Jean Piaget 1896-

1980

Piaget Theory Of Cognitive

Development

Dr. Priyanka Singh

 Jean Piaget 1896-1980

 Born: August 9, 1896, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

 Died: September 17, 1980 Geneva, Switzerland
 Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss Biologist who later
turned into a Cognitive and Child psychologist. He is well
known for providing a stage theory of Cognitive
development for explaining the development of thinking in
human beings from infancy to adulthood.
 He was so keen and interested in the study of cognitive
and child psychology.
 In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay; the couple had
three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy.
 Jean Piaget 1896-1980
 Jean Piaget (1896-1980) observed his children (and their
process of making sense of the world around them) and
eventually developed a four stage model of how the mind
processes new information encountered.

 Piaget believed that children move from one Piaget stage to the
next after extensive exposure to relevant stimuli and
experiences. With these experiences, both physical and
cognitive, they are ready to master new skills. This is essential
for children to move through the Piaget stages.

 The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and

processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into
an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses.
Stage
 Cognitive
development

Cognitive development was a

progressive reorganization of
mental processes as a result
of biological maturation and
environmental experience.
Children construct an
understanding of the world
around them, then experience
discrepancies between what
they already know and what
they discover in their
environment.
 Cognitive Development
 Jean Piaget’s most notable professional work was his theory of
cognitive development. In his theory, Piaget proposed that
cognitive development begins at birth, and lasts through
adulthood.

 His theory reflects a series of challenges that a child (or

adolescent) faces as they grow. These challenges cause the
child to restructure what they understand about the world.
Through these challenges, a child’s cognitive function becomes
more complex and dynamic.

 According to Piaget’s theory, a child enters new stages once they

reach an age range. In each stage, they face a stage-based
challenge they must overcome to successfully develop into the
next stage. Every time a child overcomes the challenge, they go
through the process of adaption
 Cognitive Process
Core Concept of Cognitive Development

o Being able to adapt to new information about the world is a

critical part of cognitive development. Jean Piaget believed that a
child must be able to adapt in order to maintain a healthy pattern
of cognitive development.

o Adaption is the way in which people change their perceptions

about their world as they learn new things. It is the process of
changing the understanding of the world, based on new
information from the environment. In order to adapt, one must be
able to challenge and restructure what they ‘know’ to be true
about the world.
 four concepts of adaption
1.Schema.
 A schema is a category of knowledge that a child develops
while interacting with the world. A child will develop many
schemas while they grow and develop. Each of these
schemas will change with time. The changes happen while
the child receives new information about how the world
works. In order to be able to process and understand the
new information, a child must be able to change their
schema to fit the new information.

 In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of

knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge.
Schema

Environment Cognition Bird

 2. Equilibration.

o Equilibration is a term used to describe the

process of facing a challenge to their schema.
When a schema is not compromised by a
challenge, it is settled. When a person gains
new information that challenges the schema, it
falls into disequilibrium.
o Equilibration is the process of making sense of
the new information and fitting it into the schema
to regain a settled schema. This process occurs
with assimilation and accommodation.
 3. Assimilation.
 Assimilation is when a person interprets new information based
on what they already know. It is a process that includes adding
new information to a schema in a way that makes sense. In order
for it to make sense, the new information must fit well with the
changing schema.
 4. Accommodation.
 Accommodation is the process of re-organizing schemas to
accommodate new information. It is a method of integrating old
information with new information.
 Sensorimotor Stage

o Age Range: Birth to 2 years old

o According to the Piaget theory, children like to explore at the

sensorimotor stage. They want to watch, hear, taste, touch things
around them.

o They learn about their environment by sensation: watching, grasping,

sucking and manipulating objects they can get their eyes and hands on.
They generally don’t appear to be thinking about what they do.

o Piaget further divided the sensorimotor stage into six substages, each
sighted with at the establishment of a new skill.
 Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2years
old)
 Reflexes (0 – 1 month): Understanding of environment is attained
through reflexes such as sucking and crying.

