Cognitive Development:

This is the process that involves thought and knowledge and they are called
COGNITION.
Thinking has many forms:
You KNOW your phone number.
You SENSE what is happening around you…
You MEMORIZE facts for a test…..
You ORGANIZE your thoughts to write a paragraph.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT = is the way people change and improve in their ability
to think and learn. It is also known as intellectual development.
Cognitive abilities, intellectual abilities, gradually increase.
Consider your 1st grade mathematical skills compared to your knowledge and
skills now!
What you know in Math has changed… The way you are taught in math has
changed.

❖ means how children think, explore and figure things out.

❖ It is the development of knowledge, skills, problem solving and dispositions,
which help children to think about and understand the world around them.

Piaget (1896 - 1980)

◦ Swiss Psychologist, worked for
several decades on understanding
 children’s cognitive development
◦ Most widely known theory of cognitive
development.
◦ Was intrigued by kids’ thoughts & behavior, & worked to
understand their cognitive development

Piaget: Background
◦ Young Piaget was incredibly precocious
◦ Published first paper at 10
◦ Wrote on mollusks, based on these writings was asked to be
curator of mollusks at a museum in Geneva (he declined in
order to finish secondary school)
◦ Earned his doctorate in natural sciences at 21
◦ Began to study psychology, applying intelligence tests to
school children
Piagetian Tasks:
Piaget's theory states that as children develop biologically they
also meet specific cognitive goals. Developments of adaptive
behaviors are connected to mental development. These are
obtained in specific chronological stages. Piaget's theory contrasts
to other developmental theories by focusing on the development
of intellect. Piaget contributed the idea that children's minds grow
gradually, and that they are not capable of reasoning like adults.
 Learning is based on age and experimentation with objects
4 STAGES OF COGNITIVE THEORY
~People are similar, but differences in individuals matter~
At any stage of life, thinking skills or individuals are similar.
Sensorimotor, Toddler, Early Childhood, Adolescence and Adulthood

PIAGET
◦ Others were celebrating behaviorism; Piaget began looking for differences!
~The Four Stages of Cognitive Development~
◦ He found that at any stage of life, thinking skills of individuals are similar.
◦ At each new stage, people incorporate new experiences into what they
know based on skills they have developed earlier in previous stages.
◦ Piaget improved understanding of cognitive skills development.
◦ Young children base thinking on senses.
◦ (Logical Thought: The moon is following me!)
◦ Children need continuous exposure to experimentation, discover, and first-
hand experiences to develop.

BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS

SCHEMA
-Any concept or idea of how the world works.
= Refer to the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt
to and organize their environment.
ASSIMILATION
-Taking a new experience and adding it to a pre-existing schema.
= the process of fitting a new experience into an existing or previously
created cognitive structure or schema.
ACCOMODATION
= Changing something in a scheme to fit a new experience.
= The process of creating a new schema.

PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Sensory motor stage

focuses on the prominence of the senses and muscle movement through
which the infant comes to learn about himself and the world.
= In working with children in the sensori-motor stage, teachers should aim
to provide a rich and stimulating environment with appropriate objects to
play with.
= OBJECT PERMANCE = the ability of the child to know that an object still
exists even when out of sight. This ability is attained in the sensory motor
stage
 Pre-Operational Stage
◦ Intelligence at this stage is intuitive in nature. The child can now
make mental representations and is able to pretend ; also the
child is now ever closer to the use of symbols.
◦ SYMBOLIC FUNCTION – the ability to represent objects and
events. A symbol is a thing that represents something else. Ex. A
drawing, a written word, or a spoken word comes to be
understood as representing a real object like a real MRT train.
This develops at the age of two to seven (2 – 7).
◦ Ex. Riel – a two yr old may pretend that he is drinking from
a glass which is really empty. Though she already pretends
the presence of water, the glass remains to be a glass.
◦ Another ex. – Nico at age 4, may, after pretending to drink
from an empty glass, turns the glass into a rocket ship or a
telephone. By age 6 or 7, the child can pretend play with
objects that exist only in his mind.
◦ EGOCENTRISM – the tendency of the child to only see his point of
view and to assume that everyone also has his same point of
view.
◦ CENTRATION – the tendency of the child to only focus on one
aspect of a thing or event and exclude other aspects.
◦ ANIMISM – the tendency of children to attribute human like traits
or characteristics to inanimate objects. (eg. Being superhero)
Concrete Operational Stage
◦ Characterized by the ability of the child to think logically but only
in terms of concrete objects.
◦ DECENTERING = the ability of the child to perceive the different
features of objects and situations. No longer is the child focused
or limited to one aspect or dimension. It allows the child to be
more logical when dealing with concrete objects & situations.
◦ CONSERVATION = the ability to know that certain properties of
objects like number, mass, volume or area do not change even if
there is a change in appearance. Can make judgment correctly…
ex. 5 pcs of P20 bill and 1 pc of P100 bill.
◦ SERIATION = the ability to order or arrange things in a series
based on one dimension such as weight, volume or size.

Formal Operation
◦ Thinking of the child become more logical. Can now solve
abstract problems and can hypothesize.
◦ HYPOTHETICAL REASONING = Ability to come up with different
hypothesis about a problem and to gather and weight data in
order to make a final decision or judgment. Can now deal with
“what if” questions.
◦ ANALOGICAL REASONING = ability to perceive the relationship in
one instance and then use that relationship to narrow down
possible answers in another similar situation or problem. Ex. If
United Kingdom is to Europe, Philippines is to _____.
◦ DEDUCTIVE REASONING = the ability to think logically by applying
a general rule to a particular instance or situation. Ex. All
countries near the north pole have cold temperature. Greenland
 is near the North pole. Therefore, Greenland has cold
temperature.

Erikson’s Psycho-Social Stage of Development

Erikson’s Psychosocial
Stage Theory of Development
• Emphasized the impact of society and culture upon development
• Eight stages of development, each with a major issue or crisis that
has to be resolved
• Each stage is named after the two sides of the issue relevant in
that stage
Erikson’s theory was largely influenced by Sigmund Freud.
But Erikson extended the theory and incorporated cultural
and social aspects into Freud’s biological and sexually-
oriented theory

Each stage involves a psychosocial crisis of two opposing

emotional forces. A helpful term used by Erikson for these
opposing forces is “contrary dispositions”, Each crisis stage
relates to a corresponding life stage and its inherent
challenges. Erikson used the words “syntonic” that describe
2 dispositions in life – the positive and negative
1. Trust vs. Mistrust
(birth to 1 year)
- Infants learn that they can or cannot trust others to take care of their
basic needs

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

(1 to 2 years)
- Children learn to be self-sufficient in many activities such as toilet
training, walking, and exploring; if restrained too much they learn to
doubt their abilities and feel shame

Initiative vs. Guilt

(3 to 5 years)
- Children learn to assume more responsibility by taking the initiative
but will feel guilty if they overstep limits set by parents

Industry vs. Inferiority

(5 years to puberty)
- Children learn to be competent by mastering new intellectual, social,
and physical skills or feel inferior if they fail to develop these skills

Identity vs. Role Confusion

(adolescence)
- Adolescents develop a sense of identity by experimenting with
different roles; no role experimentation may result in role confusion

Intimacy vs. Isolation

(young adulthood)
- Young adults form intimate relationships with others or become
isolated because of failure to do so

Generativity vs. Stagnation

(middle adulthood)
- Middle-aged adults feel they are helping the next generation though
their work and child rearing, or they stagnate because they feel that
they are not helping

Integrity vs. Despair

(late adulthood)
- Older adults assess their lives and develop sense of integrity if they
find lives have been meaningful; develop sense of despair if not
meaningful