which doesn‘t fit reality, there is tension in the mind. By balancing the use of assimilation and accommodation, this tension is reduced and we can proceed to higher levels of thought and learning (equilibration).

QUICK SUMMARY: Children have schemata (cognitive structures that contain pre-existing ideas of the world), which are constantly changing. Schemata constantly undergo adaptation, through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. When seeing new objects there is a state of tension, and a child will attempt to assimilate the information to see if it fits into prior schemata. If this fails, the information must be accommodated by either adding new schemata or modifying the existing ones to accommodate the information. By balancing the use of assimilation and accommodation, an equilibrium is created, reducing cognitive tension (equilibration). If I am not explaining things well enough, check out the excellent animation at this website – just scroll to the ―Criticisms of Piaget‘s theory‖ part, and the animation should be there. Kudos to the creators, it is very easy to understand and follow. The four stages of Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development.

The following stages form the bulk of Piaget‘s theory. I‘ve kept you waiting long enough – so here they are, explained to the fullest of my knowledge! I‘ve actually studied this over about 3 years though – so I should be able to provide some pretty useful information! If I miss anything out, please don‘t hesitate to inform me. STAGE ONE: The Sensorimotor stage.Occurs from birth to approx. 2 years old. During this stage, information is received through all the senses. The child tries to make sense of the world during this stage, and as the name suggests, only senses and motor abilities are used to do so. The child utilizes innate behaviours to enhance this learning process, such as sucking, looking, grasping, crying and listening. To make this even more complex, there are 6 sub-stages of this one stage. To begin, the child uses only reflexes and innate behaviour. Towards the end of this stage, the child uses a range of complex Sensorimotor skills. The sub-stages are as follows: 1. Reflexes (0-1 month): The child uses only innate reflexes. For example, if a nipple or dummy is put into a baby‘s mouth, they will reflexively suck on it. If an object is placed in their palm, the hand will automatically grab it. These reflexes have the sole function of keeping the child alive. 2. Primary Circular Actions (1-4 months): The child now has a fixation with it‘s own body with regards to behaviour(what Piaget refers to as primary behaviour); they will perform actions repeatedly on themselves (like sucking their own hand). They also begin to refine reflexes here to form more complex versions of them. 3. Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months): At around 4 months, the child begins to take an interest in their environment (their behaviour is secondary). They notice that they can actually influence events in their world, for example they can drop a teddy which bashes a ball on the floor. Although this occurs, the infant will not make conscious connections between what they do and the consequences, they merely observe that their actions have interesting effects. 4. Co-ordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8-12 months): At this point, the child begins to engage in goal-directed behaviour; they begin to develop cause-effect relationships. So rather than crawl over to a teddy in a cart to pick it up, they might instead pull the cart over with the teddy in to acquire it. The child effectively knows that their behaviour will have a certain consequence. At this stage, object permanence is acquired - but I will explain this after these sub-stages.

5. Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months): At this stage, children like to use creativity and flexibility with their previous behaviours, and the result of their experimentation often leads to different outcomes. So rather than grabbing a box, they might instead try to tilt or manipulate it. 6. Symbolic/Mental Representation (18-24 months): At this stage, the child develops symbolic thought and the ability to mentally represent objects in their head. Normally, the child would need to resort to trial-and-error to achieve a desired effect. Now, however, the child can ‗plan‘ to some extent and mentally construct the consequences of an action in their head. Of course, predictions are not always accurate, but it is a step up from trial-anderror. There are two key examples of mental representation in children: object permanence and deferred imitation. Object permanence is when objects exist even when out of sight. In the first three sub-stages, children will not attempt to search for an object which is hidden from their view; in their mind, the object simply ceases to exist as they cannot see it. At sub-stage four, however, they show this characteristic of object permanence. If an object is hidden from them, they will attempt to find it, but will repeatedly look in the same place – even if the object is moved (the so called “A-not-B error”). However, by sub-stage 6, the child is able to mentally represent the object in their mind, leading to exploration for an object even if it is moved. They will continue to look for an object until they find it, as they understand objects exist regardless of where they are. Deferred imitation is simply the imitation of behaviour a child has seen before. As a child can mentally represent behaviour they have seen, they are able to enact it through playing and in other situations. So a child might ‗talk‘ down a toy telephone or ‗steer‘ a toy car around the room. Sensorimotor quick evaluation: Bower (1982) found that children display object permanence at a much younger age than Piaget suggested. Children at 3 ½ months old show surprise (an elevated heart-rate) when a screen is removed to reveal an object has disappeared , than when the object remains. Willatts (1989) showed that children plan to move obstacles to desired toys through planning much earlier than Piaget‘s theory would suggest they could. STAGE TWO: The Pre-operational Stage.Occurs from 2-7 years of age.The mental representation of the sensorimotor stage provides a smooth transition to

semiotic functioning in the pre-operational stage. This essentially means that a child can use one object to represent another (symbolically). For example, a child swinging their arms in a circular motion might represent the wheels on a train, or sticking their arms out and running might symbolize the movement of an aeroplane. This shows the relationships children can form between language, actions and objects at this stage. A major characteristic of this stage is egocentrism: perception of the world in relation to oneself only. Children struggle to perceive situations from another point of view or perspective, as shown by Piaget and Inhelder‘s Three Mountains Task (1956). In this study, children were asked what can be perceived from certain positions on a 3D model. See the diagram below for a clearer idea. Piaget and Inhelder: Three Mountains Task (1956)‖]

The child would have been asked, ―What view does Piaget have?‖. In the actual study though, they were shown around 8 cards of possible viewpoints rather than the three above. As you can imagine, the children struggled to decentralize and pick the correct picture. Another feature of this stage is conservation. Children struggle to understand the difference in quantity and measurements in different situations. For example, suppose a child is shown a short, fat beaker full of water. When that water is transferred entirely to a tall, thin beaker – we would know the level of water is identical – only the beaker has changed. However, a child in this stage will conclude there is more water in the tall beaker, just because the level of water looks higher. Children in this stage also lack the required cognition to apply reversibility to situations; they cannot imagine objects or numbers reversed to their previous form. This will be explored in the next stage (where reversibility IS present).

When a child has the ability to decanter, they are said to progress to the next stage. Pre-operational quick evaluation: McGarrigle & Donaldson (1978) found that when a ―naughty teddy‖ was used to scatter sweets around, children were more likely to conserve the correct amount of sweets. This suggests Piaget‘s methods were simply not relevant to children, but the use of a teddy helped them understand. Similarly, McGarrigle (1978) found that rephrasing Piaget‘s original questions to simpler, more child-orientated forms helped increase the amount of correct answers they provided. So is it that Piaget was correct, or just that his methodology was too complex for children‘s cognition? STAGE THREE: The Concrete Operational Stage. Occurs from 7-11 years of age. This stage sees another shift in children‘s cognitive thinking. It is aptly named ―concrete‖ because children struggle to apply concepts to anything which cannot physically be manipulated or seen. Nevertheless, the child continues to improve their conservation skills, and by the age of 11 they can conserve numbers, weight and volume (acquired in that order). The child can also understand principles of ‖class inclusion‖; perspective tasks become much easier, and children begin to understand that other people actually have different views to themselves. Simple maths, such as addition/subtraction become much easier. However, as this stage is concrete, Piaget suggests children will struggle to apply any prior knowledge to abstract situations. For example, when asked seriation tasks such as ―John is taller than Pete. John is shorter than Simon. Who is tallest?‖ , concrete children often fail to provide a correct answer as the situation is too abstract. However, when dolls are used to represent Pete, Simon and John, the children are able to answer – as the situation is bought back to a concrete one with physical representations. Concrete-operational quick evaluation: Tomlinson-Keasey (1978) found that acquisition of conservation does occur in the order Piaget suggested. Jahoda (1983), however, found that 9 year old Zimbabwean children had expert knowledge of small businesses and trade compared to British children of the same age. Zimbabwean children knew about the strategies involved in business, as it was hugely beneficial to have this knowledge from a young age in their culture. This is an important criticism for Piaget‘s theory; it doesn‘t appear to account for cross-cultural differences. STAGE FOUR: The Formal Operational Stage. Occurs from age 11 onwards.

Children at this stage acquire the ability to think hypothetically and ―outside the box‖. Logical conclusions can be inferred from verbal information, and ―concrete‖, physical objects are no longer necessary. When presented with a problem, children at this stage can consider solutions to the problem in a logical manner. The child becomes increasingly ―adult-like‖ with regards to their cognitive abilities. Scientific reasoning is apparent in this stage, and is indicated by Piaget and Inhelder‘s Pendulum Task (1958). When asked to determine the effect different weights and rope length have on the speed of a swinging pendulum, formal operational children came to consistent and logical conclusions. Formal operational quick evaluation: Martorano (1977) found a massive range in ability between 12-18 year old females in the USA. He found the ability to complete formal operational tasks successfully ranged from 15-95%. This suggests that formal operational principles may be acquired, but it takes a range of time to apply them to different situations. Danner and Day (1977) found that students trained to complete formal operational tasks showed increases in the ability around 17 years of age. This suggests that the beginning of the formal operational stage (age 11) marks a time where children can potentially acquire formal operational thought processes, but may not specifically gain them without training. Think about why this is important! It may indicate that Piaget underestimated the role of teaching in his theory; he emphasised the concept of a ―lone scientist‖ as mentioned above. Maybe this isn‘t so? Maybe there is a need for interaction and a teacher? So there you have it. Piaget‘s theory of cognitive development!

