COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
WHAT IS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT?
PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
WHAT IS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT?
 Changes in thought processes that enable children to
acquire and use knowledge about the world (Papalia,
D and Olds, S; 1992:120).
 Cognitive development is the change and increase of
the following:
 Knowledge and understanding, intelligence and
consciousness, thinking, creating, generating plans
and strategies, reasoning, inferring, problem solving,
classifying, fantasizing, imagining, perceiving,
memorizing, manipulating mental images, concepts,
rules and symbols.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
 Piaget (1896-1980), a Swiss psychologist, has provided
a comprehensive explanation about children’s cognitive
development.
 His explanation is based on longitudinal and crosssectional studies of children’s development.
 He used interviews, observations and puzzles.
Ideas
 Child development is a series of different qualitative
stages tied with changes in schemata.
 The developmental process is a connection between
physical maturation and experience with the physical
environment.
 The child is intellectually active in the process of
cognitive development.
 Spontaneity, guidance and motivation to do activities
are needed to.
Process of cognitive development
Organized
knowledge (mental
schema)
Level of
understanding
(mental
operation)
Ability to
manipulate
objects
(physical
activities)
 Intelligence, which is adaptation to the environment
(Piaget cited in Davenport ,C (1994) is a universal
attribute which characterizes all human beings.
 Piaget developed key concepts to explain the
development process;
 schema/schemata,
 adaptation,
 assimilation,
 accommodation and
 equilibration .
 Schema: the basic cognitive structures consisting of
organized patterns of behavior used in different kinds of
situations (Papalia, D: 2001). Children use mental
schemes to understand their world.
 Schemes represent ideas about what things are and
how we deal with them.
 Structures: the psychological units of the mind that
enable us to think (Elliott et al; 2000)
 Children’s curiosity, exploration and interpretation
allow it to construct its own world.
 Adaptation: the process of becoming successfully
adjusted to the environment as a result of changing and
expanding the mental schema.
 It is a gradual, continuous and repetitious process that
constructs and reconstructs knowledge.
 Adaptation occurs through the two complimentary
processes of assimilation and accommodation
(Papalia, D: 2001) leading to equilibration (Rosser,
R. A: 1984).
 A child knows that this is a cup for tea, plate for food,
glass for water.
 Assimilation: The process of incorporating new
information into the existing cognitive structure
(Papalia, D; 2001:38).
 New events and information build mental structures
which then help children’s to fit their understanding of
reality and build more organized and expanded mental
structures.
 The existing schemes help in acquiring new experiences
and knowledge.
 New information is absorbed, interpreted and
construed in terms of their presently available way of
thinking.
 During assimilation the schema is not completely
changed but it is just trying to change.
 Questions asked; what is this? What is it used for? Is it
the same as that or this? How can it be used? How is it
resemble with other things?
 Accommodation is the process of changing ways of
thinking, doing, behaving, perceiving and believing to
come to agreement with the reality.
 The cognitive organization becomes adjusted to
handle new information or new events.
 Children who encounter unfamiliar information,
incorporate the new information into their intellectual
structure and change it to fit the new information.
 Assimilation and accommodation are interconnected
in every cognitive activity from birth to death.
Dominance of one leads to dysfunctional behavior.
 Equilibration is the process of balancing
assimilation and accommodation.
 This occurs when children regulate their schemes to
a state of equilibrium.
 Therefore intellectual development and the
acquisition of knowledge is continuous because the
processes of assimilation and accommodation never
ends.
Cognitive stages of development
according to J. Piaget
 He has identified four approximate stages
 All children should pass through all the stages in
order.
 Stages are not skipped but the rate may differ from
child to child.
The stages are:
1. sensory motor,
2. preoperational,
3. concrete operational and
4. formal operational
SENSORY MOTOR (0-2 YEARS)
 It is called sensory motor because infants build their
mental schema by using sense organs and
movements of their bodies.
 (0-1 month): Infants use reflexive actions to
explore their bodies.
 1-4 month: Forming habits by repeating pleasurable
behaviors that occur by chance.
 No object permanence
 4-8 months: Pleasure shifts from the body to external
objects by discovering the interesting results of objects.
 Actions are object oriented and intentional; For
instance they like to play with objects that produce
sounds.
 Partial object permanence can be observed.
 8-12 months:. Awareness of causality realizing that
they can cause something to happen.
 Behavior becomes more deliberate and purposeful.
