Cognitive and

thinking
development
Learning Outcomes:

Learning Goal 1 Define development and explain the main processes, periods,
and issues in development, as well as links between development and education.

Learning Goal 2 Discuss the development of the brain and compare the cognitive
developmental theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.
• Define development and explain the main processes, periods, and issues in development, as
well as the links between development and education.
EXPLORING WHAT
DEVELOPMENT IS
Why study children’s development?
• The more you learn about children’s development, the
more you can understand at what level it is appropriate
to teach them.
• Development is the pattern of biological, cognitive,
and socioemotional changes that begins at conception
and continues through the life span.
• Development also can be described in terms of periods.

• Most development involves growth, although it also

eventually involves decay (dying).
Biological, Cognitive, and
Socioemotional Processes

Biological processes produce changes in the child’s body and underlie brain
development, height and weight gains, motor skills, and puberty’s hormonal
changes. Genetic inheritance plays a large part.

Cognitive processes involve changes in the child’s thinking, intelligence, and

language. Cognitive developmental processes enable a growing child to memorize
a poem, imagine how to solve a math problem, come up with a creative strategy, or
speak meaningfully connected sentences.

Socioemotional processes involve changes in the child’s relationships with other

people, changes in emotion, and changes in personality. Parents’ nurturance
toward their child, a boy’s aggressive attack on a peer, a girl’s development of
assertiveness, and an adolescent’s feelings of joy after getting good grades all
reflect socioemotional processes in development.
 Periods of Development
• Infancy extends from birth to 18 to 24 months. It is a time of extreme dependence on adults. Many activities are just
beginning, such as language development, symbolic thought, sensorimotor coordination, and social learning.

• Early childhood (sometimes called the “preschool years”) extends from the end of infancy to about 5 years. During
this period, children become more self-sufficient, develop school-readiness skills (such as learning to follow
instructions and identify letters), and spend many hours with peers.

• Middle and late childhood (sometimes called the “elementary school years”) extends from about 6 to 11 years of
age. Children master the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and math, achievement becomes a more central
theme and self-control increases. In this period, children interact more with the wider social world beyond their
family.

• Adolescence is the development period that goes from childhood to adulthood, beginning around ages 10 to 12 and
ending in the late teens. Adolescence starts with rapid physical changes, including height and weight gain and the
development of sexual functions. Adolescents intensely pursue independence and seek their own identity. Their
thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic.
 DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES
• The nature-nurture issue involves the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or by
nurture (Belsky & Pluess, 2016).

• Nature refers to an organism’s biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences. Almost no one
today argues that development can be explained by nature or nurture alone.

• But some (“nature” proponents) claim that the most important influence on development is biological inheritance,
and others (“nurture” proponents) claim that environmental experiences are the most important influence.

• The epigenetic view states that development is the result of an ongoing, bidirectional interchange between heredity
and the environment.

• A baby inherits genes from both parents at conception. During childhood, environmental experiences such as
nutrition, stress, learning, child care, and encouragement can modify genetic activity and the activity of the nervous
system that directly underlies behavior. Heredity and environment thus operate together—or collaborate—to
produce a child’s intelligence, temperament, health, ability to read, and so on (Moore, 2015).
• The continuity-discontinuity issue focuses on the extent to which development involves gradual,
cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

• For the most part, developmentalists who emphasize nurture usually describe development as a
gradual, continuous process, like the seedling’s growth into an oak.

• Those who emphasize nature often describe development as a series of distinct stages, like the change
from caterpillar to butterfly.

continuity discontinuity
• Splintered development refers to the circumstances in which development is uneven
across domains (Horowitz et al., 2005).

• One student may have excellent math skills but poor writing skills. Within the area of
language, another student may have excellent verbal language skills but not have good
reading and writing skills. Yet another student may do well in science but lack social
skills.
Recap
REVIEW
1. What is the nature of development?
2. What three broad processes interact in a child’s development? What general periods do
children go through between birth and the end of adolescence?