Jean Piaget (French pronunciation: pja ]; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. He was the eldest son of Arthur Piaget (Swiss) and Rebecca Jackson (French). His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology". Piaget placed great importance on the education of children. As the Director of the International Bureau of Education, he declared in 1934 that "only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual."[2]

Piaget created the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva in 1955 and directed it until 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget is "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."[3] Contents [hide]
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1 Personal life 2 Career history o 2.1 Piaget before psychology o 2.2 The sociological model of development o 2.3 The sensorimotor/adaptive model of intellectual development o 2.4 The elaboration of the logical model of intellectual development o 2.5 The study of figurative thought 3 Theory o 3.1 Stages o 3.2 The developmental process o 3.3 Genetic epistemology o 3.4 Schemata  3.4.1 The physical microstructure of "schemes" 4 Research methods o 4.1 Issues and possible solutions o 4.2 Development of new methods  4.2.1 Criticism of Piaget's research methods o 4.3 Development of research methods 5 Influence o 5.1 Developmental psychology o 5.2 Education and development of morality o 5.3 Piaget and the Cognitivists o 5.4 Historical studies of thought and cognition o 5.5 Non human development o 5.6 Origins o 5.7 Primatology o 5.8 Philosophy o 5.9 Artificial intelligence 6 Challenges 7 List of major works





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7.1 Exemplars o 7.2 Super-classics o 7.3 Classics o 7.4 Major works o 7.5 Works of significance o 7.6 New translations 8 Major commentaries and critiques o 8.1 Exemplars o 8.2 Classics o 8.3 Major works o 8.4 Works of significance 9 List of Major Achievements o 9.1 Appointments o 9.2 Honorary doctorates 10 Quotations 11 See also o 11.1 Collaborators o 11.2 Translators 12 Notes 13 References 14 External links
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[edit] Personal life Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, in the Francophone region of Switzerland. His father, Arthur Piaget, was a professor of medieval literature at the University of Neuchâtel. Piaget was a precocious child who developed an interest in biology and the natural world. His early interest in zoology earned him a reputation among those in the field after he had published several articles on mollusks by the age of 15.[4] He was educated at the University of Neuchâtel, and studied briefly at the University of Zürich. During this time, he published two philosophical papers that showed the direction of his thinking at the time, but which he later dismissed as adolescent thought.[5] His interest in psychoanalysis, at the time a burgeoning strain of psychology, can also be dated to this period. Piaget moved from Switzerland to Paris, France after his graduation and he taught at the Grange-Aux-Belles Street School for Boys. The school was run by Alfred Binet, the developer of the Binet intelligence test, and Piaget assisted in the marking of Binet's intelligence tests. It was while he was helping to mark some of these tests that Piaget noticed that

young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions. Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that young children consistently made types of mistakes that older children and adults did not. This led him to the theory that young children's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults. Ultimately, he was to propose a global theory of cognitive developmental stages in which individuals exhibit certain common patterns of cognition in each period of development. In 1921, Piaget returned to Switzerland as director of the Rousseau Institute in Geneva. In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay; together, the couple had three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy. In 1929, Jean Piaget accepted the post of Director of the International Bureau of Education and remained the head of this international organization until 1968. Every year, he drafted his "Director's Speeches" for the IBE Council and for the International Conference on Public Education in which he explicitly addressed his educational credo. In 1964, Piaget was invited to serve as chief consultant at two conferences at Cornell University (March 11–13) and University of California, Berkeley (March 16–18). The conferences addressed the relationship of cognitive studies and curriculum development and strived to conceive implications of recent investigations of children's cognitive development for curricula.[6] In 1979 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Social and Political Sciences. [edit] Career history

Bust of Jean Piaget in the Parc des Bastions, Geneva Harry Beilin described Jean Piaget's theoretical research program[7] as consisting of four phases:

1. 2. 3. 4.

the sociological model of development, the biological model of intellectual development, the elaboration of the logical model of intellectual development, the study of figurative thought.

The resulting theoretical frameworks are sufficiently different from each other that they have been characterized as representing different "Piagets." More recently, Jeremy Burman responded to Beilin and called for the addition of a phase before his turn to psychology: "the zeroeth Piaget."[8] [edit] Piaget before psychology Before Piaget became a psychologist, he trained in natural history and philosophy. He received his doctorate in 1918 from the University of Neuchatel. He then undertook post-doctoral training in Zurich (1918–1919), and Paris (1919–1921). The theorist we recognize today only emerged when he moved to Geneva, to work for Edouard Claparede as director of research at the Rousseau Institute, in 1922. [edit] The sociological model of development Piaget first developed as a psychologist in the 1920s. He investigated the hidden side of children‘s minds. Piaget proposed that children moved from a position of egocentrism to sociocentrism. For this explanation he combined the use of psychological and clinical methods to create what he called a semiclinical interview. He began the interview by asking children standardized questions and depending on how they answered, he would ask them a series of nonstandard questions. Piaget was looking for what he called "spontaneous conviction" so he often asked questions the children neither expected nor anticipated. In his studies, he noticed there was a gradual progression from intuitive to scientific and socially acceptable responses. Piaget theorized children did this because of the social interaction and the challenge to younger children‘s ideas by the ideas of those children who were more advanced. This work was used by Elton Mayo as the basis for the famous Hawthorne Experiments.[9] For Piaget, it also led to an honorary doctorate from Harvard in 1936.[10]

[edit] The sensorimotor/adaptive model of intellectual development In this stage, Piaget described intelligence as having two closely interrelated parts. The first part, which is from the first stage, was the content of children's thinking. The second part was the process of intellectual activity. He believed this process of thinking could be regarded as an extension of the biological process of adaptation. Adaptation has two pieces: assimilation and accommodation. To test his theory, Piaget observed the habits in his own children. He argued infants were engaging in an act of assimilation when they sucked on everything in their reach. He claimed infants transform all objects into an object to be sucked. The children were assimilating the objects to conform to their own mental structures. Piaget then made the assumption that whenever one transforms the world to meet individual needs or conceptions, one is, in a way, assimilating it. Piaget also observed his children not only assimilating objects to fit their needs, but also modifying some of their mental structures to meet the demands of the environment. This is the second division of adaptation known as accommodation. To start out, the infants only engaged in primarily reflex actions such as sucking, but not long after, they would pick up actual objects and put them in their mouths. When they do this, they modify their reflex response to accommodate the external objects into reflex actions. Because the two are often in conflict, they provide the impetus for intellectual development. The constant need to balance the two triggers intellectual growth. [edit] The elaboration of the logical model of intellectual development In the model Piaget developed in stage three, he argued the idea that intelligence develops in a series of stages that are related to age and are progressive because one stage must be accomplished before the next can occur. For each stage of development the child forms a view of reality for that age period. At the next stage, the child must keep up with earlier level of mental abilities to reconstruct concepts. Piaget concluded intellectual development as an upward expanding spiral in which children must constantly reconstruct the ideas formed at earlier levels with new, higher order concepts acquired at the next level. It is primarily the Third Piaget that was incorporated into American psychology when Piaget's ideas were "rediscovered" in the 1960s.[11]

[edit] The study of figurative thought Piaget studied areas of intelligence like perception and memory that aren‘t entirely logical. Logical concepts are described as being completely reversible because they can always get back to the starting point. The perceptual concepts Piaget studied could not be manipulated. To describe the figurative process, Piaget uses pictures as examples. Pictures can‘t be separated because contours cannot be separated from the forms they outline. Memory is the same way. It is never completely reversible. During this last period of work, Piaget and his colleague Inhelder also published books on perception, memory, and other figurative processes such as learning.[12][13][14] [edit] Theory Jean Piaget defined himself as a 'genetic' epistemologist, interested in the process of the qualitative development of knowledge. As he says in the introduction of his book Genetic Epistemology (ISBN 978-0-393-00596-7): "What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge." He believed answers for the epistemological questions at his time could be answered, or better proposed, if one looked to the genetic aspect of it, hence his experimentations with children and adolescents. Piaget considered cognitive structures development as a differentiation of biological regulations. In one of his last books, Equilibration of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development (ISBN 978-022666781), he intends to explain knowledge development as a process of equilibration using two main concepts in his theory, assimilation and accommodation, as belonging not only to biological interactions but also to cognitive ones. [edit] Stages The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as:


Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2. Children experience the world through movement and senses (use five senses to explore the world). During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely egocentric, meaning they cannot perceive the world from others' viewpoints. The sensorimotor stage is divided into six substages:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

"simple reflexes; first habits and primary circular reactions; secondary circular reactions; coordination of secondary circular reactions; tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity; and internalization of schemes."[15]

Simple reflexes is from birth to 1 month old. At this time infants use reflexes such as rooting and sucking. First habits and primary circular reactions is from 1 month to 4 months old. During this time infants learn to coordinate sensation and two types of scheme (habit and circular reactions). A primary circular reaction is when the infant tries to reproduce an event that happened by accident (ex: sucking thumb). The third stage, secondary circular reactions, occurs when the infant is 4 to 8 months old. At this time they become aware of things beyond their own body; they are more object oriented. At this time they might accidentally shake a rattle and continue to do it for sake of satisfaction. Coordination of secondary circular reactions is from 8 months to 12 months old. During this stage they can do things intentionally. They can now combine and recombine schemes and try to reach a goal (ex: use a stick to reach something). They also understand object permanence during this stage. That is, they understand that objects continue to exist even when they can't see them. The fifth stage occurs from 12 months old to 18 months old. During this stage infants explore new possibilities of objects; they try different things to get different results. Some followers of Piaget's studies of infancy, such as Kenneth Kaye[16] argue that his contribution was as an observer of countless phenomena not previously described, but that he didn't offer explanation of the processes in real time that cause those developments, beyond analogizing them to broad concepts about biological adaptation generally. Kaye's "apprenticeship theory" of cognitive and social development refuted Piaget's assumption that mind developed endogenously in infants until the capacity for symbolic reasoning allowed them to learn language.



Preoperational stage: from ages 2 to 7 (magical thinking predominates; motor skills are acquired). Egocentrism begins strongly and then weakens. Children cannot conserve or use logical thinking. Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 11 (children begin to think logically but are very concrete in their thinking). Children can now conserve and think logically but only with practical aids. They are no longer egocentric. Formal operational stage: from age 11-16 and onwards (development of abstract reasoning). Children develop abstract thought and can easily conserve and think logically in their mind.





[edit] The developmental process Piaget provided no concise description of the development process as a whole. Broadly speaking it consisted of a cycle:
 







The child performs an action which has an effect on or organizes objects, and the child is able to note the characteristics of the action and its effects. Through repeated actions, perhaps with variations or in different contexts or on different kinds of objects, the child is able to differentiate and integrate its elements and effects. This is the process of "reflecting abstraction" (described in detail in Piaget 2001). At the same time, the child is able to identify the properties of objects by the way different kinds of action affect them. This is the process of "empirical abstraction". By repeating this process across a wide range of objects and actions, the child establishes a new level of knowledge and insight. This is the process of forming a new "cognitive stage". This dual process allows the child to construct new ways of dealing with objects and new knowledge about objects themselves. However, once the child has constructed these new kinds of knowledge, he or she starts to use them to create still more complex objects and to carry out still more complex actions. As a result, the child starts to recognize still more complex patterns and to construct still more complex objects. Thus a new stage begins, which will only be completed when all the child's activity and experience have been re-organized on this still higher level.

This process may not be wholly gradual, but new evidence shows that the passage into new stages is more gradual than once thought. Once a new level of organization, knowledge and insight proves to be effective, it will quickly be generalized to other areas if they exist. As a result, transitions between stages can seem to be rapid and radical, but oftentimes the child has grasped one aspect of the new stage of cognitive functioning but not addressed others. The bulk of the time spent in a new stage consists of refining this new cognitive level however it is not always happening quickly. For example, a child may learn that two different colors of Play-Doh have been fused together to make one ball, based on the color. However, if sugar is mixed into water or iced tea, then the sugar "disappeared" and therefore does not exist. These levels of one concept of cognitive development are not realized all at once, giving us a gradual realization of the world around us.[17] It is because this process takes this dialectical form, in which each new stage is created through the further differentiation, integration, and synthesis of new structures out of the old, that the sequence of cognitive stages are logically necessary rather than simply empirically correct. Each new stage emerges only because the child can take for granted the achievements of its predecessors, and yet there are still more sophisticated forms of knowledge and action that are capable of being developed. Because it covers both how we gain knowledge about objects and our reflections on our own actions, Piaget's model of development explains a number of features of human knowledge that had never previously been accounted for. For example, by showing how children progressively enrich their understanding of things by acting on and reflecting on the effects of their own previous knowledge, they are able to organize their knowledge in increasingly complex structures. Thus, once a young child can consistently and accurately recognize different kinds of animals, he or she then acquires the ability to organize the different kinds into higher groupings such as "birds", "fish", and so on. This is significant because they are now able to know things about a new animal simply on the basis of the fact that it is a bird – for example, that it will lay eggs. At the same time, by reflecting on their own actions, the child develops an increasingly sophisticated awareness of the "rules" that govern in various ways. For example, it is by this route that Piaget explains this child's growing awareness of notions such as "right", "valid", "necessary", "proper", and so on. In other words, it is through the process of objectification, reflection and abstraction that the child constructs the principles on which action is not only effective or correct but also justified.

One of Piaget's most famous studies focused purely on the discriminative abilities of children between the ages of two and a half years old, and four and a half years old. He began the study by taking children of different ages and placing two lines of sweets, one with the sweets in a line spread further apart, and one with the same number of sweets in a line placed more closely together. He found that, "Children between 2 years, 6 months old and 3 years, 2 months old correctly discriminate the relative number of objects in two rows; between 3 years, 2 months and 4 years, 6 months they indicate a longer row with fewer objects to have "more"; after 4 years, 6 months they again discriminate correctly" (Cognitive Capacity of Very Young Children, p. 141). Initially younger children were not studied, because if at four years old a child could not conserve quantity, then a younger child presumably could not either. The results show however that children that are younger than three years and two months have quantity conservation, but as they get older they lose this quality, and do not recover it until four and a half years old. This attribute may be lost due to a temporary inability to solve because of an overdependence on perceptual strategies, which correlates more candy with a longer line of candy, or due to the inability for a four year old to reverse situations. By the end of this experiment several results were found. First, younger children have a discriminative ability that shows the logical capacity for cognitive operations exists earlier than acknowledged. This study also reveals that young children can be equipped with certain qualities for cognitive operations, depending on how logical the structure of the task is. Research also shows that children develop explicit understanding at age 5 and as a result, the child will count the sweets to decide which has more. Finally the study found that overall quantity conservation is not a basic characteristic of humans' native inheritance. [edit] Genetic epistemology According to Jean Piaget, genetic epistemology "attempts to explain knowledge, and in particular scientific knowledge, on the basis of its history, its sociogenesis, and especially the psychological origins of the notions and operations upon which it is based"[5]. Piaget believed he could test epistemological questions by studying the development of thought and action in children. As a result Piaget created a field known as genetic epistemology with its own methods and problems. He defined this field as the study of child development as a means of answering epistemological questions.

[edit] Schemata A Schema is a structured cluster of concepts, it can be used to represent objects, scenarios or sequences of events or relations. The original idea was proposed by philosopher Immanuel Kant as innate structures used to help us perceive the world.[18] A schema (pl. schemata) is the mental framework that is created as children interact with their physical and social environments.[19] For example, many 3-yearolds insist that the sun is alive because it comes up in the morning and goes down at night. According to Piaget, these children are operating based on a simple cognitive schema that things that move are alive. At any age, children rely on their current cognitive structures to understand the world around them. Moreover, younger and older children may often interpret and respond to the same objects and events in very different ways because cognitive structures take different forms at different ages.[20] Piaget (1953) described three kinds of intellectual structures: behavioural (or sensorimotor) schemata, symbolic schemata, and operational schemata.


