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- 1. Piaget’s Theory of CognitiveDevelopment
- 2. Theory of CognitiveDevelopment Cognitive Development: the development of thinking, problem solving, and memory. Cognitive development means how children think, explore and figure things out. It Jean Piaget developed his theory from detailed observations of infants and children, most especially his own three children. He made significant contributions to the understanding of how children think about the world around them. His theory shifted the commonly held view that children’s thinking was that of “little adults” toward recognition that it was actually quite different from adult thinking.
- 3. Epistemological approach Epistemologyis the study of knowledge acquisition. It is the process of acquiring knowledge about the world. Piaget called his general theoretical framework “genetic epistemology” because he was primarily interested in how knowledge developed in human organisms. Piaget took epistemology as the starting point arguing that all knowledge of the child is generated through interaction with the environment.
- 4. cognitive equilibrium A stateof balance between individuals’ mental schemata, or frameworks, and their environment. Such balance occurs when their expectations, based on prior knowledge, fit with new knowledge. Piaget suggested that all intellectual activity is undertaken with one goal in mind: to produce a balanced relationship between one’s thought processes and the environment. Such a balanced state of affairs is called Cognitive Equilibrium, and the process of achieving it is called ‘Equilibration.’
- 5. Cognitive Equilibrium Piagetstressed that children are active and curious explorers who are constantly challenged by many novel stimuli and events that are not immediately understood. These imbalances (or cognitive disequilibria) between the children’s modes of thinking and environmental events prompt them to make mental adjustments that enable them to cope with puzzling new experiences and thereby restore cognitive equilibrium.
- 6. Children as Constructivists Piaget described the child as a constructivist—an individual who acts on novel objects and events and thereby gains some understanding of their essential features. If children are to know something, they must construct that knowledge themselves. Children’s constructions of reality (i.e., interpretations of objects and events) depend on the knowledge they have available to them. the more immature the child’s cognitive system, the more limited his interpretation of an event.
- 7. In Piaget’sview, a child is born with certain genetic traits and as he/she develops interactions with the environment to construct his/her own intelligence. Piaget’s view has been called “constructivism”.
- 8. Cognitive Schemes/Structure Schemesare the means by which children interpret and organize experience. Schemes are unobservable mental systems that underlie intelligence. A scheme is a pattern of thought or action and is most simply viewed as some enduring knowledge base by which children interpret their world. Schemes, in effect, are representations of reality. Children know their world through their schemes. Cognition develops through the refinement and transformation of mental schemes. For Piaget, cognitive development is the development of schemes.
- 9. Schemas area way of organizing knowledge, a way of learning, each relating to one of the world’s aspects, like an object, action or abstract concept. According to Piaget, schemas are what we use to understand and respond to situations, ‘building blocks’ of knowledge that we store and apply when needed.
- 10. Organization and Adaptation all schemes, all forms of understanding, are created through the workings of two inborn intellectual processes: organization and adaptation. ORGANIZATION: an inborn tendency to combine and integrate available schemes into coherent systems or bodies of knowledge. is the process by which children combine existing schemes into new and more complex intellectual schemes. • For example, an infant who has “gazing,” “reaching,” and “grasping” reflexes soon organizes these initially unrelated schemes into a more complex structure— visually directed reaching—that enables him to reach out and discover the characteristics of many interesting objects in the environment. Piaget believed that children are constantly organizing whatever schemes they have into more complex and adaptive structures.
- 12. ADAPTATION The goalof organization: to promote adaptation. ADAPTATION: the process of adjusting to the demands of the environment. occurs through two complementary activities: 1. Assimilation 2. Accommodation • assimilation and accommodation work together to promote cognitive growth. They do not always occur equally but assimilations of experiences that do not go well with existing schemes lead to cognitive conflict and prompt accommodations to those experiences. And the end result is adaptation, a state of equilibrium, or balance, between one’s cognitive structures and the environment.
- 13. Assimilation and Accommodation Assimilation and Accommodation are two basic components of Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. According to Piaget’s theory, a child’s intellectual growth is a result of adaptation. Assimilation and accommodation are two complementary processes of adaptation. The process by which new information is taken into the previously existing schema is known as assimilation. Alteration of existing schemas or ideas as a result of new knowledge is known as accommodation.
