Theory of Jean Piaget on Cognitive Development

1. SAY ALOUD WHAT
COLOR YOU SEE IN
EVERY WORD, NOT
THE WORD
YOU READ.
Stroop test is used in
neuropsychological
evaluations to
measure mental
vitality and flexibility,
since performing well
requires strong
attention and self-
regulation capability.
SOURCE:
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/10/05
/brain-exercise-the-stroop-test/
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/10/05/brain-exercise-the-stroop-test/

2. In which
direction is
the bus
pictured below
traveling?
SOURCE: http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/02/24/exercise-your-brains-visual-logic-brain-

4. “The principle goal of education
in the schools should be
creating men and women who
are capable of doing new
things, not simply repeating
what other generations have
done.”
“When you teach a child
something you take away forever
his chance of discovering it for
himself.”

5. Jean Piaget

6. Jean Piaget Alfred Binet
Molluscs

7. Jean Piaget
Genetic
Epistemology (the
origins of thinking)
How we come to
know…
Role of Maturation
(increasing capacity
to understand the
world)
Ability to do
Abstract Reasoning

8. Jean Piaget
How does knowledge grow?
“The growth of knowledge is a
progressive construction of
logically embedded structures
superseding one another by a
process of inclusion of lower
less powerful logical means
into higher and more powerful
ones up to adulthood.
Therefore, children's logic and
modes of thinking are initially
entirely different from those of
adults.”

9. Proposed…
 children's thinking does not
develop entirely smoothly.
Instead, there are certain
points which it "takes off” and
moves into completely new
areas and capabilities.
 Transitions: about 18 months,
7 yrs and 11 or 12 years
 Not capable of understanding
things in certain ways,
 basis for scheduling the
school curriculum.

11. -To Piaget, it is a
progressive
reorganization of
mental processes as a
result of biological
maturation and
environmental

12. Schema (Piaget)
Piaget (1952) defined a schema
as:
'a cohesive, repeatable action
sequence possessing
component actions that are
tightly interconnected and
governed by a core meaning'.

13. Schema (Piaget)
Represent world and designate
action
Infants schema at birth is called
reflexes (innate schemas)
Schema
Structures - complex schema
Hierarchical - general to specific

14. How an Organism Adapt…
Biological
Drive
Adapt
(Intelligence)
Environment
(Behavior)
Mental
Organizations
(Schemata)

15. How an Organism Adapt…
Environment
(Equilibration)
Schemes

16. Adaptation
Assimilation Accommodation
-Outside to Inside -Inside to Outside
- 2 complementary processes of Adaptation
- awareness of the outside world is internalised.
- inseparable, dialectic relationship

19. Example of
Accommodation
In the “clown” incident,
the boy’s father
explained to his son
that the man was not a
clown and that even
though his hair was
like a clown’s, he
wasn’t wearing a funny
costume and wasn’t
doing silly things to
make people laugh.
With this new
knowledge, the boy
was able to change his
schema of “clown” and
make this idea fit

20. KEYIDEAS…
Conservation
Classification

21. KEYIDEAS…
Class
Inclusion
Operation

23. Stage
- period in a child's development in which he or
she is capable of understanding some things
but not others

24. Stages of Development
 A child's cognitive development is about a child
developing or constructing a mental model of
the world.
 Development - biologically based and
changes as the child matures.
 Cognition - develops in all children in the
same sequence of stages
 Individual differences in the rate
 These stages are universal

25. Stages of Development
 INTEREST: how children learnt and in
how they thought
 RESEARCH METHODS:
1) Naturalistic Observation – diary
descriptions
(Jacqueline, Lucienne and Laurent – 3 children)
1) Clinical Interviews and Observations –
old children

26. Sensorimotor Stage
Piaget (1954, 1964)
From Birth to approx 2 yrs – rapid cognitive
growth
Trial and Error – builds up knowledge of the
world
Extreme egocentrism
Main Development: Object Permanence or
Object Concept
(understanding that objects exist and

