PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget, a swiss biologist, had profound interest in epistemology, a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge. Later he developed a keen interest in child and cognitive psychology.

WHAT IS SCHEMA

A schema is a mental framework or cognitive structure that aids in the organization and interpretation of information in the setting of cognitive psychology. Schemas are blueprints for comprehending the world around us that are created via experience and education. They cover a broad spectrum of ideas, ranging from things and occasions to persons and circumstances.

Schemas are mental blueprints that direct how we perceive, remember, and understand the world. For instance, you have a schema for a “restaurant” that specifies what you expect in terms of the setting, food, and service. In order to make sense of and navigate a new restaurant, you automatically compare it to your preexisting schema.

Schemas are flexible and can be updated in response to new knowledge and experiences.

Two processes take an active role in schema expansion namely assimilation and accommodation. Discussed below –

ASSIMILATAION

Assimilation is the process by which people connect new experiences to their prior knowledge in order to make sense of them. It is an essential cognitive development process that helps people expand on their prior knowledge and adjust to their surroundings. People might have to participate in accommodation, changing their schemas to make room for the new knowledge, if it does not cleanly fit into preexisting schemas.

For example, a baby bird can be said to know various features such as bird’s wings, bird’s feathers. Then when the child saw another new bird, let’s say a crow, and the child judged this new bird, the crow, by comparing the characteristics of the previously known bird, and attached those characteristics to his schema. In this case, the child does not always have to create a new schema every time he sees a new bird, rather he learns new information along with all the characteristics of the bird he already knew.

ACCOMMODATION

The process by which the animal receives new experiences under the influence of the environment is called assimilation i.e. assimilation is the process of changing behavior by which new information or thoughts can be added to the schema as needed.

For example, say a child has schemas about a bird, ie, a bird has wings, a bird has feathers, and a bird can fly. One day the child went to the zoo and saw a penguin. A penguin has wings and feathers but it cannot rise. In this case the child modified his schema to say that not all birds can fly.

EQUILIBRIUM

When a youngster can successfully integrate or fit new information or experiences into their preexisting schemas without experiencing a great deal of cognitive conflict, equilibrium is reached. However, a condition of disequilibrium results when fresh knowledge or experiences upend preexisting schemas to the point where they are difficult to absorb or adjust.

For example, consider a young infant whose conception of a “bird” is based solely on observations of tiny birds, such as sparrows. The incapacity of a penguin to fly and its physical appearance may cause cognitive dissonance in a child when they see one for the first time. The youngster adjusts their preexisting schema for “bird” to take into account this new knowledge about birds without wings as a result of this condition of disequilibrium, which brings the system back into balance.

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

SENSORY MOTOR STAGE (0-2)

1. At birth the infant exhibits a limited number of uncoordinated reflexes such as sucking, looking, grasping.
2. At this level the child’s thinking is mainly limited to his sensory processing activities.
3. Children at this level are self-centered.
4. One of the characteristics of the child’s development at this level is object permanence. That is, the object that is not perceptible, he does not see, that is, it does not exist for that child.
5. They have no idea of ​​their place in the social environment around them.
6. By the end of this stage, the child can adapt to the environment through repetition, separation, minimization etc.

PRE OPERATIONAL STAGE (2-7)

PRE CONCEPTUAL PHASE (2-4)

1. At this level, children’s thinking and reasoning are often irrational, for example, a child knows that a cow has four legs and a tail and is a big animal, now there is an elephant in front of him, the child sees that the animal in front of him is It is a very large animal and has four legs and a tail. So it is a cow.
2. At this level the child starts to imitate imitative behavior i.e. can use any previous response in the present situation is called Deferred Imitation. For example, a child can be seen trying to put the doll to sleep while playing with a doll the way its mother puts it to sleep.
3. Symbolic thinking process begins in the child at this stage.
4. At the level the child develops language skills rapidly but does not use language to its full extent.
5. At this stage, the child does not have an understanding of space and time.
6. At this level, the child maintains continuity in his own activities such as waking up, playing, eating, etc.

PERIOD OF ITUITIVE THOUGHT (4-7)

1. Active pragmatic thinking of the child develops at this level.
2. Child’s mental organization changes as a result of social interaction through language.
3. Increases the accuracy of children’s thinking process and reasoning power.
   However, abstract concepts about space, time, measurement etc. are not formed at this level, but from the end of this level, concepts are gradually developed.

For example, two equal containers filled with the same amount of water are placed in front of a child. Then a container of water was poured into a long container and the child was asked which container had more water. The child first saw that the two containers contained equal amounts of water and filled the long container with water from a container in front of him. But seeing the height of the water in that long container, the child thought that there was more water.

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7-11)

1. At this level children can combine two concepts to form a third concept eg 5 + 5 = 10
2. At this level the child can categorize. For example, if a child can distinguish red objects from objects of different colors, then that child has learned to think about red objects together.
3. Here relationship is considered as a mental concept i.e. relationship means relationship of similarity such as children of this stage can arrange family members according to who is younger or older in the family.
4. Through categorization and ordering, children develop number theory or number concepts. When a child develops a correct understanding of the number ten, he knows that 10 is a class of ten objects and that it comes after nine and before 11.
5. When two opposite concepts are connected a zero concept is formed i.e. 2+(-2) =0
6. At this level the child’s ability to observe and test increases.
7. Increases language expressiveness.
8. Can perform logical thinking in context.

FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (12- 18)

1. At this level the child can do abstract thinking such as decision based thinking, project based thinking etc.
2. At this level, the child takes in all the possibilities of any task, constructs projects, tests, analyzes, makes decisions and can accept or reject them if necessary.
3. At this level collective planning can generalize to the combination Piaget called this operation group operation named by INRC group – Identity, Negative, Reciprocity, Correlativity.

EVALUATION OF PIAGET’S THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

CONTRIBUTION

1. Piaget changed the traditional view of the child’s nature. The child explores nature through his inherent curiosity and reconstructs his experiences based on it.
2. Piaget provided a direct explanation of how children experience through his proposed stages of life development, helping to revolutionize the psychological view of child development.
3. In addition to the controlled experimental methods of modern psychology, Piaget proved that it is possible to practice mental processes.

LIMITATION

1. Piaget’s hypothesis occasionally overestimated kids’ cognitive capacities, especially in the formative years. It has been demonstrated by later studies that newborns and early children might be capable of more sophisticated cognitive functions than Piaget first thought.
2. The importance of social contact and cultural background in cognitive development is not given much weight in Piaget’s hypothesis. Later theories emphasize the significance of social interaction, group learning, and cultural resources in influencing children’s cognitive development. Examples of these include sociocultural theory (e.g., Vygotsky).