COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY
This theory was advocated by Jean Piaget, who believed that
a child enters the world lacking virtually all the basic cognitive
competencies of a series of stages of development discussed
hereunder.
Schema - mental concepts that organize and
interpret information.
Assimilation - The individual acquires information or
knowledge by which experiences are integrated into
existing schemes.
Accommodation – The process of modifying
existing mental schemas or structures to fit new
information.
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STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT by Jean Piaget
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Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2 years old)
a developing when infants learn about themselves
and their world through their own developing sensory
and motor activity.
6 substages of sensorimotor skills
Reflex Activity (1st month of life)
 In this early stage the child's behavior is essentially
limited to exercising innate skills - that is, reflex
actions like sucking, that are the product of heredity.
 At end of this stage, through visual and other
sensory experiences with environment, infants can
use their innate skills in a somewhat discriminating
and proficient (through basically primitive) manner.
 When really hunger, for example, infants how
appear able to distinguish the nipple form other
objects and surfaces and to maneuver their head
and mouths to find it.
Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months)
 Infants begin to define some of their reflex actions
and to express repetitive behavior such as opening
and closing their fists, hand sucking, foot kicking etc.
 The reason Piaget calls such behaviors circulation
is that the infants are reaching to the pleasure they
have derived from chance actions our unplanned
behavior by seeking to repeat this behavior in a trialand-error fashion.
 Infants also begin to develop primitive anticipations
based on past experience: For example, they start
to make sucking motions on being put into a posture
that signals to them that they are about to be fed.
Secondary Circular Reactions (4-10 months)
 In this stage they begin to turn their attention toward
objects and occurrences in the external
environment.
 Infants being to perceive some connection between
a given action and its consequences in the “outer”
world.
 Through accidental body movements that causes
something new to the infant, for example,
accidentally causing a toy to make a sound, the
infant may be motivated to try to reproduce the
action or series of movements that resulted to try to
reproduce the action or series of movements that
resulted in the sound.
 The infant's behavior is now becoming somewhat
international or purposeful, involving a more refined
trial and -error process than observed previously.
Coordinating Secondary Schemes (10 – 12 months)
 The infant applies the patterns of behavior learned
in the previous stage to new or problematic
situations.
 coordination of secondary circular reactions, infants
begin to combine previously learned behaviors to
achieve a specific goal, such as reaching for a toy
Tertiary Reactions
 Infants begin to experiment with new behaviors and
learn through trial and error.
 The child becomes interested in objects in
themselves. For example, infants may repeatedly
move or drop different items, like a piece of food or
a toy, from various positions and heights, and then
watch how the objects “responds”.
 From these "experiments" children begin to
understand more about the nature of the external
environment. Children also become more proficient
at imitating simple behaviors of adults - such as
pointing a finger to the forehead then they were in
previous stages.
Mental Representation (18-12 months)
 Children being to solve practical problems by
thinking them out before taking action, rather than
simply using hit-or-miss physical means to achieve
and end.
 Children of this stage who find that a desired objects
is beyond their reach may use some other objects
such as a stick-to bring the desired objects closer to
them.
 The mental imagery or internalized symbolism this
requires can also be seen children's imitative
behavior. The child can observe the behavior, make
an internal representation, and reproduce the
behavior soon, when the model is absent.
 Infants develop the ability to form mental
representations of objects and events, and to use
these representations to solve problems and plan
actions.
Intentional Behavior - the child repeats action to prolong
interesting/pleasant events. It refers to the ability to act
with a specific goal in mind. (ex. Crying to attract
attention)
Object Permanence - the understanding that objects
continue to exist even when they are not in view. It is the
knowledge of the existence of objects in his environment,
independent of the child’s actions emerges the child
starts to search for missing objects like toys etc.
Representation - refers to the ability to form mental
representations of objects and events, and to use these
representations to solve problems and plan actions. It
allows the child to seek necessary solutions through
manipulation of internal symbols instead of physical
objects. It marks the beginnings of representational
though the child has begun to make mental
representations of external objects & events.
2.
Pre-operational Stage (2-7 years old)
Emergence of language skills and interpret
experiences words become symbols for objects. The
child thinking is egocentric centered on himself.
During this stage, children become capable of
symbolic thinking, language development, and
engaging in pretend play. However, their thinking is
still egocentric and lacks logical operations.
(Ex. The child is fond of telling tall tales to get the
attention of everyone.)
Children in this stage struggle with understanding the
perspectives of others and have difficulty with tasks
that require logical reasoning, such as conservation
problems.
Conservation - Children struggle with understanding
that certain properties of objects, such as volume or
number, remain the same even when their
appearance changes.
Irreversibility - refers to a child's inability to mentally
reverse a sequence of events, returning an object to
its previous state. (Ex. A child in the preoperational
stage may struggle to understand that the same
amount of liquid remains unchanged even when
poured into different shaped glasses.)
Centration - the tendency to focus on only one aspect
of a situation and ignore other relevant aspects.
3.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years old)
children become capable of performing operations
on concrete objects and thinking logically about
tangible (concrete) examples. They can make logical
conclusions about concrete examples but may still
struggle with hypothetical or abstract thinking.
One of the key concepts in this stage is the ability to
understand the principle of reversibility, which refers
to the child's capacity to mentally reverse a sequence
of steps. (Ex. children in this stage can solve
conservation problems, understanding that certain
properties of objects, such as volume or number,
remain the same even when their appearance
changes.)
Conservation - Children in this stage develop an
understanding of conservation, which is the
recognition that certain properties of objects, such as
volume or number, remain the same even when their
appearance changes.
Reversibility - This stage is characterized by the
ability to understand the principle of reversibility,
allowing children to mentally reverse a sequence of
steps.
4.
Formal Operational Stage (11 – 16 years old)
Children tend to reason more abstractly,
systematically, and reflectively. They are more likely
to use logic to reason out the possible consequences
of each action before carrying it out.
They can do mathematical calculations, think
creatively, use abstract reasoning, and imagine the
outcome of particular actions.
The formal operational stage is a significant
milestone in cognitive development, marking the
transition to adult thinking and reasoning abilities
Transitivity - understanding the relationship between
two elements and being able to infer the relationship
between
other
elements
based
on
this
understanding. (Ex. if a child understands that if A is
greater than B, and B is greater than C, then the child
can infer that A is also greater than C. This
demonstrates the ability to logically carry over the
relationship between the elements to make
inferences about their relationships with each other.)