- 14. What is Assimilation Assimilation is an adaptation process by which new information is taken into the previously existing schema. This is how humans perceive and adapt to new ideas. Here, the learner fits the new idea into what he already knows. For example, a small child may have a schema about a type of animals. The child’s only experience with dogs is their pet dog, and he knows that dogs have four legs. One day this child sees another dog. He identifies the new animal as a dog based on his previous knowledge of his dog. Labeling it as a dog is an example of assimilating the animal into the child’s dog schema.
- 16. What is Accommodation Accommodation is the process by which pre-existing knowledge is altered in order to fit in the new information. A new schema might be created in this process. This happens when the existing knowledge is not accurate. For example, a child knows that a dog has four legs. When the child sees a horse for the first time, he calls it dog as it has four legs. He fits in the new animal with the existing knowledge; this is assimilation. But an adult points out that it is a horse, not a dog; then the child alters his knowledge that all four-legged animals are not dogs.
- 17. It isimportant to note that both assimilation and accommodation are interrelated processes and are vital to the intellectual growth of a human.
- 18. Difference Between Assimilationand Accommodation Assimilation Accommodation Assimilation is a process of adaptation by which new knowledge is taken into the pre- existing schema. Accommodation is a process of adaptation by which the pre-existing schema is altered in order to fit in the new knowledge. In Assimilation, the schema is not changed, it is only modified. In Accommodation, the schema is altered; a new schema may be developed Assimilation is a slow and gradual process. Knowledge is gathered for a long time. Accommodation is a sudden change. Assimilation happens when there are similar ideas and concepts Accommodation happens when there are conflicting ideas.
- 19. Piaget vs Vygotsky cognitivedevelopment not affected by culture Vygotsky believed that culture affects cognitive development. Piaget would argue for the teacher to provide opportunities which challenge the children’s existing schemas and for children to be encouraged to discover for themselves. Vygotsky would recommend that teacher's assist the child to progress through the zone of proximal development by using scaffolding. Little emphasis on Sociocultural Strong emphasis Cognitive development follows universal stages Cognitive development is dependent on social context (no stages) The child is a 'lone scientist', develops knowledge through own exploration Learning through social interactions. Child builds knowledge by working with others Thought drives language development Language drives cognitive development Provide opportunities for children to learn about the world for themselves (discovery learning) Assist the child to progress through the ZPD by using scaffolding
- 20. Stages of CognitiveDevelopment Piaget proposed that cognition developed through distinct stages from birth through the end of adolescence. A series of developments that occur in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a prerequisite for those appearing later (Invariant Developmental Sequence). By “stages” he meant a sequence of thinking patterns with four key features: 1. The stages always happen in the same order. 2. No stage is ever skipped because each successive stage builds on the accomplishments of previous stages. 3. Each stage is a significant transformation of the stage before it. 4. Each later stage incorporated the earlier stages into itself
- 21. Main points Additionally,he was the first psychologist to study ‘theory of mind’ in children (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Theory of mind is the understanding or basic sense that each of us has our own consciousness and thoughts. Piaget argued that children’s cognitive development occurs in stages (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Specifically, he posited that as children’s thinking develops from one stage to the next, their behavior also changes, reflecting these cognitive developments. The stages in his theory follow a specific order, and each subsequent stage only occurs after the one before it.
- 22. STAGE 1: SensorimotorStage (birth to 2 years) The sensorimotor stage is the first phase of children’s cognitive development. During this stage, children primarily learn about their environment through their senses and motor activities. The sensorimotor stage comprises six substages, where children’s behavior moves from being reflex driven to more abstract. 1. Use of reflexes (0–1 months) During this stage, children typically use their reflexes. They cannot consolidate information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept. infants’ actions are confined to exercising innate reflexes (e.g., sucking on blankets and toys).
