Cognitive Development from

Piagetian Perspective

Dr. Deepshikha Ray, Associate

Professor, Department of
Psychology, University of
Calcutta
 ➔ Acquiring knowledge structures through
progressive internalization of action
➔ Agents in their own learning
➔ Knowledge changes from
◆ Context bound to context free
Constructivist ◆ Externally supported to internally
Theory driven
➔ Incremental view of knowledge
construction
◆ Children outgrow their current
understanding

Consciousness of self occurs correlated with the consciousness of

others

Sensory motor Representation Abstraction

At birth, infants show
★ Diffuse, isolated, global movement
★ Cannot differentiate between subject and object
○ Adualism
★ Cannot construct meaningful relationship between movement patterns
★ Relates everything / every source of action with it’s body
○ Centration

Gradual dawning of self and intellectual ability

★ Occurs through perception action cycles
★ Infant’s basic organization of the world is paced & constrained by
ability to produce & control movement
★ Infant becomes aware of himself as the source of action
★ Object / external world is an extension of self / action

➢ Locked in action
Sensorimotor Cognition ➢ Locked in immediate space and time
➢ Movement = perception
 Infant does not recognize
positions and displacements as
A not B Error
relative to one another but only
as relative to itself.
Sensorimotor Preoperational

beta gamma
alpha

★ Action sequences ★ External

★ Means and end perspective
★ Complete analysis on self
centration ★ Partial ★ Mirror
★ Newborn doesn't differentiation recognition
distinguish between self & ★ Self as both
between itself object agent &
& world ★ Objects are recipient of
extensions of self action
 ➔ Body of another person is an
independent source of causality
➔ Existence of object is dissociated from
action
➔ Development of external perspective on
self
◆ Joint attention
◆ Emergence of empathy
Preoperational ➔ Semiotic function / representational
ability emerges
◆ Deferred imitation
◆ Pretend play
◆ Drawing
➔ Cognition transcends here & now
➔ Capable of referring to “absent”
➔ Starts using words / symbols
Preoperational Concrete Operational

➔ Representational ➔ Representational
ability emerges ability improves
➔ Deals with material ➔ Deals with non
objects material but actual
experiences

★ In pre-operational stage, signs refer to material objects or

actions
★ In Concrete Operational stage, signs refer to notions and
mental entities
★ Children starts thinking and using language but does not think
in a logical manner
★ Thinking is heavily dependent on what they can perceive
 Characteristics of Preoperational Cognition

Syncretism To think in wholes without

taking parts into account

To link thoughts together in

terms of arbitrary association
Juxtaposition
without subordinating one
thought to another

Transductive Reasoning from particular to

reasoning particular
Concrete Operational Formal Operational

➔ Notional / intangible ➔ Hypothetico-deductive

events must be reasoning
experienced ◆ Can subordinate
➔ Master conversation reality to
tasks possibility
➔ Learns logical ➔ Develops abstract
reasoning reasoning
➔ Learns perspective ➔ Decentration is
taking maximum
➔ Cannot disengage
these skills from a
concrete situation /
specific experience
Assimilation Accommodation

Subjectivity Objectivity

Equilibration
★ Modifying or
★ Restructuring
changing new
the cognitive
information to
structure to
fit existing
fit in new
cognitive
information
structure

Egocentricity
➔ Primacy of assimilation
over accommodation
 Egocentricity

Lack of differentiation between

sensory motor stage
self & non self

Lack of differentiation between

Preoperational stage
symbol & symbolized

Mental formulations attached

Concrete Operational
to concrete experiences /
stage
reality
 ★ The sensorimotor system of the neonate -
★ Zelazo (1983) suggested that,
○ movements are initiated by the
“the infant’s cognitive
subject and
development is not only
○ they are goal-directed and flexible
synonymous with his or her
■ they can be altered to gain
sensorimotor development,
advantages.
but that it can be measured by
★ This makes it possible for the infant to
his or her motor ability”
explore the relationship between
★ In the Bayley test, the widest
commands and movements
used scale of infant
○ and discover the possibilities and
development, cognitive and
constraints of manual actions.
language skills are inferred
★ Both locomotion and reaching are crucial
through motor outputs
for the interaction with the outside world.
★ Motor development can instigate a cascade of events that leads to learning and development in
areas seemingly far afield from motor behavior (Adolph & Robinson, 2013). For example :
○ Development of sitting facilitates improvements in
■ reaching (Rachwani et al., 2013)
■ visual-manual object exploration (Soska & Adolph, 2014)
■ Enhanced spatial memory (Oudgenoeg-Paz et al, 2015)
○ Improvements in manual skills,
■ facilitate shifts in attention to object form (Soska et al, 2010),
■ Perception of object appearance (Baumgartner & Oakes, 2013),
■ Perception of object size (Libertus et al., 2013), and
■ other people’s intentions to grasp objects (Loucks & Sommerville, 2012)
○ Crawling experience is related to
■ increased anger when infants’ goals are thwarted (Roben et al., 2012), sensitivity to
optic flow information for balance (Campos et al., 2000),
■ differentiation of self-propelled versus externally caused object motion (Cicchino &
Rakison, 2008),
■ mental rotation abilities (Schwarzer et al, 2013),
■ preferential looking to point light displays (Sanefuji, Ohgami, & Hashiya, 2008)
★ Walle and Campos (2014) demonstrated the relationship between language
development and the acquisition of walking.
○ 10–13-month-old infants were followed every 2 weeks for 3.5 months
■ onset of walking was associated with an immediate increase in
receptive language ability, independent of age
■ walking infants had larger productive and receptive vocabularies than
crawling infants
★ As walkers see the world differently from crawlers (Kretch et al., 2014),
○ visual access to distal cues (including human bodies and faces) might be
related to the increased language development at walking onset
Implications for improving children’s motor development

★ Can we improve a child’s motor skills and should intervention efforts include this domain?
★ 3-month-old infants were provided with scaffolded reaching experiences using ‘sticky mittens’
(Needham et al., 2002; Libertus and Landa, 2014); training effects were examined immediately
after training and 2 months later.
○ Results show that trained infants showed improved object engagement and exploration,
■ both immediately after training
■ and after a 2-month delay (without further training in the meantime).
★ Pesce et al (2016) provided 5- to 10- year-old children with enriched physical education (PE)
and examined the impact of this experience on their cognitive abilities
○ Improved motor coordination
○ Better response inhibition
○ More outdoor play
★ Bluma & Lipowska (2018) proposed that physical play in early & late childhood improves
cognitive functioning
References

➔ Gonzalez, C. L., & Sacrey, L. A. R. (2018). The development of the motor

system. In The neurobiology of brain and behavioral development (pp.
235-256). Academic Press.
➔ von Hofsten, C., & Rosander, K. (2018). The development of sensorimotor
intelligence in infants. Advances in child development and behavior, 55,
73-106.
➔ Libertus, K., & Hauf, P. (2017). Motor skills and their foundational role for
perceptual, social, and cognitive development. Frontiers in psychology, 8,
301.
➔ Bidzan-Bluma, I., & Lipowska, M. (2018). Physical activity and cognitive
functioning of children: a systematic review. International journal of
environmental research and public health, 15(4), 800.