j.hulsken@mmu.ac.

uk

JEAN PIAGET – CHILDREN AS LONE

SCIENTISTS
Structure of this lecture

I. Part
Piaget’s theory, an evaluation of the theory in
general and an overview over the stages he
suggested as well as over the terms he used
II. Part
The individual stages, evaluations of each of them
and some examples of his methods
III. Part
Implications
Piaget‘s theory

 According to Piaget, brain maturation is the

single most important factor in children‘s
development

 Unlike Vygotsky, Piaget did not consider

cultural or social influences on children‘s
cognitive development
 All (typically developing) children go through
the same four stages (sensori-motor, pre-
operational, concrete operational, formal
operational) although they may do so at
different ages.

 These four stages are distinct and

discontinuous.
 Like scientists, children actively seek
knowledge – which allows them to advance
through the stages

 Importantly, children‘s development is

assessed in isolation – if they can do
something only with the help of others, they
haven‘t mastered the stage yet
Piaget‘s terminology – I.
 Schemata are mental representations or sets of rules
that enable interaction with the child‘s world through
defining a particular category of behaviour; they
develop from one stage to the next
 Organization is the inborn capacity to combine existing
schemas into more sophisticated and targeted actions
 Adaptation is the striving for equilibrium (balance)
between existing knowledge and new sensory input
 Assimilation is the integration of new input into existing
knowledge, leading to more consolidated knowledge
 Accommodation is the adjustment of existing
knowledge to new input, leading to growing and
changing knowledge
 Children will encounter things they don‘t
understand because they don‘t fit into
children‘s existing schemata
 Schemata are ideas, strategies and associations
that children use to make sense of situations, e.g.
grasping schemata allow children to grasp different
items
 Using organization, children can learn to pick
an object up, hold on to it and place it down
again
 New, non-matching pieces of information are
disturbances to children‘s equilibrium (=
balance)
 To re-establish their equilibrium, children
constantly update their schemata to match
their experiences (adaptation)
 Children may adapt their schemata through
 Assimilation
 Integrating new input into existing knowledge
 Children encounter many things that require a
firm grip – dummies, bottles, rattles – so they
learn it’s a good idea to grasp tightly.
 Accommodation
 Changing what you know to fit what you see
 But there are many ways in which a firm grip could go
wrong and children will need to adjust their approach
to grasping as a consequence
Alone or in pairs, please now try to think of an own example for a
Piagetian “schema“. Apply the terminology introduced in the
previous slides to your own example to improve your understanding.

You have three minutes.

His terminology – I.
 Schemata are mental representations or sets of rules
that enable interaction with the child‘s world through
defining a particular category of behaviour; they
develop from one stage to the next
 Organization is the inborn capacity to combine existing
schemas into more sophisticated and targeted actions
 Adaptation is the striving for equilibrium (balance)
between existing knowledge and new sensory input
 Assimilation is the integration of new input into existing
knowledge, leading to more consolidated knowledge
 Accommodation is the adjustment of existing
knowledge to new input, leading to growing and
changing knowledge
 However, Piaget‘s theory was far more
comprehensive than merely describing how
children acquire knowledge
 He suggested four periods of cognitive
development that children go through
Piaget‘s stages - overview