- 23. 2.Primary circular reactions(1–4 months) Children start to consolidate information from different sensory organs. They start to engage in behavior that satisfies the way their body feels or their needs. For example, they repeat pleasurable behaviors, and they adapt their behavior to feed from different objects. They turn to respond to sounds and sights in their environment. The first non-reflexive schemes emerge at 1 to 4 months of age as infants discover by chance that various responses that they can emit and control (e.g., sucking their thumbs, making cooing sounds) are satisfying and, thus, worth repeating. 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 These simple repetitive acts, called primary circular reactions, are always centered on the infant’s own body. They are called “primary” because they are the first motor habits to appear and “circular” because they are repetitive. +
- 24. 3.Secondary circular reactions(4–8 months) Children’s behaviors become more intentional, and the types of behaviors that they repeat expand to include those that result in interesting responses external to their body. For example, they might push buttons on a toy. Children also start to take more interest in their environment. They repeat behaviors that generate interesting responses. Infants are discovering (again by chance) that they can make interesting things happen to objects beyond their own bodies (such as making a rubber duck quack by squeezing it). This sudden interest in external objects indicates that they have begun to differentiate themselves from objects they can control in the surrounding environment. The secondary circular reaction is not a fully intentional response, because the interesting result it produces was discovered by chance and was not a purposeful goal the first time the action was performed.
- 25. 4. Coordination ofsecondary schemes (8–12 months) At this point, children’s behaviors become more goal oriented, and they can combine different behaviors to achieve goals. infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives. This is the first sign of goal-directed behavior and true problem solving. For example, if you were to place an attractive toy under a cushion, a 9 month-old might lift the cushion with one hand while using the other to grab the toy. Here, the act of lifting the cushion is not a pleasurable response in itself, nor is it executed by chance. Rather, it is part of a larger intentional scheme in which two initially unrelated responses— lifting and grasping—are coordinated as a means to an end. Development of Imitation 8 to 12 months- • infants are incapable of imitating novel responses displayed by a model.
- 26. 5. Tertiary circularreactions (12–18 months) Instead of performing the same actions, children try new behaviors and actions to achieve different results. These behaviors are not spontaneous or by accident, but are purposeful. Unlike primary and secondary reactions, children can combine more complicated behaviors and even perform a behavior similarly but not the same to get the desired result. infants begin to actively experiment with objects and try to invent new methods of solving problems or reproducing interesting results. For example, an infant who had originally squeezed a rubber duck to make it quack may now decide to drop it, step on it, and crush it with a pillow to see whether these actions will have the same or different effects on the toy. These trial-and-error exploratory schemes, called tertiary circular reactions, reflect an infant’s active curiosity—his strong motivation to learn about the way things work. In Piagetian theory, an infant's action that creatively alters former schemes to fit the requirements of new situations. Children begin a period of trial-and-error experimentation during the fifth substage. For example, a child may try out different sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver. 12 to 18 months- Voluntary imitation (model present) becomes much more precise.
- 27. Mental combinations/SymbolicProblem Solving (18–24 months) Children start to rely on mental abstractions to solve problems, use gestures and words to communicate, and can pretend. children begin to use mental images to represent objects and to engage in mental problem solving. They can use mental combinations to solve simple problems, such as putting down a toy in order to open a door. And they get good at pretending. infants begin to internalize their behavioral schemes to construct mental symbols, or images, that they can then use to guide future conduct. • Now the infant can experiment mentally and may show a kind of “insight” in how to solve a problem. • Inner Experimentation: the ability to solve simple problems on a mental, or symbolic level without having to rely on trial-and-error experimentation. They can engage in deferred imitation, such as throwing a tantrum after seeing another child throw one an hour ago.
- 28. 18 to24 months- • reproduce the behavior of an absent model, this kind of imitation is called as Deferred Imitation.
- 29. Development of ObjectPermanence • Object Permanence: refer to the realization that objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible or detectable through the other senses. • Because very young infants rely so heavily on their senses and their motor skills to “understand” an object, they seem to operate as if objects exist only if they can be immediately sensed or acted upon. 1- to 4-month-olds will not search for attractive objects that are hidden from view. For example, If a watch that interests them is covered by a mug, they soon lose interest, almost as if they believe that the watch no longer exists or has been transformed into a mug. 4-to 8-months-olds will retrieve toys that are partially concealed or placed beneath a semitransparent cover; but fail to search for objects that are completely concealed. Therefore, Piaget suggested that, from the infant’s perspective, disappearing objects no longer exist.
