Piaget proposed that cognitive development occurs as we adapt to the
world around us. Adaption is the continuous process of learning along
with the changing surrounding environment.
The steps of adaptation are
Receiving – Processing – Organising – Adapting
Piaget’s theory of adaption occurs through two different processes
Assimilation and Accommodation.
Assimilation is the process of taking in new information and piecing it
together with the existing metal information. This allows us to make
sense of the new information whilst keeping of existing information.
E.g.. If a child see a truck and calls it a car.
This is because it only has the mental image of a car.
Is the other process of adaption. When new information is received but
cannot be pieced together with the existing information. In this case we
must alter our existing mental idea in order to fit in the new information.
E.g. When a child sees the moon and calls it a ball. As they grow up they’ll
recognise the moon as being different from a ball.
This is a more advance process compared to assimilation as it involves
reconstructing our existing mental idea.
According to Piaget all behaviours involve assimilation and
accommodation. The interaction of these related processes allow a child to
progressively adapt to the world.
Importantly these experiences build up to what is called a schema
(schemata of plural).
Schema’s are a mental idea of what something is and how to deal with it.
Piaget’s theory also proposes that our cognitive development moves
through four sequential stages from birth to adulthood. Each stage is linked
to an approximate chronological age range.
Sensorimotor(birth-2) - Pre-operational (2-7)
Concrete operational (7-12) – Formal operational (12+)
Some people may be able to think at an advanced stage but use mental
abilities from an earlier stage. It is also suggested that one cannot develop
mental capabilities without mastering those of the earlier stage.
Piaget theorised that its not important about what people know but the
way in which people think and how they acquire their mental abilities.
In the sensorimotor stage infants construct their understanding of the
world around us by co-ordinating sensory experiences (touch) with
motor (movement) abilities.
The key accomplishment of the sensorimotor stage is to master object
permanence.
Object permanence is the ability to concentrate ones eyes onto a moving
object until it disappears.
Near the end of the sensorimotor stage the infant begins to develop goaldirected behaviour.
Goal-directed behaviour is the ability act do a certain behaviour with a
particular purpose in mind.
 The
increment in ability to represent
objects using visual objects or events;
the ability of symbolic use can
develop a sense of creativity where
sand becomes a turtle or a castle etc.

During this Stage children are unable to contrast other peoples perspectives so there is no
empathy within their complexity of thought. This is not mentioned as selfish behaviour by
Piaget but rather children in the pre-operational stage only see from their own point of view,
not others.
A Child may always want to be indulging in asking for new things but cannot interpret the
situation from another person’s eyes i.e. inability to understand what their mother would ask if
given the situation. A child at the end of the pre-operational stage, children move from
egocentrism to a decentred stage. In the next stage of cognitive development a child is able
to consider situations from another person perspective.

Piaget proposed that children undergoing the pre-operational stage are egocentric in a sense
that the only perspective they can see is their own and they cannot view a situation or life in
general from another persons perspective.
An experiment was conducted by Piaget where he gave a diorama to a little girl to observe, a
doll was then placed directly opposite of the child and it was also facing the mountain; the
child was asked to walk around the diorama to familiarize her with the diorama from different
perspectives (to later contrast her perspective with the dolls) when asked to identify the
perspective the doll could see from; she was asked which way the doll was facing and what it
could see but when shown pictures and asked to select the correct one corresponding with
the doll’s perspective, the children picked what they could see (outcome of children up to 7
years of age according to Piaget).

A child in the Pre-operational stage believes that every
object has it’s own awareness and is alive and aging. A child
may interpret a rusty object as sick, a grey tree as old and
other things like that. And in an event where a child may hit
a table with their knee they would interpret the situation as a
naughty table being punished. Piaget proposed that animism
is linked with egocentrism in a sense that as children In the
pre-operational stage are unable to see from another
persons perspective they think that everyone and everything
are like them. As they are sentient and can experience pain
they think everything else can too.

In the latter Pre-Operational stage a child begins to
understand that an object can change from one
state to another i.e. Ice melting into water. In
contrast in the earlier stages a child could not
readily identify that the water had resulted from
the ice melting nor that they were the same object
at one stage. Pre-operational children can identify
the starting phase and the outcome but cannot
explain the events in-between.
 In
contrast to 1 to 2 year olds, the preoperational stage children are
significantly more sophisticated with
thought, having said that, the preoperational children can not focus on
more than one quality or feature on
an object at a given time, this is called
centration.

A five year old boy is given 12 tokens to play with; when given
the tokens aligned in groups of 6, he can identify that the
lines are the ‘same’, but when one of the lines is messed up
(still adding up to 6) he says that they are different, and that
there is less in the bunched up group in comparison to the
line. This successfully proves that a pre-operational child can
focus on one feature whether it is quality or quantity at a
time. He was judging based on the length of the groups
without consideration of quantity and space.
A four year old brother is asked if he has a brother, he replied
by saying “yes”. The boy proceeded to say that his brother’s
name was Jim. When the boy was asked if Jim had a brother,
he said no. This concept is known as Reversibility. Reversibility
is the ability to follow a line of reasoning back to its starting
point, in the experiment the boy was unable to realize he was
Jim’s brother from a reversed situational question.

