COGNITIVE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT as summarized by Christina Kiwone

Introduction

Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. Piagetbelieved that one's childhood plays a vital and active role in a person's development.[1] Piaget's idea is primarily known as adevelopmental stage theory. The theory deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans gradually come to acquire, construct, and use it.[2] To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience. He believed that children construct an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, then adjust their ideas accordingly.[3] Moreover, Piaget claimed that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism, and language is contingent on knowledge and understanding acquired through cognitive development.[4] Piaget's earlier work received the greatest attention. Many parents have been encouraged to provide a rich, supportive environment for their child's natural propensity to grow and learn. Child-centered classrooms and "open education" are direct applications of Piaget's views.[5] Despite its huge success, Piaget's theory has some limitations that Piaget recognized himself: for example, the theory supports sharp stages rather than continuous development (decalage

Task

Process

Assimilation and accommodation[edit]

Through his study of the field of education, Piaget focused on two processes, which he named assimilation and accommodation. To Piaget, assimilation meant integrating external elements into structures of lives or environments, or those we could have through experience. Assimilation is how humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of fitting new information into pre-existing cognitive schemas.[15] Assimilation in which new experiences are reinterpreted to fit into, or assimilate with, old ideas.[16] It occurs when humans are faced with new or unfamiliar information and refer to previously learned information in order to make sense of it. In contrast, accommodation is the process of taking new information in one's environment and altering pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information. This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.[17] Accommodation is imperative because it is how people will continue to interpret new concepts, schemas, frameworks, and more.[18] Piaget believed that the human brain has been programmed through evolution to bring equilibrium, which is what he believed ultimately influences structures by the internal and external processes through assimilation and accommodation.[15]

Piaget's understanding was that assimilation and accommodation cannot exist without the other.[19] They are two sides of a coin. To assimilate an object into an existing mental schema, one first needs to take into account or accommodate to the particularities of this object to a certain extent. For instance, to recognize (assimilate) an apple as an apple, one must first focus (accommodate) on the contour of this object. To do this, one needs to roughly recognize the size of the object. Development increases the balance, or equilibration, between these two functions. When in balance with each other, assimilation and accommodation generate mental schemas of the operative intelligence. When one function dominates over the other, they generate representations which belong to figurative intelligence.[20]

Sensory-motor stage[edit]

Cognitive development is Jean Piaget's theory. Through a series of stages, Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational period.[21] The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages in cognitive development which "extends from birth to the acquisition of language".[22] In this stage, infants progressively construct knowledge and understanding of the world by coordinating experiences (such as vision and hearing) with physical interactions with objects (such as grasping, sucking, and stepping).[23] Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they perform within it.[24] They progress from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage.[24]

  • Preoperational stage (ages 2 to 4). The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations. Objects are classified in simple ways, especially by important features.
  • Concrete operations (ages 7 to 11). As physical experience accumulates, accommodation is increased. The child begins to think abstractly and conceptualize, creating logical structures that explain his or her physical experiences.
  • Formal operations (beginning at ages 11 to 15). Cognition reaches its final form. By this stage, the person no longer requires concrete objects to make rational judgments. He or she is capable of deductive and hypothetical reasoning. His or her ability for abstract thinking is very similar to an adult.

Evaluation

 One of the most important elements to remember of Piaget's theory is that it takes the view that creating knowledge and intelligence is an inherently active process. "I find myself opposed to the view of knowledge as a passive copy of reality," Piaget explained. " I believe that knowing an object means acting upon it, constructing systems of transformations that can be carried out on or with this object. Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality."

Conclusion

In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. As experiences happen, this new information is used to modify, add to, or change previously existing schemas.

For example, a child may have a schema about a type of animal, such as a dog. If the child's sole experience has been with small dogs, a child might believe that all dogs are small, furry, and have four legs. Suppose then that the child encounters an enormous dog. The child will take in this new information, modifying the previously existing schema to include these new observations.

Assimilation - The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation - Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation. Accommodation involves modifying existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process.

Equilibration - Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between assimilation and accommodation, which is achieved through a mechanism Piaget called equilibration. As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge (accommodation). Equilibration helps explain how children can move from one stage of thought into the next.

Final Thoughts               

One of the most important elements