Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget:
 Born August 9 1896, Switzerland- died September 16 1980, Genova.
 A Swiss psychologist who was the first to make a systematic study of th4e acquisition
of understanding in children.
 He is thought by many to have been the major figure in 20th century developmental
psychology.

Cognitive development:
 Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge
and comprehension.
 Some of the many different cognitive processes include attention, thinking knowing,
remembering, judging, and problem solving.

What is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

 Suggests that children’s intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. They are
invariant (pass through stages in the same sequence without skipping any).
 Cognitive development in children occurs through interaction of innate capacities
with environmental events. They are universal (the same for everyone, irrespective
of culture).
 Piaget suggested that children sort the knowledge they acquire through their
experiences and interactions into groupings known as schemas. These are the basic
building blocks of intelligent behaviour.
 When new information is acquired, it can either be assimilated into existing schemas
or accommodated through revising an existing schema or creating an entirely new
category of information.

Schema development stages:

1. Assimilation- child builds a theory- this is a cat.
2. Equilibrium- everything seems to fit this theory- still a cat.
3. Disequilibrium- something happens to cast doubt on the theory- cat?
4. Accommodation- new information is added into the schema- these are all cats.

Types of schemas:
1. Person schemas- appearance, personality, preferences, behaviour.
2. Social schemas- be respectful, pay for movie tickets etc.
3. Self-schemas- hating a certain food, being smart or not.
4. Event schemas- handshakes, being professional, business attire.
Evaluation of Piaget’s theory:

Strengths Limitations
 Real world application- has been  Focuses heavily on the child being
applied to education, children are an independent learner.
active learners not passive etc. so
teachers see the theory and provide
appropriate materials to challenge
them.
 Howe et al. supports the theory  Fails to recognise the role of
that children form individual learning as a social process.
representations of the world-
supports the idea that they are
active learners.
 The most comprehensive theory of  Places great emphasis on internal
cognitive development that had motivation as being a key driving
major influence on understanding force for children to learn.
child intellectual development
during that time.

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development:

 Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years.
 Pre-operational stage: 2 to 7 years.
 Concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years.
 Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up.

Stage 1- Sensorimotor period:

 Coordination of sensory input and motor responses; development of object
permanence.

Stage 2- Pre-operational stage:

 Development of symbolic thought marked by irreversibility, concentration, and
egocentrism.

Stage 3- Concrete operational stage:

 Mental operations applied to concrete events; mastery of conservation, hierarchical
classification.

Stage 4- Formal operational stage:

 Mental operations applied to abstract ideas; logical, systematic thinking.
Stage name and age
of this stage
Stage 1- Sensorimotor-
birth to 2 years.
Stage 2- Pre-operational- 2
to 7 years.
Stage 3- Concrete
operational- 7 to 11 years.
Stage 4- Formal
operational- 12 years and
up.
Support for Piaget’s theory
Object permanence:
The inability to understand that things
continue to exist when out of sight.
Characteristics/restrictions Abilities that are developing
during this stage
 Learning through  Object permanence.
senses and action.
 Lives in the here and
now.
 Full object
permanence lacking.
 Has symbolic  Symbolic thought.
thought.  Egocentrism.
 Egocentrism.  Conservation.
 Inability to conserve.  Class inclusion.
 Language
development.
 Can perform  Abstract thought is
operations with developing/ not
familiar materials. great.
 No longer
egocentric.
 Can conserve.
 Cannot deal with
abstract concepts or
hypothetical tasks.
 Can deal with  Systematic thinking
hypothetical dealing with
concepts. hypothetical
 Can solve problems problems.
in a systematic,
logical way.
Aim of the study, findings and conclusions
 Piaget observed babies looking at
objects and watches as the objects
were removed from sight- placed
cloth over.
 He noted that before 8 months,
babies immediately switched their
attention away from the object once
it was out of sight. However, from
around 8 months they would
continue to look for it.
 This led Piaget to believe that it was
from this age that babies
understood that objects continue to
exist when removed from view.
 Egocentrism:
To not see the world only from one’s own
point of view.
Conservation:
Understanding that things are the same
even if they look different.
Class inclusion:
The ability to classify objects into two or
more categories simultaneously e.g. a
Labrador is a dog and an animal.
Evaluation of Piaget’s theory- limitations:
Object permanence (sensorimotor stage):
 Baillargeon and DeVos, object permanence can occur as early as three months.
 Moore and Meltzoff, lack of physical coordination that prevents young babies from
passing the object permanence test- not their inability to understand that objects
continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
 Piaget and Inhelder’s three
mountains task- children were
shown three model mountains, each
with a different feature, a cross, a
house of snow.
 A doll was placed at the side of the
model so that it faced the scene
from a different angle from the
child. The child was asked to choose
what the doll would ‘see’ from a
range of pictures.
 Piaget placed two rows of eight
identical counters side by side.
 Even young children correctly
reasoned that each row of counters
had the same number. However,
when the counters in one of the
rows were pushed closer together,
pre-operational children struggled
to conserve and usually said there
were fewer counters in that row.
 Piaget and Inhelder found that
children under the age of seven
struggle with the more advanced
skill of class inclusion, the idea that
classifications have subsets.
 So when they showed 7-8 year old
children pictures of five dogs and
two cats and asked ‘are there more
dogs or animals?’ children tended to
respond that there were more dogs.
 Younger children cannot
simultaneously see a dog as a
member of the dog class and the
animal class.
Conservation (pre-operational stage):
 McGarrigle and Donaldson, replication of the conservation task using counters,
where the counters were moved by accident by ‘naughty teddy’. They found that
children could conserve much earlier than what Piaget had found.

Egocentrism:
 Hughes, children were tested with a variation of the three mountains task-
policeman task. They found that when tested with a scenario that made sense,
children were able to decentre and imagine other perspectives much earlier. Piaget
has underestimated abilities of children at this age.

Class inclusion research:

 Sieglar and Svetina, showed that children under the age of seven could understand
class inclusion if it was explained to them. This is contrary to what Piaget believed.

Q. Outline Piaget’s explanation of the processes involved in schema development. Discuss

this explanation. Refer to examples of scheme development in your answer.

AO1:
 Assimilation- child builds a theory- this is a cat.
 Equilibrium- everything seems to fit this theory- still a cat.
 Disequilibrium- something happens to cast doubt on the theory- cat?
 Accommodation- new information is added into the schema- these are all cats.
 Person schemas- appearance, personality, preferences, behaviour.
 Social schemas- be respectful, pay or movie tickets etc.
 Self-schemas- hating a certain food, being smart or not.
 Event schemas- handshakes, being professional, business attire.

AO3:
 The most comprehensive theory of cognitive development that had major influence
on understanding child intellectual development during that time.
 Howe et al. supports the theory that children form individual representations of the
world- supports the idea that they are active learners.
 Real world application- has been applied to education, children are active learners
not passive etc. so teachers see the theory and provide appropriate materials to
challenge them.
 Fails to recognise the role of learning as a social process.