Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget's theory of cognitive development

It is primarily known as a developmental, but in fact, it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire it, construct it, and use it

The Nature of Intelligence: Operative and Figurative Intelligence

Operative intelligence is the active aspect of intelligence. It involves all actions, overt or covert, undertaken in order to follow, recover, or anticipate the transformations of the objects or persons of interest.

Figurative intelligence is the more or less static aspect of intelligence, involving all means of representation used to retain in mind the states (i.e., successive forms, shapes, or locations) that intervene between transformations.

At any time, operative intelligence frames how the world is understood and it changes if understanding is not successful. Piaget believed that this process of understanding and change involves two basic functions: Assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation and Accommodation

Assimilation- describes how humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of taking one’s environment and new information and fitting it into pre-existing cognitive schemas.

Accommodation- is the process of taking one's environment and new information, and altering one's pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information.

Four Stages of Cognitive Development

      Sensorimotor stage

The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages in cognitive development which "extends from birth to the acquisition of language". "In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating experiences (such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motor actions. Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they perform on it.

Six sub-stage

v      Simple Reflexes(Birth-6 weeks)

"Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors". Three primary reflexes are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth, following moving or interesting objects with the eyes, and closing of the hand when an object makes contact with the palm (palmar grasp). Over the first six weeks of life, these reflexes begin to become voluntary actions

v     First habits and primary circular reactions phase (6 weeks-4 months)

"Coordination of sensation and two types of schemes: habits (reflex) and primary circular reactions (reproduction of an event that initially occurred by chance). Main focus is still on the infant's body

v      Secondary circular reactions phase (4–8 months)

Development of habits. "Infants become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results." This stage is associated primarily with the development of coordination between vision and prehension. Three new abilities occur at this stage: intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions, and differentiations between ends and means.

v      Coordination of secondary circular reactions stages (8–12 months)

"Coordination of vision and touch--hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemes and intentionality." This stage is associated primarily with the development of logic and the coordination between means and ends.

v      Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity (12–18 months)

"Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many things they can make happen to objects; they experiment with new behavior.” This stage is associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals.

v      Internalization of Schemes (18–24 months)

"Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations." This stage is associated primarily with the beginnings of insight, or true creativity. This marks the passage into the preoperational stage.

      Preoperational stage

During this stage, the child learns to use and to represent objects by images, words, and drawings. The child is able to form stable concepts as well as mental reasoning and magical beliefs. The child however is still not able to perform operations; tasks that the child can do mentally rather than physically. Thinking is still egocentric. The child has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others.

Two sub stages

The Symbolic Function Sub stage

Occurs between about the ages of 2 and 7. At 2-4 years of age, kids cannot yet manipulate and transform information in logical ways, but they now can think in images and symbols. The child is able to formulate designs of objects that are not present.

The Intuitive Thought Substage

Occurs between about the ages of 4 and 7. Children tend to become very curious and ask many questions; begin the use of primitive reasoning. There is an emergence in the interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are.

 

      Concrete operational stage

The concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the preoperational stage, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are:

Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.

Transitivity- Transitivity, which refers to the ability to recognize relationships among various things in a serial order. For example, when told to put away his books according to height, the child recognizes that he starts with placing the tallest one on one end of the bookshelf and the shortest one ends up at the other end.

Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.

Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.

Reversibility—the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.

Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.

Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly).

 

      Formal operational stage

Commences at around 11 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations

Reported by:

Mogote, Arriane C.

Morales, Czarina Mae