Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and is perhaps one of the most commonly used theorists in relation to child development.

He was the first first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development and subsequently he placed a large emphasis on the importance of the education of a child.

Prior to Piaget’s theory children were primarily seen to be mini adults with the common assumption that children were merely less competent thinkers than adults.

The development of his theory of cognitive development facilitated the understanding of how children develop intellectually throughout their childhood.

Piaget’s theory provides a framework for understanding how cognition, or thinking develops.

Piaget believed a child’s cognitive development was based upon not only information by carers but also based upon their own experiences.

Piaget’s theory is one based on stages. The theory focused on understanding how children acquire knowledge and intelligence through the different mental stages of development.

His central idea is that children are not little adults.

According to Piaget, development involves the continuous alteration and re-organisation of the ways in which each person deals with their environment.

A child constructs knowledge as they explore and learn about their world.

For example, a child, a preschooler, a school aged child and an adolescent don’t all see the world or interact in the same way.

As Piaget’s theory was based on maturation the notion of readiness is key.

Readiness provides the foundation certain information or concepts should be taught or learned.

Jean Piaget conducted research by a clinical method, whereby, to establish his theory, he presented children with problems to solve and watching and recording the ways in which they approached them and their reasoning. He did this with varying ages.

To him children were not just passive receivers.

Piaget’s theory is based primarily upon development.

There are three basic components to Piaget’s theory.

1. Schemas which is the building blocks of knowledge.
2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation, and  accommodation).
3. Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget introduced the concept of schema.

Schema is the cognitive structures that underlie a pattern of behaviour.

These become more sophisticated as the child matures.

To have schemata is to have the tools for learning about the world, the actions and strategies that children use to understand, deal with and make sense of their world.

Schema, as per Piaget is both the category of knowledge as well as the process of acquiring that knowledge.

The development of a person’s mental processes according to Piaget is the increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a child had learned.

Children are constantly adapting as they learn new things, new experiences and take in new information within the environment.

New schemas are developed as new information or new experiences happen.

At this point new schemas are developed and old schemas are changed or modified.

Schemata is the plural of schema.

As a child grows older so does the number and complexity of schema.

Schema affects the learning process. They affect learning by:

• Assimilate this new information.
• Help simplify the world.
• Influence what we pay attention to.
• Impact how quickly people learn.

The processes through which schemas are adjusted or changed is adaptation which is known as assimilation, accommodation and equilibrium.

Assimilation and accommodation require an active learner and in order to be an active learner a child must exhibit readiness.

Adaptation is the other concept and has associated components:

1. Assimilation: Is the taking in process. It can be by sensation, nourishment or experience. It is how and the process by which new information is taken in and filtered or modified to fit already knowledge. A child will use an existing schema to cope with a new situation or object.
2. Accommodation: Involves modifying the existing schemata to meet whatever the requirements are of the new experience. When an existing schema doesn’t work  and needs to be changed or adapted.
3. Equilibrium: This is the force that moves development along. According to Piaget development occurred in leaps and bounds rather than at a steady pace.

Piaget argued that children’s development occur in the sequence of 4 stages.

Each of the stages represents a qualitative change and advance in a child’s ability to solve problems and understand their world.

A child will go through each stage in order. Whilst the order to the stages does not change a child may progress through the different stages at an individual rate.

Piaget did not assign particular ages to each stage. The ages were an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

According to Piaget child development was determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

The Sensorimotor Stage: (0-2 years)

A child is egocentric during this stage. The infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others.

They will investigate their world using their senses as well as motor activity.

In this stage the main element that a child develops is object permanence (the understanding that an object or people are not lost or simply disappear if it is out of sight). IN order to be able to achieve this the child must have the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.

The Pre-operational Stage: (2-7 years)

A child within this stage thinks about things symbolically.

A child is able to use something where it represents something else. This may be a word or an object.

This is during the years which children cannot understand logical concepts such as conservation.

They can use one thing to represent another thing and they have an emerging use of symbolism is shown in their expanding language.

They cannot understand conservation (the knowledge that the quantities remain the same despite a change in appearance- i.e. different sized glasses).

This concept is developing and will become more advanced in a later stage.

The pre-operational child is still egocentric and they believe that inanimate objects are alive.

The Concrete Operational Stage: (7-12 years)

Piaget considered this quite a turning point in a child’s cognitive development.

In this stage many of the deficiencies of the past stages are slowly overcome and learned.

A child is able to think logically and work things out internally in their head.

In this stage they have difficulty in understanding abstract terms such as freedom.

Things are understood by child literally and concretely. A sense of fairness is also developing.

A child can conserve number by the age of 6. They can conserve mass by the age of y. They can conserve weight by the age of 9. The ability for a child to have an understanding of conservation requires the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.

The Formal Operational Stage: (adolescence)

They develop a sense of logic and understand and communicate their opinions and positions on complex issues and have developed the ability to deal with abstractions.

From 11 years right up to adulthood they are developing the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

1. Maturation: The gradual unfolding of each child’s genetic plan.
2. Experiences: The active interaction of the child within their environment.
3. Social transmission: The information and the customs that are conveyed from the parents.