- 30. 8- to12-month-olds show A-not-B error which is the tendency to search for a hidden object where they previously found it even after they have seen it moved to a new location. 18-24 months object permanence is achieved.
- 32. 1. Use ofreflexes (0–1 months) Exercising innate reflexes (e.g., sucking on blankets and toys). 2.Primary circular reactions (1–4 months) first non-reflexive schemes e.g., sucking their thumbs, making cooing sounds) 3.Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months) Infants are discovering (again by chance) that they can make interesting things happen to objects beyond their own bodies (such as making a rubber duck quack by squeezing it). 4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12 months) • infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives. • First goal oriented behavior • For example, if you were to place an attractive toy under a cushion, a 9 month-old might lift the cushion with one hand while using the other to grab the toy. 5. Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months) • trial-and-error exploratory schemes, called tertiary circular reactions, reflect an infant’s active curiosity— his strong motivation to learn about the way things work. • Creative thinking 6.Symbolic Problem Solving (18–24 months) • use mental combinations to solve simple problems, such as putting down a toy in order to open a door • deferred imitation
- 34. STAGE 2: PreoperationalStage 2 to 7 years) operations ( a set of logical rules) marked by the appearance of the symbolic function. Symbolic Function: the ability to make one thing (a word or an object) stand for, or represent, something else. Representational Insight: the knowledge that an entity can stand for (represent) something other than itself. Pretend Play: Toddlers pretend to be people they are not (mommies, superheroes), and they may play these roles with props such as a shoe box or a stick that symbolize other objects such as a baby’s crib or a gun. Thus, children advance upon their cognitions about people, objects, and actions through pretend play.
- 35. Animism: awillingness to attribute life and lifelike qualities (e.g., motives and intentions) to inanimate objects. For example: the toys need to stay home because they are tired. Egocentrism: Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children not to be able to take the perspective of others, and instead the child thinks that everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do. An egocentric child is not able to infer the perspective of other people and instead attributes his own perspective to situations. For example, ten year-old Keiko’s birthday is coming up, so her mom takes 3 year-old Kenny to the toy store to choose a present for his sister. He selects an Iron Man action figure for her, thinking that if he likes the toy, his sister will too. The preoperational child lacks the ability of reality distinction. Appearance/Reality Distinction: ability to keep the true characteristics of an object in mind despite the deceptive appearance the object has assumed.
- 36. Centration (centeredthinking): focused on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others. Dad gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-old Keiko and another slice to 3-year-old Kenny. Kenny’s pizza slice was cut into five pieces, so Kenny told his sister that he got more pizza than she did. Kenny did not understand that cutting the pizza into smaller pieces did not increase the overall amount. This was because Kenny exhibited Centration Preoperational children are incapable of conservation. Conservation: the recognition that the properties of an object (such as volume, mass, or number) do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way.
- 37. Preschool childrenfail to conserve because they lack two cognitive operations: Decentration and Reversibility • Decentration: the ability to concentrate on more than one aspect of a problem at the same time.
- 38. Classification Errors:Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons. They do not consider the general class of buttons. Because children lack these general classes, their reasoning is typically Transductive, that is, making faulty inferences from one specific example to another. For example, Piaget’s daughter Lucienne stated she had not had her nap, therefore it was not afternoon. It the tendency of a child to see a connection between unrelated instances, using neither deductive nor inductive means to do so.
- 39. Reversibility: theability to reverse, or negate, an action by mentally performing the opposite action (negation). For example: an intuitive 5-year-old faced with the conservation-of-liquids problem is unable to mentally reverse what he has seen to conclude that the liquid in the short, broad beaker is still the same water and would attain its former height if it were poured back into its original container.
- 40. Shortcoming of thisstage Children have not yet developed logical (or 'operational') thought characteristic of later stages. Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgements about situations) Egocentric (centered on the child's own view of the world).