 Primary Circular Reactions (1 – 4 months): New schemas and

sensations are combined, allowing children to engage in pleasurable
actions deliberately, such as sucking their thumb.
 Secondary Circular Reactions (4 – 8 months): Children are now
aware that their actions influence their environment and purposefully
perform actions in order to achieve desired results. For example,
they push a key on a toy piano to make a sound.
 Coordination of Reactions (8 – 12 months): Children explore their
environment and often imitate the behavior of others.
 Tertiary Circular Reactions – (12 – 18 months): Children begin to
experiment and try out new behavior.
 Early Representational Thought (18 – 24 months): Children begin
to recognize and appreciate symbols that represent objects or
events. They use simple language to catalog objects, e.g. “doggie”,
“horsey”.
 Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2years
old)
object permanence.
During the late sensorimotor stage, children begin to learn
the concept of object permanence. In other words, they
know that an object will continue to exist even if they can no
longer see it.

 2 Months : surprise when an object disappears.

 6-8 Months : looking for missing object
 8-12 Months: reaching for or searching for completely
hidden toy.
 Preoperational Stage

 Age Range: 2-7 years old

 Around age two, children enter the preoperational stage where they learn
how to think abstractly, understand symbolic concepts, and use language
in more sophisticated ways. They learn to use words to describe people,
their feelings and their environments.
 Now that children can express themselves better, they become insatiably
curious and begin to ask questions about everything they see. They can
imagine people or objects that don’t exist (such as a lizard with wings)
more readily than younger children, and they like to make up their own
games.
 This stage is called preoperational because the children have not yet
mastered the ability to perform mental operations.
 During this stage child is not capable of reversible though.
For example 3+2= 5 but not 5-3=2
Key Features of this Stage :-
 egocentric thoughts :– Children during this stage do not take other
point of view into consideration. Rather they think that everybody view
the world as they do . Children believe that their way of thinking is the
only way to think. For example, a child in a game of hide and seek may
simply close his eyes and believe that others can’t see him (since he
can’t see others).

 Animism :- Children tend to refer to inanimate objects (non living

objects) as if they have life like qualities and are capable of actions.
Children consider these objects as having emotions , motives ,
intentions , thoughts and desires.

 Conservation:- is the most widely investigated Piagetian concept

about children's thinking .It refers to the understanding that certain
properties of an object remain the same despite a change in their
appearance.

 Decentering:- child has difficulty in seeing more than one dimension or

aspects of a situation.
 Concrete Operational Stage
 Age Range: 7-11 years old

 By the time they reach this stage, children can understand much more
complex abstract concepts, such as time, space, and quantity. They can
apply these concepts to concrete situations, but they still have trouble
thinking about them independently of those situations.

 Piaget pointed out that at this stage, children’s ideas about time and
space are sometimes inconsistent. They can learn rules fairly easily, but
they may have trouble understanding the logical implications of those
rules in unusual situations.

 At the concrete operational stage, children are able to use inductive logic
– the type of reasoning that starts from a specific idea and leads to a
generalization. They can also distinguish facts from fantasies, as well as
formulate judgments about cause and effect.

 Another important milestone at this stage is the idea of reversibility –

children understand that some objects can be altered and then shaped
back to their original shape.
 Formal Operational Stage

 Age Range: 11 years old and older

 At the final stage of the Piaget stages of cognitive development,

children are capable of more abstract, hypothetical, and
theoretical reasoning. They are no longer bound to observable
and physical events. They can approach and resolve problems
systematically by formulating hypotheses and methodically
testing them out.
 As children grow older, formal logic becomes possible and verbal
explanations of concepts are usually sufficient without
demonstration. They can consider possible outcomes and
consequences of their actions without actually performing them.
In addition, strategy-based games become more enjoyable,
whereas rote games like “chutes-and-ladders” become too
repetitive and boring for them.