27. Sensorimotor Stage -
Substages
Substage Period Response Example
Reflex Acts 1st month of life responds to
external
stimulation with
innate reflex
actions
If you brush a
baby’s mouth or
cheek with your
finger it will suck
reflexively
Primary Circular
Reactions
1-4 months old baby will repeat
pleasurable
actions centred
on it’s own body
The babies will
wiggle their
fingers, kick their
legs and suck
their thumbs
Secondary
Circular
Reactions
4-8 months babies repeat
pleasurable
actions that
involve objects
as well as
actions involving
their own bodies
An infant who
shakes the rattle
for the pleasure
of hearing the
sound that it
produces

28. Sensorimotor Stage -
Substages
Substage Period Response Example
Co-ordinating
Secondary
Schemes
8-12 months babies now show
signs of an ability
to use their
acquired
knowledge to
reach a goal
An infant will not just
shake the rattle but will
reach out and knock to
one side an object that
stands in the way of it
getting hold of the rattle
Tertiary Circular
Reactions
The infant who
once explored an
object by taking it
apart now tries to
put it back together
The baby stacks the
bricks it took out of its
wooden truck back again
or it puts back the nesting
cups – one inside the
other.
Symbolic
Thought
Babies can now
form mental
representations of
objects
This means that they have
developed the ability to
visualise things that are
not physically present.

29. Blanket and Ball Study
Aim: Piaget (1963)
wanted to investigate
at what age children
acquire object
permanence.
Method: Piaget hid a toy
under a blanket, while the
child was watching, and
observed whether or not the
child searched for the
hidden toy. Searching for the
hidden toy was evidence of
object permanence.
Piaget
assumed that
the child could
only search for
a hidden toy if
s/he had a
mental
representation

30. Blanket and Ball Study
Results: Piaget found
that infants searched
for the hidden toy
when they were
around 8-months-old.
Conclusion: Children
around 8 months have
object permanence because
they are able to form a
mental representation of the
object in their minds.
I FOUND
IT!!!

31. Preoperational Stage
Piaget (1951, 1952)
From about 2 – 7 - child cannot use logic or
transform, combine
or separate ideas
Building experiences about the world through
adaptation and working towards the
(concrete) stage when it can use logical
thought
Main Development: Semiotic function and
Symbolic Play

32. Preoperational Stage – Key
Features
• 1 aspect of a situation at 1 time
Centration
• child's inability to see a situation from another
person's point of viewEgocentrism
• ability to make one thing - a word or an object -
stand for something other than itself
Symbolic
Representation
• Toddlers pretend to be people they are not (e.g.
heroes, policemen, teacher)
Pretend (or
symbolic) Play
• belief that inanimate objects (such as toys and
teddy bears) have human feelings and intentionsAnimism
• belief that inanimate objects (such as toys and
teddy bears) have human feelings and intentionsAnimism
• belief that certain aspects of the environment are
manufactured by people (e.g. clouds in the sky)Artificialism
• inability the reverse the direction of a sequence
of events to their starting pointIrreversibility

33. The Three Mountain Task
Aim: Piaget and
Inhelder (1956)
wanted to find
out at what age
children decenter
- i.e. become no
longer egocentric
Method: The child sits at a table, presented in
front are three mountains. The mountains were
different, with snow on top of one, a hut on
another and a red cross on top of the other.
The child was allowed to walk round the model, to
look at it, then sit down at one side. A doll is then
placed at various positions of the table.
The child is then shown 10 photographs of the
mountains taken from different positions, and
asked to indicate which showed the dolls view.
Piaget assumed that
if the child correctly
picked out the card
showing the doll's
view, s/he was not
egocentric.
Egocentrism would
be shown by the
child who picked out
the card showing