REFLECT
3. Give an example of how a cognitive process could influence a socioemotional process in
the age of children you plan to teach.
4. Then give an example of how a socioemotional process could influence a cognitive
process in this age group.
Important ⦿Jean Piaget (how humans acquire knowledge)
theories and ⦿Lev Vygotsky (zone of proximal development)
theorists
 Jean Piaget and his theory of cognitive
development

Construction of the world:

▶ Adaptation
▶ Biological
▶ Adjust and attuned to the environment
▶ Shaped by the environment in order to survive in it seeking
balance (equilibrium) with the environment achieved through
assimilation & accommodation

Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)

ASSIMILATION & ACCOMMODATION
• Piaget proposed two (2) concepts to explain how children use
and adapt their schemes

Assimilation Accommodation

Assimilation – occurs when Accommodation – occurs when

children incorporate new children adjust their schemes to fit
information into their existing new information and experiences
schemes
 ASSIMILATION & ACCOMMODATION
• Assimilation and accommodation operate in young infants

• They suck everything that touches their lips - (assimilate all sorts of
objects into their sucking scheme)

• After several months of experience, they construct understanding of the

world differently such as finger and mother’s breast can be sucked and
others like blankets can’t be sucked - (accommodate their sucking
scheme)
 ORGANISATION
• OrganiSation - the grouping of isolated behaviours and thought
into a higher-order, more smoothly functioning cognitive
system; the grouping or arranging of items into categories

• Children cognitively organized their experiences

• Example; A boy knows how to use a hammer may also know

how to use other tools. After learning each one, he relates
these uses, grouping items into categories and organize his
knowledge
 EQUILIBRATION
• Equilibrium – mechanism that Piaget proposed to
explain how children shift from one stage of
thought to the next

• The shift occurs as children experience cognitive

conflict or disequilibrium, in trying to understand
the world

• Eventually they resolve the conflict and reach a

balance or equilibrium of thought
 PROCESSES OF COGNITION

Schemes Equilibration

Assimilation Accommodation

Organization
As the child seeks to construct an understanding of the world, the
developing brain creates schemes
Schemes – action or mental representations that organize knowledge
 SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – SIMPLE REFLEXES
(BIRTH – 1 MONTH)

• 1st month after the birth

• Sensation and action are coordinated
primarily through reflexive behaviours such
as rooting and sucking reflexes
• Soon the infant produces behaviours that
resemble reflexes in the absence of the
usual stimulus for the reflex

For example; newborn will only suck a nipple or bottle when it is touched at the lips or
placed directly in the mouth but soon they might suck when the nipple or bottle is nearby
Infants is actively structuring experiences in the first month of life
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – FIRST HABIT & PRIMARY
CIRCULAR REACTION
(1 – 4 MONTHS)
• They coordinate sensation by 2 types of schemes:
a)Habit – scheme based on reflexes that has become completely
separated from its eliciting stimulus
• Example; infants in substage 1 will suck when the bottle is put
directly at the lips but in this substage 2, the infant might even
suck when no bottle is present

b) Primary circular reaction – scheme based on the attempt to

reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance
Example; an infant accidently suck his finger when placed near his
mouth. Later he search for his finger to suck again but the fingers
don’t cooperate because infants can’t coordinate visual and manual
actions
 SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – SECONDARY CIRCULAR
REACTION
(4 – 8 MONTHS)

Infant become more object-oriented, moving

beyond preoccupation with the self
Example; the infant might shake a rattle and he
repeats the action for the sake of its fascination
Infant also imitates simple actions such as baby
talk or burbling adults and some physical
gestures
The baby only imitates the actions that he or
she is already able to produce
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – COORDINATION OD
SECONDARY CIRCULAR REACTIONS (8 – 12 MONTHS)

Infant must coordinate vision and touch, eye and hand

Infants readily combine and recombine previously
learned schemed in a coordinated way
Example; they might visually inspect a toy such as
rattle and finger simultaneously exploring it tactilely
Actions are more outwardly than before – second
achievement
Example; infants may manipulate a stick in order to
bring a desired toy within reach
 SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – TERTIARY CIRCULAR
REACTIONS
(12 - 18 MONTHS)
Infants become interested by many
properties of objects and by the
many things that they can make
happen to objects
Example; a block can be made to
fall, spin, hit another object and
slide across the ground
Infant purposely explores new
possibilities with objects, continually
doing new things to them and
exploring the results
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE – INTERNALISATION OF SCHEMES
(18 - 24 MONTHS)
• They use primitive symbols
• Primitive symbols - permit the infant to think about
concrete events without directly acting them put or
perceiving them
• Symbols allow the infant to manipulate and transform
the represented events in simple ways
• Example; Piaget’s daughter saw a matchbox being
opened and closed. Later, she mimicked the event by
opening and closing her mouth. It is an obvious
expression of her image of the event
OBJECT
PERMANENCE
• End of the sensorimotor period
• Children understand that objects are both separate from self and
permanent
• Object Permanence – the understanding that objects and events continue
to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched
• One of the most important infants accomplishments