- 41. STAGE 3: Concrete-OperationalStage (7 to 11 Years) Also known as Logico-Mathematical Stage. children are acquiring cognitive operations and thinking more logically about real objects and experiences. Cognitive Operation: is an internal mental activity that enables children to modify and reorganize their images and symbols to reach a logical conclusion. With these powerful new operations in their cognitive field, grade-school children progress far beyond the static and centered thinking of the preoperational stage. For every limitation of the preoperational child, a corresponding strength can be seen in the concrete operational stage.
- 42. Egocentrism: Childrenmay respond egocentrically at times but are now much more aware of others’ divergent perspectives. Animism: Children are more aware of the biological bases for life and do not attribute lifelike qualities to inanimates. Perception-bound thought/centration: Children can ignore misleading appearances and focus on more than one aspect of a situation when seeking answers to a problem (decentration). Conservation, Reversibility: Children can mentally negate changes they have witnessed to make before/after comparisons and consider how changes have altered the situation. Conclusions are now based on logic rather than on the way they appear to be.
- 43. Relational Logic• An important hallmark of concrete-operational thinking is a better understanding of quantitative relations and relational logic. • Mental Seriation— the ability to mentally arrange items along a quantifiable dimension such as height or weight. Transitivity • the ability to recognize relations among elements in a serial order. • e.g., if A > B and B > C, then A > C Conservation During this stage, children understand the concept of conservation better and, as a result, are better at solving conservation problems. Conservation refers to the idea that things can be the same, even if they look different. An example would be a cup of water poured into two glasses. One glass is tall and thin, while the other is short and wide. Recognizing that both glasses contain the same amount of water shows an understanding of conservation.
- 44. preoperationalChildren strugglewith conservation because they can only focus on one dimension at a time; this is known as centering. For example, with the volume of liquid, they can only consider the shape of the glass, but not the shape of the glass and the volume of water. They also do not yet understand reversibility. Irreversibility refers to a child’s inability to reverse the steps of an action in their mind, returning an object to its previous state. For example, pouring the water out of the glass back into the original cup would demonstrate the volume of the water, but children in the preoperational stage cannot understand this.
- 45. Sequencing ofConcrete Operations • Horizontal decalage: uneven cognitive performance of child; an inability to solve certain problems even though one can solve similar problems requiring the same mental operations. • occurs because problems that appear quite similar may actually differ in complexity. children in the concrete operational stage can solve conservation problems. This is because children now have the following cognitive abilities: • They understand reversibility (i.e., items can be returned to original states). • They can decenter (i.e., concentrate on multiple dimensions of items, rather than just one). • They better understand identity (i.e., an item remains the same even if it looks different).
- 46. formal operational stage. At the age of 11, children enter the formal operational stage. Abstract thought characterizes this stage. Children can think about abstract concepts and are not limited to a current time, person, or situation. They can think about hypothetical situations and various possibilities, like situations that don’t exist yet, may never exist, or might be unrealistic and fantastical. During this stage, children are capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which allows them to test hypotheses and draw conclusions from the results. Unlike younger children who haphazardly approach problems, children in the formal operational stage can apply their reasoning skills to apply more complicated problems in a systematic, logical manner.
- 47. STAGE 4:Formal-Operational Stage (11 to 12 Years and Beyond) the individual begins to think more rationally and systematically about abstract concepts and hypothetical events. Formal Operations: are mental actions performed on ideas and propositions. formal-operational thinking is rational, systematic, and abstract. The formal operator can think in an organized way about thought and can operate on ideas and hypothetical concepts, including those that contradict reality.
- 48. Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning• the benchmark of formal operations. • Is the ability to think hypothetically. • Concrete-operational children can arrive at a correct conclusion if they are provided with the proper concrete “facts” as evidence but Formaloperational children are not restricted to thinking about previously acquired facts; what is possible is more important to them than what is real. • Can apply the relational logic to abstract signifiers such as the Xs, Ys, and Zs that is used in algebra.
