FED 213

LECTURE NOTE
THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

The Theory of Cognitive Development, one of the most

historically influential theories, was developed by
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist (1896–1980).
His theory provided many central concepts in the field of
developmental psychology especially the growth of
intelligence, The theory is concerned with the emergence
and acquisition of schemata — schemes of how one
perceives the world — in developmental stages, and times
when children are acquiring new ways of mentally
representing information.
The theory is considered constructivist, meaning that,
unlike nativist theories (which describe cognitive
development as the unfolding of innate knowledge and
abilities) or empiricist theories (which describe cognitive
development as the gradual acquisition of knowledge
through experience), it asserts that we construct our
cognitive abilities through self-motivated action in the world.
For his development of the theory, Piaget was awarded the
Erasmus Prize. Piaget divided schemes that children use to
understand the world into four main periods, roughly
correlated with and becoming increasingly sophisticated
with age:
• Sensorimotor Period (Age Birth–2 years)
• Preoperational Period (Age 2–7 years)
• Concrete Operational Period (Age 7–12 years)
• Formal Operational Period (Age 12–adulthood)
Sensorimotor Period (Birth – 2 years)

Infants are born with a set of congenital reflexes; the child

in the sensorimotor period is to primarily explores the world
with senses (taste, touch, smell, feel, and sight) than
through cognitions or mental operations, according to
Piaget, in addition to a drive to explore their world. Their
initial schemas are formed through differentiation of the
congenital reflexes
The sensorimotor period of cognitive development marks
the development of essential spatial abilities and
understanding of the world in six sub-stages:
• The reflex schema phase occurs from birth to six weeks
and is associated primarily with the development of
reflexes.
• The primary circular reaction phase occurs from six weeks
to four months and is associated primarily with the
development of habits.
• The secondary circular reactions phase occurs from four
to nine months and is associated primarily with the
development of coordination between vision and
prehension.
• The co-ordination of secondary circular reactions phase,
which occurs from nine to twelve months, is when Piaget
(1954) thought that object permanence developed.
• The tertiary circular reactions phase occurs from twelve to
eighteen months and is associated primarily with the
discovery of new means to meet goals.
• The sixth sub-stage is considered "beginnings of symbolic
representation", is associated primarily with the
beginnings of insight, or true creativity.
Preoperational Stage (Age 2-7 years)

By observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to

demonstrate that towards the end of the second year, a
qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs.
During this stage the child learns to use and to represent
objects by images and words, in other words they learn to
use symbolic thinking. Thinking is still egocentric: The
childs has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others.
The child can classify objects by a single feature: e.g.
groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all
the square blocks regardless of colour. In this stage,
children develop their language skills. They begin
representing things with words and images. However, they
still use intuitive rather than logical reasoning.
At the beginning of this stage, they tend to be egocentric,
that is, they are not aware that other people do not think,
know and perceive the same as them. Children have highly
imaginative minds at this time and actually assign emotions
to inanimate objects. The theory of mind is also critical to
this stage. (Psychology 8th Edition, David Myers)
The Preoperational Stage can be further broken down into
the Preconceptual and the Intuitive Stages.

The Preconceptual Stage (age 2-4 years) is marked by

egocentric thinking and animistic thought. A child who
displays animistic thought tends to assign living attributes
to inanimate objects, for example, that a glass would feel
pain if it were broken.
The Intuitive Stage (age 4-7 years) is when children start
employing mental activities to solve problems and obtain
goals, but they are unaware of how they came to their
conclusions. For example, a child is shown 7 dogs and 3
cats and asked if there are more dogs then cats. The child
would respond positively.
However, when asked if there are more dogs than animals,
the child would once again respond positively. Such
fundamental errors in logic show the transition between
intuitiveness in solving problems and true logical reasoning
acquired in later years (Hetherington, Parke &
Schmuckler).
Concrete Operational Stage (Age 7-12 years)

This stage, which follows the Preoperational Stage,

occurs between the ages of 7 and 12 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.
• 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. A child is no longer subject to the
illogical limitations of animism (the belief that all objects
are alive and therefore have feelings).
• Decentering: the ability of the child to consider 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 understanding the child has 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 8, 8−4 will equal 4,
the original quantity.
• Conservation: the understanding that quantity, length, or
number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or
appearance of the objects or items. For instance, when a
child is presented with two equally-sized, full cups they
will be able to discern that if water is transferred to a
pitcher it will conserve the quantity and be equal to the
other filled cup.
• Elimination of Egocentrism: the ability to view things
from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly).
For instance, show a child a comic in which Jane puts a
doll under a box, leaves the room, and then Melissa
moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child
in the concrete operations stage will say that Jane will still
think it's under the box even though the child knows it is in
the drawer.
Formal Operational Stage (Age 12 – Adulthood)

This stage commences around 12 years of age (puberty)

and continues into adulthood. It is characterized by the
acquisition of the ability to think abstractly, reason logically,
and draw conclusions from the information available.
During this stage the young adult is able to understand
such things as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs, and
values.
Lucidly, biological factors may be traced to this stage as it
occurs during puberty (the time at which another period of
neural pruning occurs), marking the entry to adulthood in
physiology, cognition, moral judgment (Kohlberg),
psychosexual development (Freud), and social
development (Erikson).
Some two-thirds of people do not develop this form of
reasoning fully enough that it becomes their normal mode
for cognition, and so they remain, even as adults, concrete
operational thinkers.
General Information Regarding the Stages

These four stages have been found to have the following

characteristics:
• Although the timing may vary, the sequence of the stages
does not;
• Universal (not culturally specific);
• Generalizable: the representational and logical operations
available to the child should extend to all kinds of
concepts and content knowledge;
• Stages are logically organized wholes;
• Hierarchical nature of stage sequences (each successive
stage incorporates elements of previous stages, but is
more differentiated and integrated); and
• Stages represent qualitative differences in modes of
thinking, not merely quantitative differences.
Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory

Berk (2001) summarizes the main teaching implications

drawn from Piaget as follows:
• A focus on the process of children’s thinking, not just
its products. In addition to checking the correctness of
children’s answers, teachers must understand the
processes children use to get to the answer.
Appropriate learning experiences build on children’s current
level of cognitive functioning, and only when teachers
appreciate children’s methods of arriving at particular
conclusions, will they be in a position to provide such
experiences.
• Recognition of the crucial role of children’s self-
initiated, active involvement in learning activities. In a
Piagetian classroom, the presentation of ready-made
knowledge is deemphasized, and children are
encouraged to discover for themselves through
spontaneous interaction with the environment.
Therefore, instead of teaching didactically, teachers provide
a rich variety of activities that permit children to act directly
on the physical world.
• A deemphasis on practices aimed at making children
adultlike in their thinking. Piaget referred to the
question “How can we speed up development?” as “the
American question.”
Among the many countries he visited, psychologists and
educators in the United States seemed most interested in
what techniques could be used to accelerate children’s
progress through the stages.
Piagetian-based educational programmes accept his firm
belief that premature teaching could be worse than no
teaching at all, because it leads to superficial acceptance of
adult formulas rather than true cognitive understanding
(May & Kundert, 1997).
• Acceptance of individual differences in
developmental progress. Piaget’s theory assumes that
all children go through the same developmental sequence
but that they do so at different rates.
Therefore, teachers must make a special effort to arrange
classroom activities for individuals and small groups of
children rather than for the total class group.
In addition, because individual differences are expected,
assessment of children’s educational progress should be
made in terms of each child’s own previous course of
development, not in terms of normative standards provided
by the performances of same-age peers.