5-month-old boy looks at the toy monkey

(Pic. A), but when his view of the toy is
blocked (Pic. B), he does not search for
it. Several months later, he will search
for the hidden toy monkey, reflecting the
presence of object permanence.
EVALUATING PIAGET’S SENSORIMOTOR STAGE

Piaget’s A-not-B Error

The A-not-B Error states that if a toy is hidden twice, initially at Location A, and subsequently at
Location B, 8-12 month old infants search correctly at Location A, initially. But when the toy
subsequently hidden at Location B, they make the mistake of continuing to search for it at
Location A.

VIDEO
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 YEARS OLD)

• Children begin to represent the world with words, images,

and drawings
• Stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges,
egocentrism is present and magical beliefs are constructed
• It can be divided into two substages;
1)The symbolic function substage – egocentrism and
animism
2)Intuitive thought of substage
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 YEARS OLD)
1) The symbolic function substage (2 – 4 years) - The young child gains ability to
mentally represent an object that is not present
• They use scribble designs to represent people, houses, car
• They begin to use language and engage in pretend play
• Their thought have several limitations ;
i. Egocentrism – the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and
someone else’s perspective
• Example: three mountains task
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 YEARS OLD)

ii. Animism – a belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and
are capable of action (Gelman & Opfer, 2004; Opfer & Gelman,
2011)
• Young child who uses animism fails to distinguish the appropriate
occasions for using human and nonhuman perspectives
• Example “The sidewalk made me mad; it made me fall”
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2 – 7 YEARS OLD)

2) Intuitive thought of substage (4-7 years) - children use

primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all
sort of questions
• The “why” questions
• Young children seem to be sure about their
knowledge and understanding yet are unaware of
how they know what they know
• That is they know something but know it without the
use of rational thinking
 CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7 – 11 YEARS OLD)
• Logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific or
concrete
• Example; concrete operational thinkers cannot imagine the steps necessary to complete an algebraic
equation, which is too abstract for thinking at this stage of development
a)Conservation - the idea that altering an object or substance’s appearance does not change its basic
properties
• Example; Conservation task
• Concrete operations allow children to coordinate several characteristics rather than focus on a single
property of an object
• Conservation involves the recognition that the length, number, mass, quantity, area, weight, and volume
of objects and substances are not changed by transformations that merely alter their appearance
Piaget’s Conservation Task
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7 – 11 YEARS OLD)

b) Classification – children can classify things in the

concrete operational stage
• They can understand:
i. The interrelationship among sets and subsets
ii. Seriation
iii. Transitivity

C) Seriation – the concrete operation that involves

ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (length)
• Example; Serialize the sticks according to the length. Many
children serialize big and small sticks rather than correct
ordering line up the stick’s tops and bottom. Each stick must
be longer than the other
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7 – 11 YEARS OLD)
• Transitivity – the ability to reason about and logically
combine relationships
• 3 sticks - A longest, B longer, C long. The concrete
operational thinkers know B is longer than C and A is longer
than B. While preoperational thinkers do not

C
 FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11 – 15 YEARS
OLD)

• Individuals move beyond concrete

experiences and think in abstract and more
logical ways - thinking more abstractly, and
develop images of ideal circumstances
• Adolescents begin to think more as a
scientist thinks, devising plans to solve
problems and systematically testing
solutions
FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11 – 15 YEARS OLD)

• Adolescent egocentrism – heightened self-consciousness of adolescents which is

reflected in their belief that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves
and their sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility
i. Imaginary audience – aspect of adolescent egocentrism that involves attention-getting
behaviour the attempt to be noticed, visible, and onstage
• Example; they might think others are as aware of a few hairs that are out of place
• Adolescents sense that they are onstage believing they are the main actors and all
others are the audience

VIDEO
 FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11 – 15 YEARS OLD)

ii. Personal fable – adolescents’ sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.

