JEAN PIAGET’S
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
THEORIES
Ceferino Symon Josh B. Garcia
BPED 1
JEAN PIAGET
(1896-1980)
• He was a psychologist and epistemologist who
focused on child development.
• He developed the Theory of Human Cognitive
Development which is known as “Genetic
Epistemology”, based on his interest in
biology and particularly the adaptation of
species to their environment.
PIAGET’S THEORY OF
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• Suggests that children move
through four different stages of
learning. His theory focuses not
only on understanding how children
acquire knowledge, but also on
understanding the nature of
intelligence.
4 STAGES OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
• The Sensorimotor Stage(Birth to 2 years) Infancy
• Preoperational Stage(2-7 years) Toddler to Early Childhood
• Concrete Operational Stage(7-12 years) Childhood to Adolescence
• Formal Operational Stage(12 years and above) Adolescence to
Adulthood
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
(BIRTH TO 2 YEARS)
• Infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating
sensory(seeing or hearing) experiences with motor(reaching and
touching) actions.
• Develop Object Permanence (memory)- Realize that objects exist even if
they are out of sight.
• Infants progress from reflexive, instinctual actions at birth to the
beginning of problem solving(intellectual) and symbolic
abilities(language) toward the end of this stage.
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
(2-7 YEARS)
• Begins when the child starts to use symbols and language. This is a
period of developing language and concepts. So, the child is capable of
more complex mental representations (words and images). The child is
still unable to use ‘operations’, (logical mental rules, such as rules of
arithmetic. This stage is divided into 2 sub-stages:
• Preconceptual Stage(2-4 years) : increased used of verbal representation but speech is
egocentric. Uses symbols to stand for actions.
• Intuitive Stage(4-7 years) : speech becomes more social, less egocentric. The child base
their knowledge on “What they feel or sense to be true.” yet cannot explain the
underlying principles behind those feelings or senses.
KEY FEATURES OF THIS STAGE
• Egocentrism: child’s thoughts and communications are typically
egocentric or about themselves.
• Animism: treating inanimate objects a living ones.
• Concentration: the process of concentrating on one limited aspect of a
stimulus and ignoring other aspects.
• Conservation: the knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the
arrangement and physical appearance of objects. Child at this stage are
unaware of conservation.
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
(7 TO 12 YEARS)
• 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
characteristics.
• Transitivity: the ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order.
• Classification: the ability to group objects together on the basis of common features.
Begins to get the idea that one set can include another.
• Decentring: the ability to take multiple aspects of a situation into account.
• Reversibility: the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then
returned to their original state.
• Conservation: understanding that the quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to
the arrangement and appearance on the object or item.
• Elimination of Egocentrism: the ability to view things from another’s perspective.
• The child performs operations: combining, separating,
multiplying, repeating, dividing, etc.
FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
(12 YEARS AND ABOVE)
• The thought becomes increasingly flexible and abstract.
• The ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodological way.
• Understands that nothing is absolute; everything is relative.
• Develops skills such logical thought, deductive reasoning as well as inductive reasoning
and systematic planning.
• Understands that the rules of any game or social system are developed by a man by
mutual agreement and hence could be changed or modified.
• The child’s way of thinking is at its most advanced, although the knowledge it has to work
with will change.
KEY CONCEPTS
• Shema; internal representation of the world. Helps an individual understand the
world they inhabit. They are cognitive structures that represent a certain aspect
of the world and can be seen as categories which have certain pre-conceived
ideas in them.
• Assimilation: it is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or
situation. The leaner fits the new idea into what he already know. The schema is
not changed, it is only modified.
• Accommodation: happens when the existing schema does not work and needs
to be changed to deal with new object or situation. The schema is altered; a new
schema may be developed.
• Equilibration: Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a
steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibrium occurs when a child’s
schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. It is
important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge and
changing behavior to account for new knowledge.
Equilibrium helps explain how children are able to move from on
stage of thought to the next.
THANK YOU!
Ceferino Symon Josh B. Garcia
BPED 1