- 49. Thinking Likea Scientist • formal-operational children are able to think inductively. • Going from specific observations to broad generalizations. • Inductive reasoning is the type of thinking that scientists display, where hypotheses are generated and then systematically tested in experiments
- 50. Personal andSocial Implications of Formal Thought • formal operations may pave the way for thinking about what is possible in one’s life, forming a stable identity, and achieving a much richer understanding of other people’s psychological perspectives and the causes of their behavior. • Formal- operational thinkers are also better equipped to make difficult personal decisions that involve weighing alternative courses of action and their probable consequences for themselves and other people. • formal operators, who can imagine hypothetical alternatives to present realities, may begin to question everything, from their parents’ authority to the government’s need for spending billions of dollars on weapons and the exploration of outer space when so many people are hungry and homeless.
- 51. Indeed, themore logical inconsistencies and other flaws that adolescents detect in the real world, the more confused they become and the more inclined they are to become frustrated with or even to display rebellious anger toward the agents (e.g., parents, the government) thought to be responsible for these imperfect states of affairs. • Piaget (1970a) viewed this idealistic fascination with the way things “ought to be” as a perfectly normal outgrowth of the adolescent’s newly acquired abstract reasoning abilities, and he thus proclaimed formal operations the primary cause of the “generation gap.” • formal operators may also develop Imaginary Audience: a result of adolescent egocentrism. Adolescents believe that everyone around them is as interested in their thoughts and behaviors as they are themselves.
- 52. Jean Piaget’sview on Language and Thought • Concepts/thought helps in the development of language. • For example, a child would have to have a concept or mental schema for “mother” before being able to learn the word “mama.” • Piaget also noticed that preschool children seemed to spend a great deal of time talking to themselves, even when playing with another child. • Collective Monologue: Each child would be talking about something totally unrelated to the speech of the other. Children carrying on their own separate monologues rather than truly conversing with each other. • Egocentric Speech: child’s utterances that are nonsocial—that is, neither directed to others nor expressed in ways that listeners might understand. • this nonsocial speech is very egocentric (from the child’s point of view only, with no regard for the listener), • as the child became more socially involved and less egocentric, these nonsocial speech patterns would reduce.
- 53. Animism: awillingness to attribute life and lifelike qualities (e.g., motives and intentions) to inanimate objects. • For example: The 4-year-old who believed that the wind blew on him to cool him off. Egocentrism: the tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective while failing to recognize that others may have different points of view. The preoperational child lacks the ability of reality distinction. • Appearance/Reality Distinction: ability to keep the true characteristics of an object in mind despite the deceptive appearance the object has assumed.
- 54. Centration (centeredthinking): the tendency of preoperational children to attend to one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others. Preoperational children are incapable of conservation. • Conservation: the recognition that the properties of an object (such as volume, mass, or number) do not change when its appearance is altered in some superficial way. Preschool children fail to conserve because they lack two cognitive operations: Decentration and Reversibility • Decentration: the ability to concentrate on more than one aspect of a problem at the same time. • For example: preoperational children are unable to attend simultaneously to both height and width when trying to solve the conservation-of-liquidsproblem.
- 55. Reversibility: theability to reverse, or negate, an action by mentally performing the opposite action (negation). • For example: an intuitive 5-year- old faced with the conservation-of-liquids problem is unable to mentally reverse what he has seen to conclude that the liquid in the short, broad beaker is still the same water and would attain its former height if it were poured back into its original container.
- 56. Important Concepts inPiaget’s Work Equilibrium Piaget’s background as a biologist influenced some of his work, notably the concept of ‘equilibrium,’ which resembles homeostasis (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). He posited that children’s cognitive processes are aimed toward equilibrium. When children learn new information that is at odds with their current schemas, they are in an undesirable state of disequilibrium. To achieve equilibrium, children adapt their mental instructions by: 1. Assimilating new information 2. Accommodating new information by updating their cognitive schemas By achieving equilibrium, children learn new information.
- 57. Adaptation Adaptationdescribes how children update their current cognitive organizations and schemas with new information. Adaptation takes place in two ways: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation Assimilation describes how children incorporate new information into existing schemas. For example, a child refers to dogs as ‘woofs.’ When they see a cat for the first time, they refer to the cat as a ‘woof’ too. Accommodation Accommodation describes how children adapt their cognitive structures to match new information in the world. Continuing with the previous example, the child realizes that dogs and cats are different. The child updates their cognitive schema of the world, and now refers to cats as ‘cats’ and dogs as ‘woofs’.