Ability to anticipate events is also observed.
 Object permanence partially develops.
 This helps them to use symbols to represent things in
their minds so they can think about them.
 12-18 months: children purposely explore new
possibilities with objects and exploring the results.
 They become curious, do various actions to see results
e.g switch on or switch off light.
 They devote trial and error to solve problems using
indirect means.
 18-24 months: They start to use symbols, mentally
represent objects and events.
 Through symbols they can think about events and
anticipate consequences.
 They are goal-oriented and no longer confined to trial
and error in solving problems.
 Object permanence is fully developed.
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (2-7 YEARS)
Achievement:
 Object permanence/constancy; think about objects,
events and people who are absent and perceive their
connections.
 Use of symbols; ability to present thoughts, object and
events using symbols.
 Language development; increase of vocabulary that
expands their imagination and communication with
people.
 Classification: according to criteria; shape, size and
color, starts at rudimentary level and develops gradually.
 Awareness of adult roles, responsibilities and
behaviors and trying to play those roles.
 Engage in symbolic /melodramatic/imaginative
plays.
 They are curious, ask many questions and demand
immediate answers, an indication that:
their schemes allow them to coordinate events and
objects.
they start to use logic (at a very low level).
they don’t have enough information and behavior to
get answers from their own selves.
Limitations at Preoperational stage :
Problem of centration: concentrating on only one
feature of a thing and neglect others.
This is demonstrated by children’s inability to understand:
 Conservation principles: that some properties of an
object remain the same regardless of changes in other
properties
 Reversibility : returning something into an earlier
state.
 This leads to illogical conclusion (Check Piaget’s studies
in Papalia et al; 2001:pp 254-255 & Santrock,
J;1999:pp206-208)
 Ego-centricism: thinking only on their own
perspective or point of view, everything is for their
own sake, everybody thinks is in the same way, have
the same interest.
 What is good for them is good for everybody (Read
experiment of a mountain in Papalia, D & Olds,
S;1992: pp 190-192).
 Reason is still illogical although some traces of logic
can be observed.
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7-11
YEARS)
Achievements
Ability to de-centre
 They can transform and reverse objects, no
longer deceived by appearance.
 Less egocentric; they think on the other point of
views, can communicate more effectively and
understand things without seeing them.
 Logical thinking develops but only on physical
objects they can touch, see and hear and in the
present time.
 They form concepts, see relationships of familiar
objects and situations and solve concrete problems.
 Classification and discrimination according to
similarities or differences, size or shape, color
(higher level).
 Difficulties in abstract thinking; still depend on
concrete environment they are more practical
minded in their thinking.
 Spatial relationships: Ability to know a way to and
from school, madrasa, market.
 Class inclusion: think simultaneously about the
whole and parts.
 Seriation: arranging things according to size; the
tallest to shortest
 Transitive inference or transitivity: logic of
understanding relationship between two objects when
the relationship between another object and one of the
two is known.
 Example If A has more than C and B has more than A
so, C has less than B.
FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11- OVER
 Children reach at their pick of cognitive development.
 Thinking and reasoning do not depend on concrete
situations or objects.
 They can also think on propositions, hypotheses and
abstract concepts.
 Look at problems at different angles and possibilities
and think of many alternative solutions.
 Process and use a lot of information acquired through
experience for making decisions, judgments, reaching
to a certain conclusion or solving a problem.
 Ability to apply principles and facts in solving a
problem
 Design their own ways of solving a problem
 Ability to establish relationship of things, events,
situations or ideas based on experience or
information through various ways
 Can do experiments, interpret situations, participate
in debate on social and political issues.
 This development occurs gradually and begins at
lower level to upper level, from simple situations to
complex situations.
References
 Davenport, G.C (1994): An Introduction to Child Development
(2nd edition). London: Collins Educational
 Elliot, S et al (2000): Educational Psychology: Effective Teaching,
Effective Learning; McGraw Hill, Boston.
 Erikson, E ‘Childhood and Society’ in Diessner (1997): Sources:
Notable Selections in Human Development. New York: Dushkin.
 Papalia, D et al (2001):Human Development (eighth edition).
Boston: McGraw Hill.
 Rosser, R & Nicholson, G (1987): Educational Psychology:
Principles and Practice. Boston: Little Brown and Comp.
 Santrock, J (1999): Psychology;The Science of Mind and Behavior.
Dubuque: WCB. Brown & Benchmark.