Stage Approximate Some characteristics

age in years
Sensori-motor 0-2 • Dependence on presence of object reduces
• Distinction from environment (“self-
awareness”)
• Mental representations are formed
Pre-operational 2-7 • Egocentrism is reduced
• Conservation of number is mastered
through compensation and reversibility
Concrete 7-12 • Independent categorization of objects
operational • Logical mental operations are possible
with visual aids
Stage Approximate age in Some characteristics
years
Concrete operational 7-12 •Conservation of mass,
(continued) length, weight, and
volume is mastered
• Egocentrism is
overcome
Formal operational From 12 onwards • Abstract reasoning
enables children to
speculate and reason
• Formulation and testing
of hypotheses
 The six substages of the
sensori-motor stage (0-2)
Substage Age Characteristics Examples
(months)
Reflex 0-1 • Innate reflexes, no Sucking, looking, grasping
activity “initiated“ movements
• Largely assimilation of
knowledge
Primary 1-4 • Repetitive reflexes/motor Spontaneous repeated
circular responses with focus on self smiling, making a fist
reactions
Secondary 4-10 • Interaction with Hitting a hanging toy,
circular environment engaging with carers
reactions
Substage Age (months) Characteristics Examples
Coordination of 10-12 • Targeted Hit a barrier to
secondary circular organization of retrieve toy,
reactions schemas in novel kicking to make
situations toy move
Tertiary circular 12-18 • Active Engage in trial and
reactions exploration and error methods
problem solving
(through
increased
mobility)
Substage Age (months) Characteristics Examples
Internal 18-24 • Insightful Targeted actions
representation problem solving such as retrieving
and planning objects that are
• Symbolic out of sight and
representation copying behaviour
(object after (short)
permanence) delays, e.g.
• Deferred building a rattle
imitation
 Object permanence is the awareness that
objects continue to exist even when they‘re
not visible
 Object permanence emerges around 9
months – before that, children lose interest in
hidden toys and do not attempt to retrieve
them
Evaluation of the sensori-
motor stage
Contributions Limitations
 Largely confirmed by  Might have
subsequent researchers underestimated children’s
capacity
 Deferred imitation
 Planned actions
 Object permanence
 Deferred imitation
 Meltzoff & Moore (1994): 6-week-old infants could
repeat tongue protrusion after 24h delay
 Planned actions
 Willatts (1989): 9-month-olds could remove barrier
without previous trial-error learning
 Object permanence
 Bower (1982) : young children were “surprised” when
object disappeared from behind a screen
 Baillargeon & DeVos (1991): 3-month-olds “expected”
large toy to remain visible through window
The two stages of the pre-
operational stage (2-7)
Stage Age Characteristics
Pre-conceptual period 2-4 years • Previous
development of
symbolic thought
leads to rapid
language
development
• Egocentrism
Intuitive period 4-7 years • Ability to order,
classify and quantify
in a more systematic
way
• Conservation of
number is mastered
through compensation
and reversibility
Piaget‘s terminology – II.

 Egocentrism is the inability to acknowledge perspective

other than the child‘s own one.
 Conservation is the realisation that while the appearance
of items may change (e.g. being more spread out) the
actual number stays the same.
 Compensation refers to the observation that, for example,
a narrower glass needs to be filled higher to include the
same amount of water as a wider glass.
 Reversibility means that since only the appearance of items
has changed, this change can be made undone so that the
number/mass etc. must have remained constant.
 Egocentrism
 Conservation
 Compensation

 Reversibility
Evaluation of the pre-
operational stage
Contributions Limitations
 Pre-operational children do  Artificial experiments
indeed have difficulties with might have impaired
some (but not all) conservation performance
tasks  Egocentrism
 Pre-operational children have  Systematic classification
problems with other reasoning  Conservation
tasks as suggested by Piaget –
more recently, however, they
have been suggested to be due
to memory rather than
reasoning difficulties
 Egocentrism
 Borke (1975): 3-4 year-olds could pass three mountains
task if familiar toys rather than mountains were chosen
 Gelman & Shatz (1978): 2-year-olds change their
language depending on the context, thereby directly
applying non-egocentric thinking
 Hughes (1975) : 60% of 3.5-year-olds can hide a doll so
that the policeman cannot see it
 Newcombe & Huttenlocher (1992): using familiar
objects or giving children alternative ways to respond
enables even very young children to pass the three
mountains task
 Conservation
 Au et al. (1993): 3.5-year-olds understand that dissolved
sugar is still present and can be tasted, even if it can’t be
seen
 Gelman (1972): 3-year-olds demonstrate understanding
for conservation if number of conserved items is reduced
 Light et al. (1979): 70% of 4-year-olds demonstrate
conserving if change of container is “explained” (e.g.
previous container was damaged)
 McGarrigle & Donaldson (1974): removing presumed
deliberation (naughty teddy) from conservation tasks
enabled 4-year-old children to pass conservation tasks
 Systematic classification
 McGarrigle (Donaldson, 1978) found that more
naturalistic class-inclusion tasks could be passed by
6-year-olds
The concrete operational
stage (7-12)
 Children master
 Focus on different aspects of the problem
 Conservation of weight (7-8 years)
 Conservation of volume (10-11 years)
 Problems based on objects that are present
 But struggle with
 The application of strategies to objects that are
not present
Evaluation of the concrete
operational stage
 Tomlinson-Keasey (1978) supported the order
in which children master different types of
conservation
 But:
 Context might enable children to perform better
than Piaget expected, e.g. they might grasp
abstract trading strategies through involvement in
running a business (Jahoda, 1983)
The formal operational stage
(12 +)
 Formal scientific reasoning – thus, setting up
hypotheses, evaluating those systematically and
deducting conclusions from abstract statements –
becomes possible
 E.g. Inhelder and Piaget (1958) the pendulum task,
determining flexibility of metal rods, balancing different
weights around a fulcrum and predicting chemical
reactions
 However, subsequent researchers (Shayer et al., 1976;
Shayer & Wylam, 1978) have argued that formal
operational thinking might be restricted to types of tasks
or domains these tasks occur in
 Evaluation of Piaget’s theory
in general
Contributions
 His studies (though not his
stages) are still widely cited
 Determined direction of research
 Developed a new method
 Inspiration to considerable
research
 tenable
Most comprehensive account of
cognitive development to date
 Laid foundation for “active“
learning – as opposed to adult
learning
Limitations
 No report of quantitative data
(number of participants,
percentage who passed)
 No standardized, but
individualised procedures
 Replication of results is difficult
 His theory of stages is no longer
 He might have underestimated
children’s ability
 He neglected cultural and social
influences
Implications for education