Behavioural schemata: organized patterns of behaviour that are used to represent and respond to objects and experiences. Symbolic schemata: internal mental symbols (such as images or verbal codes) that one uses to represent aspects of experience. Operational schemata: internal mental activity that one performs on objects of thought.[21]





According to Piaget, children use the process of assimilation and accommodation to create a schema or mental framework for how they perceive and/or interpret what they are experiencing. As a result, the early concepts of young children tend to be more global or general in nature.[22] Similarly, Gallagher and Reid (1981) maintained that adults view children‘s concepts as highly generalized and even inaccurate. With added experience, interactions, and maturity, these concepts become refined and more detailed. Overall, making sense of the world from a child‘s perspective is a very complex and time-consuming process.[23]

Schemata are:
   

Critically important building block of conceptual development Constantly in the process of being modified or changed Modified by on-going experiences A generalized idea, usually based on experience or prior knowledge.[22]

These schemata are constantly being revised and elaborated upon each time the child encounters new experiences. In doing this children create their own unique understanding of the world, interpret their own experiences and knowledge, and subsequently use this knowledge to solve more complex problems. In a neurological sense, the brain/mind is constantly working to build and rebuild itself as it takes in, adapts/modifies new information, and enhances understanding.[22] [edit] The physical microstructure of "schemes" In his Biology and Knowledge (1967+ / French 1965), Piaget tentatively hinted at possible physical embodiments for his abstract "scheme" entities. At the time, there was much talk and research about RNA as such an agent of learning, and Piaget considered some of the evidence. However, he did not offer any firm conclusions, and confessed that this was beyond his area of expertise. Piaget died in 1980, and by then the RNA theory had lost its appeal. [edit] Research methods Piaget wanted to revolutionize the way research methods were conducted. Although he started researching with his colleagues using a traditional method of data collection, he was not fully satisfied with the results and wanted to keep trying to find new ways of researching using a combination of data, which included: naturalistic observation, psychometrics, and the psychiatric clinical examination, in order to have a less guided form of research that would produce more genuine results. As Piaget developed new research methods, he wrote a book called The Language and Thought of the Child, which aimed to synthesize the methods he was using in order to study the conclusion children drew from situations and how they arrived to such conclusion. The main idea was to observe how children responded and articulated certain situations with their own reasoning, in order to examine their thought processes (Mayer, 2005). Piaget administered a test in 15 boys with ages ranging from 10 –14 years-old in which he asked participants to describe the relationship between a mix bouquet of

flowers and a bouquet with flowers of the same color. The purpose of this study was to analyze the thinking process the boys had and to draw conclusions about the logic processes they had used, which was a psychometric technique of research. Piaget also used the psychoanalytic method initially developed by Sigmund Freud. The purpose of using such method was to examine the unconscious mind, as well as to continue parallel studies using different research methods. Psychoanalysis was later rejected by Piaget, as he thought it was insufficiently empirical (Mayer, 2005). Piaget argued that children and adults used speech for different purposes. In order to confirm his argument, he experimented analyzing a child‘s interpretation of a story. In the experiment, the child listened to a story and then told a friend that same story in his/her own words. The purpose of this study was to examine how children verbalize and understand each other without adult intervention. Piaget wanted to examine the limits of naturalistic observation, in order to understand a child‘s reasoning. He realized the difficulty of studying children's thoughts, as it is hard to know if a child is pretending to believe their thoughts or not. Piaget was the pioneer researcher to examine children‘s conversations in a social context - starting from examining their speech and actions - where children were comfortable and spontaneous (Kose, 1987). [edit] Issues and possible solutions After conducting many studies, Piaget was able to find significant differences in the way adults and children reason; however, he was still unable to find the path of logic reasoning and the unspoken thoughts children had, which could allow him to study a child‘s intellectual development over time (Mayer, 2005). In his third book, The Child’s Conception of the World, Piaget recognized the difficulties of his prior techniques and the importance of psychiatric clinical examination. The researcher believed that the way clinical examinations were conducted influenced how a child‘s inner realities surfaced. Children would likely respond according to the way the research is conducted, the questions asked, or the familiarity they have with the environment. The clinical examination conducted for his third book provides a thorough investigation into a child‘s thinking process. An example of a question used to research such process was: "Can you see a thought?" (Mayer, 2005, p. 372).

[edit] Development of new methods Piaget recognized that psychometric tests had its limitations, as children were not able to provide the researcher with their deepest thoughts and inner intellect. It was also difficult to know if the results of child examination reflected what children believed or if it is just a pretend situation. For example, it is very difficult to know with certainty if a child who has a conversation with a toy believes the toy is alive or if the child is just pretending. Soon after drawing conclusions about psychometric studies, Piaget started developing the clinical method of examination. The clinical method included questioning a child and carefully examining their responses -in order to observe how the child reasoned according to the questions asked - and then examine the child‘s perception of the world through their responses. Piaget recognized the difficulties of interviewing a child and the importance of recognizing the difference between "liberated" versus "spontaneous" responses (Mayer, 2005, p. 372). [edit] Criticism of Piaget's research methods "The developmental theory of Jean Piaget has been criticized on the grounds that it is conceptually limited, empirically false, or philosophically and epistemologically untenable." (Lourenço & Machado, 1996, p. 143) Piaget responded to criticism by acknowledging that the vast majority of critics did not understand the outcomes he wished to obtain from his research (Lourenço & Machado, 1996). As Piaget believed development was a universal process, his initial sample sizes were inadequate, particularly in the formulation of his theory of infant development.[24] Piaget‘s theories of infant development were based on his observations of his own three children. While this clearly presents problems with the sample size, Piaget also probably introduced confounding variables and social desirability into his observations and his conclusions based on his observations. It is entirely possible Piaget conditioned his children to respond in a desirable manner, so, rather than having an understanding of object permanence, his children might have learned to behave in a manner that indicated they understood object permanence. The sample was also very homogenous, as all three children had a similar genetic heritage and environment. Piaget did, however, have larger sample sizes during his later years.

[edit] Development of research methods Piaget wanted to research in environments that would allow children to connect with some existing aspects of the world. The idea was to change the approach described in his book The Child’s Conception of the World and move away from the vague questioning interviews. This new approach was described in his book The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality, where children were presented with dilemmas and had to think of possible solutions on their own. Later, after carefully analyzing previous methods, Piaget developed a combination of naturalistic observation with clinical interviewing in his book Judgment and Reasoning in the Child, where a child's intellect was tested with questions and close monitoring. Piaget was convinced he had found a way to analyze and access a child‘s thoughts about the world in a very effective way. (Mayer, 2005) Piaget‘s research provided a combination of theoretical and practical research methods and it has offered a crucial contribution to the field of developmental psychology (Beilin, 1992). "Piaget is often criticized because his method of investigation, though somewhat modified in recent years, is still largely clinical". He observes a child's surroundings and behavior. He then comes up with a hypothesis testing it and focusing on both the surroundings and behavior after changing a little of the surrounding. (Phillips, 1969) [edit] Influence

Photo of the Jean Piaget Foundation with Pierre Bovet (1878-1965) first row (with large beard) and Jean Piaget (1896-1980) first row (on the right, with glasses) in front of the Rousseau Institute (Geneva), 1925 Despite his ceasing to be a fashionable psychologist, the magnitude of Piaget's continuing influence can be measured by the global scale and activity of the Jean Piaget Society, which holds annual conferences and attracts very large numbers of

participants. His theory of cognitive development has proved influential in many different areas:
      

Developmental psychology Education and Morality Historical studies of thought and cognition Evolution Philosophy Primatology Artificial Intelligence (AI)

[edit] Developmental psychology Piaget is without doubt one of the most influential developmental psychologists, influencing not only the work of Lev Vygotsky and of Lawrence Kohlberg but whole generations of eminent academics. Although subjecting his ideas to massive scrutiny led to innumerable improvements and qualifications of his original model and the emergence of a plethora of neo-Piagetian and post-Piagetian variants, Piaget's original model has proved to be remarkably robust (Lourenço and Machado 1996). [edit] Education and development of morality During the 1970s and 1980s, Piaget's works also inspired the transformation of European and American education, including both theory and practice, leading to a more ‗child-centered‘ approach. In Conversations with Jean Piaget, he says: "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society ... but for me and no one else, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists" (Bringuier, 1980, p. 132). His theory of cognitive development can be used as a tool in the early childhood classroom. According to Piaget, children developed best in a classroom with interaction. Piaget defined knowledge as the ability to modify, transform, and "operate on" an object or idea, such that it is understood by the operator through the process of transformation.[25] Learning, then, occurs as a result of experience, both physical and logical, with the objects themselves and how they are acted upon. Thus, knowledge must be assimilated in an active process by a learner with matured

mental capacity, so that knowledge can build in complexity by scaffolded understanding. Understanding is scaffolded by the learner through the process of equilibration, whereby the learner balances new knowledge with previous understanding, thereby compensating for "transformation" of knowledge.[25] Learning, then, can also be supported by instructors in an educational setting. Piaget specified that knowledge cannot truly be formed until the learner has matured the mental structures to which that learning is specific, and thereby development constrains learning. Nevertheless, knowledge can also be "built" by building on simpler operations and structures that have already been formed. Basing operations of an advanced structure on those of simpler structures thus scaffolds learning to build on operational abilities as they develop. Good teaching, then, is built around the operational abilities of the students such that they can excel in their operational stage and build on preexisting structures and abilities and thereby "build" learning.[25] Evidence of the effectiveness of a contemporary curricular design building on Piaget's theories of developmental progression and the support of maturing mental structures can be seen in Griffin and Case's "Number Worlds" curriculum. [26] The curriculum works toward building a "central conceptual structure" of number sense in young children by building on five instructional processes, including aligning curriculum to the developmental sequencing of acquisition of specific skills. By outlining the developmental sequence of number sense, a conceptual structure is build and aligned to individual children as they develop. Piaget's influence is strongest in early education and moral education. Piaget believed in two basic principles relating to moral education: that children develop moral ideas in stages and that children create their conceptions of the world. According to Piaget, "the child is someone who constructs his own moral world view, who forms ideas about right and wrong, and fair and unfair, that are not the direct product of adult teaching and that are often maintained in the face of adult wishes to the contrary" (Gallagher, 1978, p. 26). Piaget believed that children made moral judgments based on their own observations of the world. Piaget's theory of morality was radical when his book, The Moral Judgment of the Child, was published in 1932 for two reasons: his use of philosophical criteria to define morality (as universalizable, generalizable, and obligatory) and his rejection of equating cultural norms with moral norms. Piaget, drawing on Kantian theory, proposed that morality developed out of peer interaction and that it was

