Jean Piaget Theory of Cognitive development

Jean Piaget  Theory of Cognitive development

Jean Piaget

Before going to learn about jean Piaget theory  we have to understand the meaning of the term cognition.

Cognition (Anubhuti):  It means using mental afford in reasoning , perceiving , evaluate, judging,  learning and remembering .

·       Piaget theory explain about how the mental development take place from infancy to adulthood.

·       We also have misconception that adult are more intelligent than children but this is totally wrong, even the children possess same intelligence like adult but they think differently.

·       Piaget also explain that Heredity(biological maturation) and environment play a vital role  in mental development .

·       By heredity means static genes suppose if your parents are intelligent then there is a lot of changes that you will be intelligent.

·       He also means that the environment play role in the mental development,by environment means the surrounding ,the clean environment, challenging games availability attractive books etc. 

·       Piaget also believe that children construct their mental ability / knowledge by their own by  exploring th environment around themselves.

·       He also said that social interaction (interaction with family, peer groups)  does not play much important role in the mental development.

·       Speech become more social rather then egocentric in the middle age( 3-6 years).

·       The mental development is discontinuous . 
   Three Components of Piaget’s  Theory

1.Schemas

2. Adaptation process 

3.Four stages of development

 1.Schema

·       it is mental structure build in our mind about anything/ a unit of knowledge/ small package of information/a stored form of pattern of behaviour which is applied /whenever the individual feel the need.

·       Schema are present in children since birth say a child has sucking and grasping for example:  the children start sucking whenever the finger or nipples came in touch with their mouth.

·       It is temporary and can be modified and increase when someone help them to understand the new information.

For example : suppose a child learn from a person that four legged animal with tail and 5ft in height is horse, this is a schema for horse. Also whenever he see such animal he used to say horse but one day his parent make him correct by saying no this is not a horse , it is a cow as it has four legs,a tail and 5 ft in height and specific shape. Now the child modified schema for the horse  i.e. schema get modified with experience.

 2.Adaptation process  

Adaptation process

The adaptation process included equilibrium , assimilation and accommodation.

Piaget divided into two parts: 1) assimilation  2) accommodation

Assimilation : addition/fitting of new information into existing schema or learn through it, as he think he have learn new thing.

Say the child has a schema of horse( four legged animal with a tail and  5 ft height is horse and he add new information that a horse can be fat and bulky also on seeing the cow too.) this is what assimilation. As soon as he add new information he think his knowledge is correct and reach to the stage of equilibrium .

But when his parent correct his understanding that,no it is cow he again reached in stage of disequilibrium and now he modified his schema for both horse(four legged animal with tail and 5ft in height is horse) and cow(four legged animal with tail and 5ft in height with fat and bulky look ) this is what accommodation.

Accommodation means modifying /changing the pre- existing schema to deal with new condition /situation.

3.Four stages of development

According to piaget’s cognitive stages of development takes place at four different stages.These  stages are discontineous. The stages are all in order and no jumped occurred . Ages can vary among children These are:

Stage 1: sensori-motor (Birth -2 years old)

Stage 2: pre-operational ( 2-7 years old)

Stage 3 : concrete operational (7-11 years old)

Stage 4: Formal operational(adolescence-adult/12 plus).

Stage 1:  sensorimotor (Birth -2 years old)

·       Child learns mainly by their senses such as taste, smell etc.

·       Learns by motor movements such as creeping and walking

·       He become completely egocentric that’s why he state crying when his desire work is not done .

·       The child achieve object permanence by the end of this stage.

Object permanence :

if a child think that object exists even if it not in front of the child, then we can say object permanence is there ( in such condition the child start searching / demanding the objects). But if the child think that object does not exist if it not present in front of it, then the object permanence is not there

Stage 2: pre operational ( 2-7 years old)

During this stages children cannot use logic .

Centration : At this stage the has  inability to focus on two things at a time. Example concentrating on numbers and length at a time.

Irreversibility:  The children does not understand about the principle of reversibiilty i.e. they don’t have any idea that if ice can be formed from water then vice versa is also possible. Or 2+3=5 but not 5-3=2.

Conservation : At this stage the children are not conservative i.e. they will not able distinguished between two things.

Egocentrism : He does not bother about others views and even does not share his toys with other he consider himself true for all his deeds.As he grow ,he learn to share and become less egocentric.

Symbolic Representation : It means a child use to play with anything like the child consider  banana as mobile and play with it.

Pretent Play: The child used to play role of their elders like a child playing a role of police inspector i.e. they consider themselves as inspector.

Animism : the child think that everything is alive,living thing like he consider a teddy bear as living thing.

Artificialism : the children of this stage think that everything is made by human being .

Language development : during this stage a lot development takes place in language.

Note :- Centration and reversibility concept help a child to become conservative.

Stage 3: concrete operational (7-11 years old)

·       Able to give logic only for physical thing i.e. present in the world / in front of him. He can’t apply his logics for abstract things.

·       Seriation : the child develop the concept of seriation i.e. he is able to arrange different  things in ascending and descending order.

·       They developed the concept of conservation .

·       They developed the concept of decentration i.e. he is able to focus on two thing at a time.

 Stage 4: Formal operational(adolescence-adult/12 plus)

·       He can do complex calculation and can give reasoning.

·       He is able to think abstractly.

·       Hypothetical – deductive reasoning.

Implication

·       Emphasis on exploration :he considered that a child learned best by exploring the world through hand on active. The child should be active in education process not passive.

·       Readiness of learn : the children should not be taught those things for which their mind are not ready .

·       Facilitator rather than teacher : a teacher should be facilitator , they only gives the problem and let them to explore by them.

·       Acceptance of individual difference.

Critism

•         He failed to explain the effect of society and culture setting and  environment on the mental development of child.
•         Piaget believed that development occurs in stages but many theorists believe that development is a continuous.
•         Many of his studies were carries over his three children thus it is a type of biasing.
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