Cognitive Theory of Development by Jean Piaget

COGNITIVE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

is an age related change that occurs in mental activities such as attending, perceiving, learning, thinking and remembering

organization abd adaptation

2 intellectual functions of human beings

Organization

the child’s tendency to arrange available schemata into coherent systems or bodies of knowledge. It is inborn and automatic. Children are constantly rearranging their existing knowledge to produce new and more complex mental

Adaptation

the child’s tendency to adjust to the demands of the environment.

assiilation and accomodation

2 ways for adaptation to occur according to jean Piaget

Assimilation

a process in which children seek to incorporate new experiences into schemata they already have. It would rarely allow one to adapt successfully to new experiences.

Accomodation

process in which children alter their existing schemata in response to environmental development

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants are busy discovering the relationships between sensations and other motor behavior. The main feature of this stage is the child’s mastery of the principle of object permanence.

Preoperational Stage

The child now develops the capacity to employ symbols, particularly language. Children use symbols to portray the external world internally.

Egocentrism

Children 4 & 5 years old consider their own view point to be the only possible and Piaget terms this as

Perspective-Taking

Egocentric children struggle to understand that other people may have different viewpoints or feelings. For example, a child might think that if they like a certain toy, everyone else will like it too.

Three Mountains Task

an experiment conducte by piaget to illustrate egocentrism

Developmental Progression

As children grow and develop cognitively, they begin to overcome egocentrism. By around age 7, most children can understand that others may have different perspectives and can take those into account when discussing situations

Concrete Operational Stage

It is the beginning of rational activity in children. They come to master various logical operations, including arithmetic, class and set relationships, measurement, and conceptions of hierarchical structures.

Formal Operations Stage

In this stage the child’s thought remains fixed upon the visible evidence and concrete properties of objects and events. Now children acquire a greater ability to deal with abstractions, hypothetical reasoning based on logic. Adolescents acquire the capacity for adult thinking