autonomous from authority mandates. Peers, not parents, were a key source of moral concepts such as equality, reciprocity, and justice. Piaget attributed different types of psychosocial processes to different forms of social relationships, introducing a fundamental distinction between different types of said relationships. Where there is constraint because one participant holds more power than the other the relationship is asymmetrical, and, importantly, the knowledge that can be acquired by the dominated participant takes on a fixed and inflexible form. Piaget refers to this process as one of social transmission, illustrating it through reference to the way in which the elders of a tribe initiate younger members into the patterns of beliefs and practices of the group. Similarly, where adults exercise a dominating influence over the growing child, it is through social transmission that children can acquire knowledge. By contrast, in cooperative relations, power is more evenly distributed between participants so that a more symmetrical relationship emerges. Under these conditions, authentic forms of intellectual exchange become possible; each partner has the freedom to project his or her own thoughts, consider the positions of others, and defend his or her own point of view. In such circumstances, where children‘s thinking is not limited by a dominant influence, Piaget believed "the reconstruction of knowledge", or favorable conditions for the emergence of constructive solutions to problems, exists. Here the knowledge that emerges is open, flexible and regulated by the logic of argument rather than being determined by an external authority. In short, cooperative relations provide the arena for the emergence of operations, which for Piaget requires the absence of any constraining influence, and is most often illustrated by the relations that form between peers (for more on the importance of this distinction see Duveen & Psaltis, 2008; Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007). This distinction acquired central importance in Jürgen Habermas' writings on communicative action.[citation needed] [edit] Piaget and the Cognitivists The Cognitivists include Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner. Cognitivist (learning theory) is the theory that humans generate knowledge and meaning through sequential development of an individual‘s cognitive abilities, such the mental processes of recognize, recall, analyze, reflect, apply, create, understand, and evaluate. The Cognitivists' (e.g. Piaget),[27][28] Bruner:[29][30][31] Vygotsky[32] learning process is adoptive learning of techniques, procedures, organization, and structure to develop internal cognitive structure that strengthens synapses in the brain. The learner requires assistance to develop prior knowledge and integrate new knowledge. The purpose in education is to develop conceptual knowledge,

techniques, procedures, and algorithmic problem solving using Verbal/Linguistic and Logical/Mathematical intelligences. The learner requires scaffolding to develop schema and adopt knowledge from both people and the environment. The educators' role is pedagogical in that the instructor must develop conceptual knowledge by managing the content of learning activities. This theory relates to early stages of learning where the learner solves well defined problems through a series of stages with assistance from an instructor. Jean Piaget‘s Cognitive Development Theory sequenced learning according to infancy [age 0-2: sensor motor], preschool [age 2-7: preoperational], childhood [age 7-11: concrete operational] and adolescence [age 11+: formal operational]. According to Piaget, the ability to learn a concept is related to a child‘s stage of intellectua l development. Through a series of stages, Piaget explains the ways in which characteristics are constructed that lead to specific types of thinking. This focus on scaffolded early learning and sequential development of mental processes defines the Cognitivists' learning theory. [edit] Historical studies of thought and cognition Historical changes of thought have been modeled in Piagetian terms. Broadly speaking these models have mapped changes in morality, intellectual life and cognitive levels against historical changes (typically in the complexity of social systems). Notable examples include:
         

Michael Horace Barnes' study of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thinking[33] Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archaic thought[34] Kieran Egan's stages of understanding[35] James W. Fowler's stages of faith development Suzy Gablik's stages of art history[36] Christopher Hallpike's studies of changes in cognition and moral judgment in pre-historical, archaic and classical periods ... (Hallpike 1979, 2004) Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama[37] Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development[38] Jürgen Habermas's reworking of historical materialism.

[edit] Non human development Neo-Piagetian stages have been applied to the maximum stage attained by various animals. For example spiders attain the circular sensory motor stage, coordinating actions and perceptions. Pigeons attain the sensory motor stage, forming concepts.[citation needed] [edit] Origins The origins of human intelligence have also been studied in Piagetian terms. Wynn (1979, 1981) analysed Acheulian and Oldowan tools in terms of the insight into spatial relationships required to create each kind. On a more general level, Robinson's Birth of Reason (2005) suggests a large-scale model for the emergence of a Piagetian intelligence. [edit] Primatology Piaget's models of cognition have also been applied outside the human sphere, and some primatologists assess the development and abilities of primates in terms of Piaget's model.[39] [edit] Philosophy Some have taken into account of Piaget's work. For example, the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas has incorporated Piaget into his work, most notably in The Theory of Communicative Action. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn credited Piaget's work with helping him to understand the transition between modes of thought which characterized his theory of paradigm shifts.[40] Yet, that said, it is also noted that the implications of his later work do indeed remain largely unexamined.[41] Shortly before his death (September, 1980), Piaget was involved in a debate about the relationships between innate and acquired features of language, at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, where he discussed his point of view with the linguist Noam Chomsky as well as Hilary Putnam and Stephen Toulmin. [edit] Artificial intelligence Piaget also had a considerable effect in the field of computer science and artificial intelligence. Seymour Papert used Piaget's work while developing the Logo programming language. Alan Kay used Piaget's theories as the basis for the

Dynabook programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. These discussions led to the development of the Alto prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the graphical user interface (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980s and beyond.


Gary Drescher's Made-Up Minds: A Constructivist Approach to Artificial Intelligence[42]

[edit] Challenges Piaget's theory, however vital in understanding child psychology, did not go without scrutiny. A main figure whose ideas contradicted Piaget's ideas was the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky stressed the importance of a child's cultural background as an effect to the stages of development. Because different cultures stress different social interactions, this challenged Piaget's theory that the hierarchy of learning development had to develop in succession. Vygotsky introduced the term Zone of proximal development as an overall task a child would have to develop that would be too difficult to develop alone. Also, the so called neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development maintained that Piaget's theory does not do justice either to the underlying mechanisms of information processing that explain transition from stage to stage or individual differences in cognitive development. According to these theories, changes in information processing mechanisms, such as speed of processing and working memory, are responsible for ascension from stage to stage. Moreover, differences between individuals in these processes explain why some individuals develop faster than other individuals (Demetriou, 1998). Curiously, Piaget had published a novel at the age of 20, before he'd begun any research in psychology, in which he stated what would later be the "conclusions" from decades of studying the development of intelligence in children.[43] Over time, alternative theories of Child Development have been put forward, and empirical findings have done a lot to undermine Piaget's theories. For example Esther Thelen and colleagues[44] found that babies would not make the A-not-B error if they had small weights added to their arms during the first phase of the experiment that were then removed before the second phase of the experiment. This minor change should not impact babies' understanding of object permanence, so the difference that this makes to babies' performance on the A-not-B task cannot

be explained by Piagetian theory. Thelen and colleagues also found that various other factors also influenced performance on the A-not-B task (including strength of memory trace, salience of targets, waiting time and stance), and proposed that this could be better explained using a dynamic systems theory approach than using Piagetian theory. Alison Gopnik and Betty Repacholi[45] found that babies as young as 18 months old can understand that other people have desires, and that these desires could be very different to their own desires. This strongly contradicts Piaget's view that children are very egocentric at this age.

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 a re 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 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 enviromental 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 – which 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‖. According to Piaget, teaching can support these developmental processes by 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. Cognitive Development Sensorimotor 0 - 2 yrs. Preoperational 2 - 7 yrs. Concrete 7 – 11 yrs. Formal 11yrs + Operational Stage of Key Feature Research Study

Object Permanence

Blanket & Ball Study

Egocentrism

Three Mountains Conservation Number of

Conservation

Operational

Manipulate ideas in head, e.g. Abstract Pendulum Task 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 centered 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 (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, i.e. subjective (Piaget observed alone). 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. Piaget carried out his studies with a handful of participants – in the early studies he generally used his own children (small / biased sample).











Piaget This is the most-viewed and most-cited page on the site. Unfortunately.


The site is principally about post-16 learning and teaching. From that point of view the most interesting

aspect of Piaget's work are the ideas of assimilation and accommodation.


