Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget (Swiss
Psychologist/biologist)
Prepared by: Shuhudha Rizwan
Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive
Development
• Children learn by interacting with their environment.
• Children need to have physical experiences and
manipulate objects in their environment to make
developmental progress.
• With each new experience the child moves from his/her
current understanding to construct new learning.
• This new learning or mental patterns that guide
behaviour are called SCHEMES
•
Look at this child
She is faced with the problem of how to get
the food from the bowl to her mouth.
•
She solves the problem by using a spoon. At
the same time she learns the muscle control
and direction finding needed to feed herself.
•
The knowledge that results from this action is
not imitated or in-born. It is actively
constructed by the child.
What will happen when the child is given a fork to eat with?
She may use the fork in the same way as the spoon.
= assimilation of the new tool to existing skills and
knowledge.
Soon the child realises she can also use the fork to spike
food.
= accommodation. The child’s actions and knowledge
adapt to the new possibility and something new is
created.
Sensorymotor stage (birth to 2 yrs)
• Formation of concept of ‘object
permanence’ and gradual progression
from reflexive behaviour to goal oriented
behaviour.
Preoperational Stage (2 – 7 years)
• Development of the ability to use symbols
to represent objects in the works. Thinking
remains egocentric and centered.
Concrete Operational Stage
• Intelligence is demonstrated through logical and
systematic manipulation of symbols related to
concrete objects.
• Operational thinking develops (mental actions that
are reversible).
• Egocentric thought diminishes.
Formal operational stage
• Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical
manipulation of symbols related to abstract
concepts (Abstract thinking)
• Early in this period there is a return to egocentric
thought