Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Core principles

• intelligence

• active exploration

• constructivism

Cognitive schemas

cognition develops through refinement and transformation of mental schemas, which are created through complementary processes

Creation of schemas

1. equilibrium

2. adaptation

3. assimilation

4. accomodation

5. organisation

Equilibrium

Child is provided information that results in the creation of a schema

Adaptation

The tendency to adjust to demands of the environment

Assimilation

Interpreting new experiencces and incorporating them into existing schemas

Accomodation

modifying existing schemas to adapt to new experiences

Organisation

combining and integrating existing schemas into more complex intellectual schemas

Stages of cognitive development

1. sensorimotor (birth-2 years)

2. preoperational (2-7 years)

3. concrete-operational (7-11 years)

4. formal-operational (11+ years)

Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 yrs)

• coordination of sensory inputs and motor capabilities to perform behavioural schemas to explore environment

• develop problem-solving skills - organizing innate reflexes to efficiently explore environment

• imitation: mimicking novel actions by model (voluntary 12-18mo, deferred 18-24 mo)

• object permenance: objects continue to exist when no longer visible

Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)

• symbolic function: ability to make sumbols represent something else (observed 2.5-3 yrs, improves substantially over early childhood)

• deficits in thought - egocentrism, animism, causality, perception-bound thought, centration, irreversibility

Concrete-operational stage (7-11 yrs)

• cognitive operations: internal mental ability to modify and reorganise sumbols to reach a logical conclusion

• many deficits in reasoning from preoperational stage are resolved

Formal-operational stage (11+ yrs)

• thought gradually becomes more rational and systematic about abstract concepts and hypothetical events (hypothetico-deductive reasoning)

• capacity for inductive reasoning: generating hypotheses and systematically testing them

• facilitates identity development, understanding perspectives, making important decisions, and questioning status quo

• intellectual tools of formal-operational are accompanied by resurgence of adolescent egocentrism, which adolescents gradually outgrow

Contributions

• fooundations of discipline of cognitive development

• frames children as actively constructing their own knowledge

• among first theories to attempt to explain the process of development

• reasonably accurate overview of how children of different ages think

• major influence on thinking about social and emotional development

Drawbacks

• assumes failure in tasks results in deficiency in underlying concepts, not lack of understanding of task requirements

• stagewise approach - some argue development is a gradual process

• too little attention paid to social/cultural influences - assumption that children explore and learn relatively independent of other people

Intelligence

production of cognitive equilibrium through equilibriation that enables an organism to adapt to their environment

active exploration

children explore and are challenged by novel stimuli and events

Constructivism

gain knowledge by acting on objects and events to discover properties