This page was added simply to put those ideas in some minimal context. It does not set out to provide a comprehensive account of Piaget's ideas. It is grossly over-simplified. To cite it for any purpose other than its intention is to dumb down. And Piaget has been overtaken in many areas anyway. It is the fate of great scholars, researchers and innovators to ask the great questions but produce the wrong answers... Piaget's Key Ideas Stages of Cognitive Development



Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who originally studied molluscs (publishing twenty scientific papers on them by the time he was 21) but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set. "Piaget's work on children's intellectual development owed much to his early studies of water snails" (Satterly, 1987:622) His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. His research has spawned a great deal more, much of which has undermined the detail of his own, but like many other original investigators, his importance comes from his overall vision.

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. Whether or not should be the case is a different matter. More Piaget's Key Ideas Adaptation What it says: adapting to the world through assimilation and accommodation The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit. The difference made to one's mind or concepts by the process of assimilation. Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have one without the other. The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features. The understanding, more advanced than simple classification, that some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. (E.g. there is a class of objects called dogs. There is

Assimilation

Accommodation

Classification

Class Inclusion

also a class called animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals includes that of dogs) Conservation The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when they are changed about or made to look different. The ability to move away from one system of classification to another one as appropriate. The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an early stage of psychological development. The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads. (or The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together. A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others

Decentration Egocentrism

Operation

Schema scheme)

Stage

Stages of Cognitive Development Stage Sensori-motor (Birth-2 yrs) Characterised by Differentiates self from objects Recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense (pace Bishop Berkeley) Preoperational (2-7 years) Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of colour Concrete operational (7-11 years) Can think logically about objects and events Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9) Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. Formal Can think logically about abstract propositions operational and test hypotheses systemtically (11 years and Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the

up)

future, and ideological problems

The accumulating evidence is that this scheme is too rigid: many children manage concrete operations earlier than he thought, and some people never attain formal operations (or at least are not called upon to use them). Piaget's approach is central to the school of cognitive theory known as "cognitive constructivism": other scholars, known as "social constructivists", such as Vygotsky and Bruner, have laid more emphasis on the part played by language and other people in enabling children to learn. See here for Howard Gardner's re-evaluation of Piaget: still a giant, but wrong in practically every detail. And the combination of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology is beginning to suggest that the overall developmental model is based on dubious premises. (It's too early to give authoritative references for this angle.)

Piaget's theory of cognitive development . 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. Moreover, Piaget claims the idea that cognitive development is at the centre of human organism and language is contingent on cognitive development. Below, there is first a short description of Piaget's views about the nature of

intelligence and then a description of the stages through which it develops until maturity.


[edit] Nature of intelligence: operative and figurative intelligence Piaget believed that reality is a dynamic system of continuous change, and as such is defined in reference to the two conditions that define dynamic systems. Specifically, he argued that reality involves transformations and states. Transformations refer to all manners of changes that a thing or person can undergo. States refer to the conditions or the appearances in which things or persons can be found between transformations. For example, there might be changes in shape or form (for instance, liquids are reshaped as they are transferred from one vessel to another, humans change in their characteristics as they grow older), in size (e.g., a series of coins on a table might be placed close to each other or far apart) in placement or location in space and time (e.g., various objects or persons might be found at one place at one time and at a different place at another time). Thus, Piaget argued, that if human intelligence is to be adaptive, it must have functions to represent both the transformational and the static aspects of reality. He proposed that operative intelligence is responsible for the representation and manipulation of the dynamic or transformational aspects of reality and that figurative intelligence is responsible for the representation of the static aspects of reality.[1] Operative intelligence is the active aspect of intelligence. It involves all actions, overt or covert, undertaken in order to follow, recover, or anticipate the transformations of the objects or persons of interest. Figurative intelligence is the more or less static aspect of intelligence, involving all means of representation used to retain in mind the states (i.e., successive forms, shapes, or locations) that intervene between transformations. That is, it involves perception, imitation, mental imagery, drawing, and language. Therefore, the figurative aspects of intelligence derive their meaning from the operative aspects of intelligence, because states cannot exist independently of the transformations that interconnect them. Piaget believed that the figurative or the representational aspects of intelligence are subservient to its operative and dynamic aspects, and therefore, that understanding essentially derives from the operative aspect of intelligence. At any time, operative intelligence frames how the world is understood and it changes if understanding is not successful. Piaget believed that this process of

understanding and change involves two basic functions: Assimilation and accommodation. [edit] Assimilation and accommodation Through studying the field of education Piaget focused on accommodation and assimilation. Assimilation, one of two processes coined by Jean Piaget, describes how humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of taking one‘s environment and new information and fitting it into pre-existing cognitive schemas. Assimilation occurs when humans are faced with new or unfamiliar information and refer to previously learned information in order to make sense of it. Accommodation, unlike assimilation is the process of taking one's environment and new information, and altering one's pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information. Through a series of stages, Piaget explains the ways in which characteristics are constructed that lead to specific types of thinking; this chart is called Cognitive Development. To Piaget, assimilation is integrating external elements into structures of lives or environments or those we could have through experience. It is through assimilation that accommodation is derived. Accommodation is imperative because it is how people will continue to interpret new concepts, schemas, frameworks, etc.[2] Assimilation is different from accommodation because of how it relates to the inner organism due to the environment. Piaget believes that the human brain has been programmed through evolution to bring equilibrium, and to move upwards in a process to equilibriate what is not. The equilibrium is what Piaget believes ultimately influences structures because of the internal and external processes through assimilation and accommodation. Piaget's understanding is that these two functions cannot exist without the other. To assimilate an object into an existing mental schema, one first needs to take into account or accommodate to the particularities of this object to a certain extent; for instance, to recognize (assimilate) an apple as an apple one needs first to focus (accommodate) on the contour of this object. To do this one needs to roughly recognize the size of the object. Development increases the balance or equilibration between these two functions. When in balance with each other, assimilation and accommodation generate mental schemas of the operative intelligence. When one function dominates over the other, they generate representations which belong to figurative intelligence.

[edit] Sensorimotor stage The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages in cognitive development which "extends from birth to the acquisition of language".[3] "In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions. Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they perform on it. An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage. Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six sub-stages"[4]:0– 2 years, Infants just have senses-vision, hearing, and motor skills, such as grasping, sucking, and stepping.---from Psychology Study Guide by Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, Roy The first stage is called the Sensorimotor stage (birth to about age 2). In this stage knowledge of the world is limited (but developing) because it‘s based on physical interactions/experiences. The child learns that he is separate from his environment and that aspects of his environment continue to exist even though they may be outside the reach of his senses. Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli. In this stage according to Piaget, the development of object permanence is one of the most important accomplishments at the sensorimotor stage. (Object permanence is a child‘s understanding that objects continue to exist even though they cannot be seen or heard). Sub-Stage Age Description "Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors".[4] Three primary reflexes are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth, following moving or interesting objects with the eyes, and closing of the hand when an object makes contact with the palm (palmar grasp). Over the first six weeks of life, these reflexes begin to become voluntary actions; for example, the palmar reflex becomes intentional grasping.[5]).

1 Simple Reflexes

Birth-6 weeks

2 First habits and 6 weeks- "Coordination of sensation and two types of primary circular 4 schemes: habits (reflex) and primary circular

reactions phase

months reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance). Main focus is still on the infant's body."[4] As an example of this type of reaction, an infant might repeat the motion of passing their hand before their face. Also at this phase, passive reactions, caused by classical or operant conditioning, can begin.[5]

Development of habits. "Infants become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results."[4] This stage is associated primarily with the development of coordination between vision and prehension. Three new abilities occur at this stage: intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions, and differentiations between 3 Secondary 4–8 ends and means. At this stage, infants will circular reactions months intentionally grasp the air in the direction of a phase desired object, often to the amusement of friends and family. Secondary circular reactions, or the repetition of an action involving an external object begin; for example, moving a switch to turn on a light repeatedly. The differentiation between means and ends also occurs. This is perhaps one of the most important stages of a child's growth as it signifies the dawn of logic.[5] "Coordination of vision and touch--hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemes and 4 Coordination of 8–12 intentionality."[4] This stage is associated primarily secondary circular months with the development of logic and the coordination reactions stages between means and ends. This is an extremely important stage of development, holding what