Sense of personal uniqueness makes them feel that no one can understand how
they feel
• Example; The girl feels that the mother doesn’t understand the hurt of breaking
up with her boyfriend. As part of their effort to retain a sense of personal
uniqueness, they might craft stories about themselves filled with fantasy that is
far removed from reality (diaries)
• They also show a sense of invincibility – feeling that although others might be
vulnerable to tragedies, car wrecks, these things won’t happen to them
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

LECTURE NOTES
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Children actively construct their knowledge and

understanding; Children are social creatures
• They develop their ways of thinking and understanding
through social interaction (Daniels, 2011; Gredler, 2009)
• Their cognitive development depends on the tools
provided by society and their minds are shaped by the
cultural context in which they live (Gauvain & Parke,
2010; Holzman, 2009)

LECTURE NOTES
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Zone of Proximal
Scaffolding
Development (ZPD)

Language & Thought

LECTURE NOTES
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD)
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) – range of tasks
that are too difficult for the child to master alone but
that can be learned with guidance and assistance of
adults or more-skilled children
• With ZPD, the children learn by interacting with more
experienced adults and peers who help them think
beyond the zone in which they would be able to
perform without assistance has been applied primarily
to academic learning

VIDEO

LECTURE NOTES
Upper limit – level of additional
responsibility child can accept with assistance
of an able instructor

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) –

tasks that are too difficult for children to
master alone but can be mastered with
assistance from adults or more-skilled children

Lower limit – level of problem solving

reached on these tasks by child working alone

LECTURE NOTES
SCAFFOLDING
• Scaffolding – changing the level of
support provided over the course of a
teaching session, with more-skilled
person adjusting guidance to fit the
child’s current performance level
• When student is learning a new task,
the skilled person may use direct
instruction
• Dialogue is an important tool of
scaffolding – these concepts meet with
the skilled helpers more systematic,
logical, and rational concepts

LECTURE NOTES
LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
• Children use speech not only for
social communication but also to
help them solve tasks
• They use language to plan, guide and
monitor behaviour (Vygotsky , 1962)
• Language for self regulation is called
Private Speech – important tool of
thought during the early childhood
years (John-Steiner, 2007; Wertsch,
2007)
• Private speech represents an early
transition in becoming more socially
communicative

LECTURE NOTES
LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
• When children talk to
themselves, they are using
language to govern their
behaviour and guide themselves
• Example; Child working on a
puzzle might say to herself
“Which pieces should I put
together? The green or blue? I’ll
try green”

LECTURE NOTES
LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
• Private speech plays a positive role in
children’s development (Winsler,
Carlton & Barry, 2000)
• Children use private speech more than
when tasks are difficult, when they
have made a mistake and when they
are not sure how to proceed (Berk,
1994)
• Children use private speech are more
attentive and improve their
performance more than children who
do not use private speech (Berk &
Spuhl, 1995)
LECTURE NOTES
WHAT ARE THE COMPARISON OF
VYGOTSKY’S & PIAGET’S COGNITIVE THEORY?

LECTURE NOTES
VYGOTSKY’S & PIAGET’S THEORY
VYGOTSKY PIAGET
Sociocultural Strong emphasis Little emphasis
Context
Constructivism Social constructivist Cognitive constructivist

Stages No general stages of Strong emphasis on stages

development proposed (sensorimotor, preoperational,
concrete operational & formal
operational)

Key Processes ZPD, language, Schema, assimilation,

dialogue, tools of accommodation, operations,
culture conservation, classification

LECTURE NOTES
VYGOTSKY’S & PIAGET’S THEORY
VYGOTSKY PIAGET
Role of A major role; language plays a Language has minimal
Language powerful role in shaping thought role; cognition primarily
directs language
View on Education plays a central role, Education merely refines
Education helping children learn the tools of the child’s cognitive skills
the culture that have already
emerged

Teaching Teacher is a facilitator and guide, Also view teacher as a

Implications not a director; establish many
opportunities for children to learn
with the teacher and more-skilled
peers
facilitator and guide, not
a director; provide
support for children to
explore their world and
discover knowledge

LECTURE NOTES
Tutorial