 Humans are active learners

 Humans learn better if they can manipulate
objects
 Mistakes should be penalised, but used to gain
insight into thought processes
 The learner should determine the pace
 Interaction with others are important for learning
Self-directed study

 Essential Reading
 Understanding Children's Development (Smith, Cowie
& Blades, 2011) Chapter 13 - Cognition: Piaget's
Theory (pp 441 - 471). 
 Task
 Consider the following questions:
 Is nature the most important factor in children‘s
cognitive development?
 Is assessing children‘s cognitive development in
isolation the best way?
 Does it reflect how we learn?
2 more examples for Piaget‘s
terminology – crawling…
 Schemas are mental abilities that enable interaction with
the child‘s world and that develop from one stage to the
next
 One schema might be knowing how to crawl
 Organization is the inborn capacity to combine existing
schemas into more sophisticated and targeted actions
 Without ever seeing a demonstration, infants learn
to roll themselves over, push themselves forward
through “kicking” or pull themselves closer to
objects
  Adaptation is the striving for equilibrium (balance) between
existing knowledge and new sensory input
 Children want to get everywhere – but there are lots
of obstacles, such as stairs, safety gates, beds,
tables, chairs…
 Assimilation is the integration of new input into existing
knowledge, leading to more consolidated knowledge
 While learning to crawl, both “pulling” and “kicking”
might be equally effective. Thus, infants can
alternate between them without their locomotion
being too affected
  Accommodation is the adjustment of existing
knowledge to new input, leading to growing and
changing knowledge
 If children encounter stairs, neither kicking nor
pulling is particularly effective; they thus need
to employ a new strategy to overcome this
obstacle.
...and language

 Schemas are mental abilities that enable interaction with

the child‘s world and that develop from one stage to the
next
 One schema might be language
 Organization is the inborn capacity to combine existing
schemas into more sophisticated and targeted actions
 Without formal instruction, a child is able to combine
sounds into words, words into sentences and
sentences into requests, instructions, …
  Assimilation is the integration of new input into existing
knowledge, leading to more consolidated knowledge
 Play, walk, jump all provide support for the
formation of simple past through attaching –ed and
thus manifest this rule
 Adaptation is the striving for equilibrium (balance) between
existing knowledge and new sensory input
 Children try to overcome “disturbances”, such as
hearing “took” after they learned the rule that the
simple past is formed by attaching –ed to the verb
  Accommodation is the adjustment of existing knowledge to
new input, leading to growing and changing knowledge
 Take, draw, eat do not fit in the rule of attaching –ed
and thus increase the child’s knowledge of the
simple past