34. Findings - Four-year-olds always
chose a picture which matched their
own view, while six-year-olds showed
some awareness of alternative
perspectives.
Only seven- and eight-year-olds
consistently chose the correct picture
Conclusion: At age
7, thinking is no
longer egocentric as
the child can see
more than their own
point of view
The Three Mountain Task

35. 1) Understanding of these
situations is 'perception
bound'. Child is drawn by
changes in the appearance of
the materials to conclude that a
change has occurred.
2) Thinking is 'centered' on one
aspect of the situation. Child
notices change in level of water
or in length of clay without
noticing that other aspects of
the situation have changed
simultaneously.
3) Thinking is focused on
states rather than on
transformations. Child fails
to track what has happened
to the materials and simply
makes an intuitive judgment
based on how they appear
'now'.
4) Thinking is 'irreversible'
in that the child cannot
appreciate that a reverse
transformation would return
the material to it's original
state.
The Three Mountain Task -
Conclusions

36. Concrete Operational Stage
Piaget (1954a)
Typically ages 7 - 11 - child is mature enough
to use logical thoughts or operations but can
only apply logic to physical objects
Main Development: Abilities of Conservation
(thinking is more organized & rational; can
solve in a logical fashion but are typically not
able to think abstractly or hypothetically)

37. Concrete Operational Stage
– Concrete
Operations
• understanding that something stays the
same in quantity even though its
appearance changesConservation
• ability to identify the properties of
categories, to relate categories or classes
to one another, and to use categorical
information to solve problems
Classification
• ability to mentally arrange items along a
quantifiable dimension, such as height or
weight.Seriation

38. Conservation
 Around 7, majority of children can conserve
liquid
 Conservation of Number
Piaget (1954b) set out a row
of counters in front of the
child and asked her/him to
make another row the same
as the first one.
Piaget spread out his row of
counters and asked the child
if there were still the same
number of counters.

39. Conservation
Most children aged seven could
answer this correctly, and Piaget
concluded that this showed that by
seven years of age children were
able to conserve number.

40. Formal Operational Stage
Inhelder & Piaget (1958)
Begins at about 11 - ability to think in an
abstract manner, to combine and classify
items in a more sophisticated way, and the
capacity for higher-order reasoning
Main Development: Ex: Inferential
Reasoning
(ability to think about things which the child
has not actually experienced and to draw
conclusions from its thinking)

41. Third-Eye Problem (Piaget, 1970)
Children were asked where they would put an extra
eye, if they were able to have a third one, and why.
11-year-olds were more
inventive, for example
suggesting that a third
eye placed on the hand
would be useful for
seeing round corners.
Schaffer (1988)
reported that when
asked this question, 9-
year-olds all suggested
that the third eye

45. Cognitive Development:
Applications*
* Materials have been adapted from: Woolfolk & McCune-
Nicolich. (1984). Educational psychology for teachers. (2nd
ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
How to use Piagetian theory in teaching/learning
process?

46. REFERENCES:
Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; Piaget's
developmental theory [On-line: UK] retrieved 2 July
2015 from
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm
Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching;
Assimilation and Accommodation [On-line: UK] retrieved
3 July 2015
from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assim
acc.htm

47. REFERENCES:
Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's theory of
cognitive development. Educational Psychology
Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University.
Retrieved [July 3, 2015]
from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/pi
aget.html
McLeod, S. A. (2009). Jean Piaget. Retrieved from
www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

48. REFERENCES:
McLeod, S. A. (2015). Sensorimotor Stage. Retrieved
from www.simplypsychology.org/sensorimotor.html
McLeod, S. A. (2015). Preoperational Stage. Retrieved
from www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html
McLeod, S. A. (2015). Concrete Operational Stage.
Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/concrete-
operational.html

49. REFERENCES:
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/02/24/exercise-your-
brains-visual-logic-brain-teaser/
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/10/05/brain-exercise-
the-stroop-test/
http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html

50. Prepared by
ESPINOSA, Crismarie G.
LIBINTING, Diana Marie K.
BEED SPED 2