The concrete operational stage is the stage in which children think in accordance
to what they know and what they can experience through their senses; that is
what is considered concrete.

Conservation – The key cognitive accomplishment in the Concrete Operational
Stage is understanding conservation, that is, the idea that an object does not
change its weight, mass, volume or area when the object changes its shape or
appearance.
E.g. A young girl is in the stages of attaining this concept, she observes that a
waters volume does not change if it is poured from a long glass to a short glass its
volume does not change, and can identify that it is the same amount of water.
Her younger five-year-old brother observes the same process but he says the short
wide glass has less water than the thin long glass.
Conservation of mass – In understanding this concept children learn that
something like a plasticine ball when rolled into a elongated shape is still the same
mass as it was before even though it has changed shape.
Conservation of number – The ability to identify two sets of objects as the same
quantity even if one set is altered in orientation but no new pieces are added.
Conservation of length – (Example form) A person is asked whether two identical
pencils are the same length, one pencil is then moved forward and the person is
then asked if it still the same length.

One of the key accomplishments in the Concrete Op. Stage is being able to
organise information (things or events) into categories using common
features that are not present in other groups. This is what is known as
classification.
Piaget wanted to test a child's ability to classify, so they were given a task. A
child was presented with 20 wooden beads, 18 of which were brown and 2
which were white. (Note: this is conducted on a pre-operational stage child)
The child was asked if there were more brown beads than wooden beads,
the child will state that there are more brown beads. The Concrete
operational stage child will state that there is more wooden beads because
the white beads are also wooden.
During this stage children’s perspectives of the world are more accurate and
precise (in a sense of descriptiveness and explanations). They begin thinking
logically and about concrete objects and understanding the changes in
them. Children then begin to be able to create ‘mental’ pictures and they
develop an abstract perspective of thinking – the major achievement made
by children in the formal operational stage.

The formal operation stage is a time within an individuals life when they use
their cognitive ability to think complexly and more sophisticatedly. This is
onset from the age twelve and beyond, basically when an adolescent enters
secondary school . The individual at this time utulises two vivid ways of
thinking the first being abstract and the second logical. Formal operational
stage is also the final cognitive stage where the thought process is finally fully
developed.

Abstract thinking is process that involves an individual to
think without a visual aid, in order to understand deep
and vital concepts. Abstract thinking allows an individual
to think of some deep and very meaningful questions such
as what’s the meaning of life. An example of abstract
thinking is trying to teach a child the concept of god, a
concept that cannot be visualised.
 Logical
thinking is a process of
thought that allows an individual to
develop strategies, ideas, hypotheses,
and test solutions which is ultimately
utilised to solve problems. Thanks to
logical thinking a person can
understand distance, time, and
various mathematical problems.
Piaget’s theory has been implemented and utulised by school
teachers through the students entire schooling. This can be verified
through how a student was taught in primary and secondary school.
During a student’s time in primary school teachers will manifest
concepts and ideas through a visual aid, such as learning addition
through blocks. During secondary school the student learns
abstractly and logically. This can be seen through English when you
have to understand concepts, themes, and ideas for a novel
abstractly. On the other hand for mathematics you have to apply
logical thinking to solve quadratic equations and trigonometry
questions.
Piaget’s Theory had a Colossal impact on psychology and his place in the history in psychology is very
significant.
Many of these research studies have confirmed various aspects of Piaget’s theory or extended Piaget’s
Theories into other areas of development. Such as the idea of developmental readiness of young
children. Many child development experts warn that children not be pushed too early, before they
have sufficiently cognitively matured. This supports Piaget’s Theory.
However, since the 1970s, other researchers have discovered that infants know a lot more, and know it
sooner than Piaget expected. Researchers found gaps in Piaget’s research methods and findings
(Bernstein & Nash,2002). Researchers believe that the age ranges for each stage in Piaget’s proposed
four stage development vary widely then Piaget described.
Another Criticism or Piaget’s Theory is that Piaget may have over estimated young children’s language
ability, leading him to assume that wrong answers came from faulty thinking. An alternative
explanation for a child’s answers may be that the child misunderstood the task or did not explain their
answer clearly (Donaldson, 1979).
His Theory has also been criticised for the small amount of participants in many of the Experiments he used
to test his ideas. He used his own children in many of his experiments. Although qualitative data from
these observations provided useful descriptions not easily obtainable using other research methods,
some psychologists have expressed their concerns about the generalisations Piaget made from such
limited data.
The small sample sizes could not be an accurate description of the general population therefore creating a
variable within Piaget’s Research. Altering his findings.
Although these criticisms point out the many flaws of Piaget’s theory, His Theory is still regarded as one of the
most significant findings today.