brief introduction to Piget theory

1. DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY

2. PIAGET’STHEORY OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
 Jean Piaget(1896-1980) was basically a Swiss psychologist is famous for his views in cognitive
development formed by his observational life records of his three children.
Basic assumption of Piaget
 Children are active, motivated learner and small scientist.
 Children construct knowledge from their own experiences, make their own theories.
 Children learn through two processes know as assimilation which is process of dealing with a
object in a way that is consistent, existing schemas(mental framework) and accommodation
that is process in which they modify existing schema to add new objects or make a new
schema.
For example “When a child learns the word for dog, they start to call all four-legged animals
dogs.This is assimilation. People around them will say, no, that’s not a dog, it’s a cat.The
schema for dog then gets modified to restrict it to only certain four-legged animals.That
is accommodation.

3. CONT…
 Interaction with social environment is very important for cognitive development.
 Children move toward simple to complex level of thoughts known as higher order
of thinking.
 Cognitive development also depend on neurological changes, neurotransmitter
role which leads in speed up or slow down of development process.

4. STAGES OF PIAGET’STHEORY OF
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Piaget theory of Cognitive Development consists of the following four stages, a
child goes through to develop his cognitive world:
 Sensorimotor Stage
 Preoperational Stage
 Concrete Operational Stage
 Formal Operational Stage

5. SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (FROM BIRTH- 2
YEAR)
This stage consist of 6 sub stages
 From birth to one month is the stage of reflex movement like sucking and
blinking.
 From 01 month to 04 month is the stage of transferring reflex movements i.e.,
the repetition of primary circular reaction as a source of need, satisfaction and
pleasure.

6. CONT…
 For example, a child may suck his or her thumb by accident and then later
intentionally repeat the action.These actions are repeated because the infant
finds them pleasurable.
 From 04 month to 08 month is stage of taking interest in external stimuli of
environment beyond the self preoccupation. He observes and imitates his elder
different actions in sound producing, laughing, bringing out tongue and clapping.

7. CONT…
 From 08 to 12 months is the stage when an infant consummates his past learning
in to present learning e.g., he tries to manipulate his toys and is pleased to hear
the sound of toy, he want to get hold of toys at distance and makes use of his
body.
 From 12 to 18 months is stage when infant tries to understand the right use of his
playthings e.g., he drops ball on ground and picks it up and kicks.
 From 18 to 24 months is the stage when child mental development is developed
from sensorimotor cognition to symbolic form, i.e., ability of object permanence
even in absence of that object.

8. PRE-OPERATIONAL STAGE (2-7YEARS)
 Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and
words.
 Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of
others.
 Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the
red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless
of color.

9. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(7-11
YEARS)
 Child can perform multiple classification task like physical (eating and studying)
and cognitive (watering plants).
 Can think logically about objects and events Achieves conservation (structure
change, quantity same) of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)
 Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along
a single dimension such as size and also counting.
 Can makes rational judgments and can mentally manipulate information like use
in mathematics skills like -3, -2 are negative number but still unable to achieve
abstract ability like Algebra Equations.

10. FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11-15YEAR)
 Child achieves the ability to have abstract thinking and logical thinking e.g., he
thinks what type of parents can be called as exemplary parents, he starts thinking
about the hypothetical solution of his problems, testing and retesting of his
problem solution.
 Example of pendulum swings.