Paigets theory

Paiget believed in cognitive development, which is the way how we think and understand knowledge
changes overtime. Before Paiget, people believed that a child was just the same as an adult, but
rather lacking in knowledge. However this was found to not be the case, as children are unable to
think logically as their brains have not yet developed properly. Just like a baby whose muscles are
weak and feeble, but overtime will develop to become stronger.

Paiget also didn’t just analyse the stages of development of a child, but came up with how they take
in the information of the world. According to Paiget, we are all born with a set number of schemas.
However, as we grow and experience the world we develop more and more schemas. Such as: how
we look at ourselves, objects, people and so on. The schema can be understood as complex mental
structures constantly building and building. The process of accumulating schemas is directly linked to
assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation can be understood by, for example a child seeing a red bird that made a certain noise
and flew in a certain pattern. However if the child was to see a blue bird that made a completely
different noise and different flight pattern, that child would use the data already collected from his
schema and deduce that this blue bird is different yet of the same category(bird). This then would
allow a new schema to develop and that is assimilation.

Accommodation can be understood by, for example if that same child that saw the two birds. Were
to now see a plane in the sky and realise that it too is flying and has its own unique sound/flight
pattern. The child’s mind would accommodate and deduce that although there are similarities
between the bird and the plane. They are different, which then allows the child to create more and
more schemas broadening the child’s understanding of the world.

What distinguishes an infant to an adult are four stages of develop, which Paiget believed that
children all went through before developing completely. The four stages of development are:
sensorimotor stage (0-2 years approximately), pre-operational stage (2-7 years approximately),
concrete operational stage (7-11 years approximately) and formal operational stage (11+ years)

The sensorimotor stage begins from the age of 0-2 years approximately and at this stage the baby is
focusing on physical sensations and basic co-ordination with his/her body. The word sensori means
what they see and motor means what they do. An example of this is when a baby is moving his/her
hands the baby realises that he can control it and can even grab things hence the name
sensorimotor. Also a key thing to understand is that the baby at this stage will have no
understanding what so ever of object permanence. If one were to put an apple in front of a baby and
then cover it up with the bowl. Even though one may show the baby multiple times the apple under
the bowl, because of the underdeveloped brain, the baby will not at all be able to understand object
permanence. Rather, the baby seeing that the apple has disappeared will give up looking for it
entirely.

After sensorimotor the next stage is the pre-operational stage, which starts at the age of 2-7 years
approximately and at this period they are completely mobile and can communicate a decent fair
amount. However they perceive the world in illogical ways, but to them it is completely logical they
way they think. Operational actually just means logical and at this stage they are illogical, hence pre-
operational. They also do not understand conservation of quantity e.g. a transperant bowl and a
measuring cylinder with the same amount of water. The child would think the measuring cylinder
has more water, because it is higher. At this stage children suffer with egocentricity, which means
they can only see the world through their own eyes (self centred). Only consistently after the age of
7 could children begin to see things through different perspectives. This is confirmed through the
mountain doll study. Where there are three mountains, which have a house, cross and snow on
them. The child is asked to move the doll into different positions and describe from the dolls
perspective how the mountains look, but the children at this age were completely unable to do so.

After pre-operational stage comes the concrete operational stage from the age of 7 to 11 years old.
At this stage children can do much better when it comes to tasks dealing with egocentrism. Also the
children will be able to much better with logic and reasoning tasks with physical objects. However
Paiget does not include in the concrete operational stage the ability for children to understand
abstract ideas or imagine situations they’ve never seen. The children’s learn class inclusion, which is
key at this age and is the ability to divide something that is similar into two or more categories, for
example in the study stretch and challenge. There are twenty beads 18 are brown and two are
white. The children are asked are there more brown beads or white beads and are they all wooden.
Pre-operational children would struggle, whereas concrete-operational children would not.

After the concrete-operational stage comes formal operational stage, which begins 11 years + and at
this age Paiget believed that children were now capable of understanding abstract ideas. Children at
this age were found to not be so distracted in a rational conversation by the content. Rather focused
completely on the form e.g. if you tell someone at the formal operational stage that all yellow cats
have two heads. Then say my cat called Charlie is yellow how many heads does he have. The formal
operational kid would say Charlie has two heads, whereas a concrete operational child would get
distracted by the contents and say Charlie has only one head.