Piaget calls the "first proper intelligence." Also, this stage marks the beginning of goal orientation, the deliberate planning of steps to meet an objective.[5] "Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment with new 5 Tertiary circular 12–18 behavior."[4] This stage is associated primarily with reactions, novelty, months the discovery of new means to meet goals. Piaget and curiosity describes the child at this juncture as the "young scientist," conducting pseudo-experiments to discover new methods of meeting challenges.[5] "Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations."[4] This 6 Internalization of 18–24 stage is associated primarily with the beginnings of Schemes months insight, or true creativity. This marks the passage into the preoperational stage. By the end of the sensorimotor period, objects are both separate from the self and permanent. Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Acquiring the sense of object permanence is one of the infant's most important accomplishments, according to Piaget.[4] [edit] Preoperational stage The Cognitive Development Approaches. By observing sequences of play, Jean Piaget was able to demonstrate that towards the end of the second year, a qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs.[6] (Pre)Operatory Thought is any procedure for mentally acting on objects. The hallmark of the preoperational stage is sparse and logically inadequate mental operations. During this stage, the child learns to use and to represent objects by images, words, and drawings.The child is able to form stable concepts as well as mental reasoning and magical beliefs. The child however is still not able to

perform operations; tasks that the child can do mentally rather than physically. Thinking is still egocentric. The child has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Two substages can be formed from preoperative thought.[6]


The Symbolic Function Substage Occurs between about the ages of 2 and 7. At 2-4 years of age, kids cannot yet manipulate and transform information in logical ways, but they now can think in images and symbols. The child is able to formulate designs of objects that are not present. Other examples of mental abilities are language and pretend play. Although there is an advance in progress, there are still limitations such as egocentrism and animism. Egocentrism occurs when a child is unable to distinguish between their own perspective and that of another person's. Children tend to pick their own view of what they see rather than the actual view shown to others. An example is an experiment performed by Piaget and Barbel Inhelder. Three views of a mountain are shown and the child is asked what a traveling doll would see at the various angles; the child picks their own view compared to the actual view of the doll. Animism is the belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities. An example is a child believing that the sidewalk was mad and made them fall down.[6]



The Intuitive Thought Substage Occurs between about the ages of 4 and 7. Children tend to become very curious and ask many questions; begin the use of primitive reasoning. There is an emergence in the interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are. Piaget called it the intuitive substage because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge but they are unaware of how they know it. 'Centration' and 'conservation' are both involved in preoperative thought. Centration is the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic compared to the others. Centration is noticed in conservation; the awareness that altering a substance's appearance does not change its basic properties. Children at this stage are unaware of conservation. Example, In Piaget's most famous task, a child is

presented with two identical beakers containing the same amount of liquid. The child usually notes that the beakers have the same amount of liquid. When one of the beakers is poured into a taller and thinner container, children who are younger than 7 or 8 years old typically say that the two beakers no longer contain the same amount of liquid, and the taller container holds the larger quantity. The child simply focuses on the height and width of the container compared to the general concept.[6] The second stage is called Pre-operational stage (begins about the time the child starts to talk at about the age of 2). Intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imaginations are developed. The child‘s thinking is influenced by fantasy (the way the child would like things to be) and the child assumes that others see situations from his viewpoint. The child takes in information and then changes it in his mind to fit his idea. Piaget noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information. Children‘s increase in playing and pretending takes place in the pre-operational stage. [edit] Concrete operational stage The concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the preoperational stage, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years[7] and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are: Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient. Transitivity- Transitivity, which refers to the ability to recognize relationships among various things in a serial order. For example, when told to put away his books according to height, the child recognizes that he starts with placing the tallest one on one end of the bookshelf and the shortest one ends up at the other end. Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.

Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally wide, taller cup. Reversibility—the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For example, during this stage, a child understands that a favorite ball that deflates is not gone but can be filled with air again and put back into play. Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items. Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic in which Jane puts a doll under a box, leaves the room, and then Melissa moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child in the concrete operations stage will say that Jane will still think it's under the box even though the child knows it is in the drawer. (See also False-belief task). Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks. The third stage is known as Concrete operational stage (First grade to early adolescence): Intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. The child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgements about concrete or observable phenomena, which in the past he needed to manipulate physically to understand. Logic: Piaget determined that children in the concrete operational stage were able to incorporate inductive logic. On the other hand, children at this age have difficulty using deductive logic, which involves using a general principle to predict the outcome of a specific event. Reversibility: An example of this is being able to reverse the order of relationships between mental categories. For example, a child might be able to recognize that his or her dog is a Labrador, that a Labrador is a dog, and that a dog is an animal, and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.[8] The abstract quality of the adolescent's thought at the formal operational level is evident in the adolescent's verbal problem solving ability.[8] The logical quality of the adolescent's thought is when children are more likely to solve problems in a trial-and-error fashion.[8] Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions. [8] They use

hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses or best guesses, and systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem.[8] During this stage the adolescent is able to understand such things as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs and values. During this stage the young person begins to entertain possibilities for the future and is fascinated with what they can be.[8] Adolescents are changing cognitively also by the way that they think about social matters.[8] Adolescent Egocentrism governs the way that adolescents think about social matters and is the heightened selfconsciousness in them as they are which is reflected in their sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.[8] Adolescent egocentrism can be dissected into two types of social thinking, imaginary audience that involves attention getting behavior, and personal fable which involves an adolescent's sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.[8] [edit] Formal operational stage The final stage is known as Formal operational stage (adolescence and into adulthood): Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. At this point, the person is capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts. Logic: Piaget believed that deductive logic becomes important during the formal operational stage. This type of thinking involves hypothetical situations and is often required in science and mathematics. Abstract thought emerges during the formal operational stage. Children tend to think very concretely and specifically in earlier stages. Children begin to consider possible outcomes and consequences of actions. Problem-Solving is demonstrated when children use trialand-error to solve problems. The ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodical way emerges. [edit] The stages and causation Piaget sees children‘s conception of causation as a march from "primitive" conceptions of cause to those of a more scientific, rigorous, and mechanical nature. These primitive concepts are characterized as magical, with a decidedly nonnatural or non mechanical tone. Piaget attributes this to his most basic assumption: that babies are phenomenists. That is, their knowledge "consists of assimilating things to schemas" from their own action such that they appear, from th e child‘s point of view, "to have qualities which in fact stem from the organism." Consequently, these "subjective conceptions," so prevalent during Piaget‘s first stage of development, are dashed upon discovering deeper empirical truths. Piaget gives the

example of a child believing the moon and stars follow him on a night walk; upon learning that such is the case for his friends, he must separate his self from the object, resulting in a theory that the moon is immobile, or moves independently of other agents. The second stage, from around three to eight years of age, is characterized by a mix of this type of magical, animistic, or ―nonnatural‖ conceptions of causation and mechanical or "naturalisitic" causation. This conjunction of natural and nonnatural causal explanations supposedly stems from experience itself, though Piaget does not make much of an attempt to describe the nature of the differences in conception; in his interviews with children, he asked specifically about natural phenomena: what makes clouds move? What makes the stars move? Why do rivers flow? The nature of all the answers given, Piaget says, are such that these objects must perform their actions to "fulfill their obligations towards men." He calls this "moral explanation."[9] [edit] Challenges to Piagetian stage theory Piagetians' accounts of development have been challenged on several grounds. First, as Piaget himself noted, development does not always progress in the smooth manner his theory seems to predict. 'Decalage', or unpredicted gaps in the developmental progression, suggest that the stage model is at best a useful approximation. Furthermore, studies have found that children may be able to learn concepts supposedly represented in more advanced stages with relative ease. [10] More broadly, Piaget's theory is 'domain general', predicting that cognitive maturation occurs concurrently across different domains of knowledge (such as mathematics, logic, understanding of physics, of language, etc.). During the 1980s and 1990s, cognitive developmentalists were influenced by "neo-nativist" and evolutionary psychology ideas. These ideas de-emphasized domain general theories and emphasized domain specificity or modularity of mind. Modularity implies that different cognitive faculties may be largely independent of one another and thus develop according to quite different time-tables. In this vein, some cognitive developmentalists argued that rather than being domain general learners, children come equipped with domain specific theories, sometimes referred to as 'core knowledge', which allows them to break into learning within that domain. For example, even young infants appear to be sensitive to some predictable regularities in the movement and interactions of objects (e.g. that one object cannot pass through another), or in human behavior (e.g. that a hand repeatedly reaching for an object has that object, not just a particular path of motion), as its be the building block out of which more elaborate knowledge is constructed. More recent work has strongly challenged some of the basic presumptions of the 'core knowledge' school, and revised ideas of domain generality—but from a newer dynamic systems

approach, not from a revised Piagetian perspective. Dynamic systems approaches harken to modern neuroscientific research that was not available to Piaget when he was constructing his theory. One important finding is that domain-specific knowledge is constructed as children develop and integrate knowledge. This suggests more of a "smooth integration" of learning and development than either Piaget, or his neo-nativist critics, had envisioned. Additionally, some psychologists, such as Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner, thought differently from Piaget, suggesting that language was more important than Piaget implied. [edit] Post Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian stages Main article: Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development In the recent years, several scholars attempted to ameliorate the problems of Piaget's theory by developing new theories and models that can accommodate evidence that violates Piagetian predictions and postulates. These models are summarized below.


The neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, advanced by Case, Demetriou, Halford, Fischer, and Pascual-Leone, attempted to integrate Piaget's theory with cognitive and differential theories of cognitive organization and development. Their aim was to better account for the cognitive factors of development and for intra-individual and interindividual differences in cognitive development. They suggested that development along Piaget's stages is due to increasing working memory capacity and processing efficiency. Moreover, Demetriou´s theory ascribes an important role to hypercognitive processes of self-recording, selfmonitoring, and self-regulation and it recognizes the operation of several relatively autonomous domains of thought (Demetriou, 1998; Demetriou, Mouyi, Spanoudis, 2010). Postformal stages have been proposed. Kurt Fischer suggested two, Michael Commons presents evidence for four postformal stages: the systematic, metasystematic, paradigmatic and cross paradigmatic. (Commons & Richards, 2003; Oliver, 2004). A "sentential" stage has been proposed, said to occur before the early preoperational stage. Proposed by Fischer, Biggs and Biggs, Commons, and Richards.







Searching for a micro-physiological basis for human mental capacity, Traill (1978, Section C5.4 [2]; - 1999, Section 8.4 [3]) proposed that there may be "pre-sensorimotor" stages ("M−1L", "M−2L", … … ) — developed in the womb and/or transmitted genetically.

[edit] Postulated physical mechanisms underlying "schemes" and stages Piaget (1967) considered the possibility of RNA molecules as likely embodiments of his still-abstract "schemes" (which he promoted as units of action) — though he did not come to any firm conclusion. At that time, due to work such as that of Holger Hydén, RNA concentrations had indeed been shown to correlate with learning, so the idea was quite plausible. However, by the time of Piaget's death in 1980, this notion had lost favour. One main problem was over the protein which (it was assumed) such RNA would necessarily produce, and that did not fit in with observation. It then turned out, surprisingly, that only about 3% of RNA does code for protein (Mattick, 2001, 2003, 2004). Hence most of the remaining 97% (the "ncRNA") could now theoretically be available to serve as Piagetian schemes (or other regulatory roles now under investigation). The issue has not yet been resolved experimentally, but its theoretical aspects have been reviewed; (Traill 2005 / 2008).

Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory This page was last updated on October 7, 2011 Introduction
  

Jean Piaget (1952-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. He developed one of the most comprehensive theories of cognitive development. He explained genetic epistemology, a concept which refers to

"study of developmental changes in the process of knowing and in the organization of knowledge." Terminology












Scheme o a term used by Piaget to describe the models, or mental structures, that we create to represent ,organize, and interpret our experiences. Organization o the process by which children combine existing schemes into new and more complex intellectual structures. Adaptation o an inborn tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment through assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation o the process of interpreting new experiences by incorporating them into existing schemes. Accommodation o the process of modifying existing schemes in order to incorporate or adapt to new experiences. Development o Changes occurring throughout the lifespan that are orderly and adaptive.

Stages of Cognitive Development Cognitive development progress through four stages:
   

Sensory-motor stage Preoperational stage Concrete operational stage Formal operational stage

Sensory-motor stage: 0-2 years
   

Learning through 5 senses Development of imitative behaviors Development of symbolic knowledge Develops object permanence



The beginning of goal-directed actions

Preoperational Stage: 2–7 years
   

Semiotic function – ability to use symbols One-way logic Difficulty with the principle of conservation Egocentrism

Concrete Operational Stage: 7–11 years
     

“Hands on” thinking Identity Compensation Reversibility Classification Seriation

Formal Operational Stage: 11 years to adult
    

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning Abstract thinking “Scientific” reasoning Adolescent egocentrism & imaginary audience Not all individuals reach this stage

Conclusion
 

Piaget made important contributions to our understanding of normal intellectual development. Piagian theories provide a fundamental starting point for understanding childhood cognitive development.

Piaget's Stages An Overview of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understand how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding its very nature. Stage Age Characteristics Developmental Changes

Sensorimotor Stage Birth The infant knows to 2 the world through Infants learn that Years their movements things continue to and sensations. exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence). They are separate beings from the people and objects around them. They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around

them. Learning occurs through assimilation and accommodation. Preoperational Stage 2 to Children begin to 7 think symbolically Children at this Years and learn to use stage tend to be egocentric and words and struggle to see pictures to represent objects. things from the perspective of They also tend to others. be very egocentric, and While they are see things only getting better from their point of with language and view. thinking, they still tend to think about things in very conrete terms. Concrete Operational 7 to During this stage, They begin to Stage 11 children begin to understand the Years thinking logically concept of about concrete conservation; the events. the amount of liquid in a short,

wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass. Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete. Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle. Formal Operational Stage 12 and Up At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.

Abstract thought emerges. Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning. Begin to use

deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.

Piaget's Model of Cognitive Development
Much of modern cognitive theory, including its relationship to socialization, stems from the work of the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget. In the 1920s Piaget observed children reasoning and understanding differently, depending on their age. He proposed that all children progress through a series of cognitive stages of development, just as they progress through a series of physical stages of development. According to Piaget, the rate at which children pass through these cognitive stages may vary, but they eventually pass through all of them in the same order. Piaget introduced several other important concepts. According to Piaget, cognitive development occurs from two processes: adaptation and equilibrium. Adaptation involves the child's changing to meet situational demands. Adaptation involves two sub-processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is the application of previous concepts to new concepts. An example is the child who refers to a whale as a “fish.” Accommodation is the altering of previous concepts in the face of new information. An example is the child who discovers that some creatures living in the ocean are not fish, and then correctly refers to a whale as a “mammal.” Equilibrium is the search for “balance” between self and the world, and involves the matching of the child's adaptive functioning to situational demands. Equilibrium keeps the infant moving along the developmental pathway, allowing him or her to make increasingly effective adaptations. A brief summary of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development appears in Table 1 .

TABLE 1 Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage Age Characteristics of Stage

Sensorimotor

0–2

The child learns by doing: looking, touching, sucking. The child also has a primitive understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. Object permanence appears around 9 months.

Preoperational

2–7

The child uses language and symbols, including letters and numbers. Egocentrism is also evident. Conservation marks the end of the preoperational stage and the beginning of concrete operations.

Concrete Operations

7–11 The child demonstrates conservation, reversibility, serial ordering, and a mature understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. Thinking at this stage is still concrete.

Formal Operations

12+

The individual demonstrates abstract thinking, including logic, deductive reasoning, comparison, and classification.

Theory of Cognitive Development
The Theory of Cognitive Development formulated by the famous psychologist Jean Piaget is perhaps the most comprehensive and extensive theory that explain the development of human intelligence as a person grows from being an infant into a full grown adult. According to Piaget‘s Theory of Cognitive Development, intelligence is brought about by a series of transformations and various states, and that change is necessary for a person‘s intellect to be enhanced.

Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget described the development of human intelligence throughout the lifespan of a person. The four stages connote that as a normal person grows older, there is an evident increase in abstraction and complexity in thinking and rationalizing things.

1. Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years old)

The sensorimotor stage is the phase that spans from the birth of the individual up to the time when he learns and acquires language. The infant is very reliant to what he sees and hears, and that he would react according to these sensory experiences. This stage also includes the reflexes of the baby which include sucking, grasping and stepping. By the end of the sensorimotor stage, the infant learns object permanence, which is the understanding that an object continues to exist even when he can‘t see, hear or touch it.
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)

In this stage, the child is more engaged with play, and uses preoperatory thought, which is the process by which the child represents objects through the use of words, scribbles, drawings and pictures. The mental reasoning of the child is developed in this stage, but he still cannot perform operations. Egocentrism (self-centeredness) and animism (belief that inanimate objects can move or talk) are evident. Conservation is the main task in this stage. When you present two identical glasses, Glass A and Glass B, to a child and pour equal amounts of water, he would say that they have indeed the same amount of water. However, when you pour the contents of one glass to another glass, Glass C, which is thinner and taller, the child would say that Glass A and Glass C now contains different amounts of water. Failure of this task connotes that the child is still in preoperational stage.
3. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years old)

This stage starts when the child begins to use logic appropriately. The child is able to classify objects (classification), sort them according to their attributes (seriation) and divide a problem into several components in order to solve it (decentering).
4. Formal Operational Stage (11 years and above)

This stage is the hallmark of abstract thinking and usage of hypothetical rationalization. The child is able to systematically look into problems and test several solutions.

Accommodation and Assimilation
Piaget‘s Theory of Cognitive Development included the concepts of accommodation and assimilation. He believed that there are pre-existing cognitive schemas in each individual. Because of the process of assimilation, we tend to take the relatively new information unknown to us from our environment and fit them into these innate cognitive patterns. This can be compared to finding the key that would perfectly fit the lock‘s hole so that it would be opened. On the other hand, the process of accommodation states that we get the information from the environment, then change our own cognitive patterns so that the information we got will suit our schemas. In the example we had mentioned, the process of accommodation is like changing the shape of the lock‘s hole in order for the key to fit in it.

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