Piaget was a Swiss biologist who developed a theory of cognitive development in children. He believed that children's thought processes are qualitatively different from adults and that early cognitive development involves processes of assimilation and accommodation through interactions with the environment. Piaget identified 4 key stages of cognitive development: sensory-motor (birth to age 2) where intelligence is demonstrated through senses and actions; pre-operational thought (age 2 to 7) where symbolic thought and language develop; concrete operational stage (age 7 to 11) where logical and systematic thought emerges; and formal operational stage (age 11 onward) where abstract and hypothetical thought and reasoning ability reach maturity.

1. By
Imran niazi
Subject Specialist
GCET Mianwali

3.  A Swiss Biologist.
 First Profound interest in epistemology.
 Later developed interest in child & cognitive psychology.
 In 1920, associated with the Binet Testing Laboratory in
Paris.
 Opposed Binet’s idea of defining intelligence in term of the
number of correct responses .

4.  Defined intelligence as the ability to adjust ,adopt or
deal efficiently with one’s environment.
 He & his wife devoted his early married life to study
the intellectual development of their own three
children.
 His theory of intellectual development has no parallel
in the history.

5.  Cognitive
Structure
 Cognitive
functioning

6.  Unlike other creatures , the human baby is born with a
few practical instincts and reflexes such as sucking
,looking, reaching and grasping.
 The initial cognitive structure of infants is supposed
to incorporate only those cognitive abilities which help
them to do such acts such as suck, look and grasp.
Piaget named these abilities or potential as “schemas”

7.  A schema represents a unit of one's cognitive structure
in the shape of general potential to perform a
particular class of behaviors (like sucking, grasping,
calculating etc).
 For example take sucking schema, it refers to one’s
general cognitive ability to suck objects. It can be
thought of as a cognitive structure that makes all acts
of sucking possible. But specific responses to specific
stimuli.
 The various schemas form the basic structure of the
human mind.

8.  The structure of an organism is said to play a decisive
role in its functioning.
 Therefore , what is available to an individual in term of
his schemas decides how is he going to respond to the
stimuli present in his physical and social environment.
 On the other hand , the individual has to adopt to his
environment for survival as well as proper growth and
development.
 The task of such adaptation is carried out through the
process of assimilation and accommodation.

9.  Assimilation refers to a kind of matching between the
already existing cognitive structure and the
environmental needs as they arise.
 In a situation where a six – month old infant is given a
new toy it is likely to respond by putting the toy in its
mouth. This is assimilation.
 Q; Why does he do so?

10.  In case the new toy is too big to be picked up and
placed in mouth , it will certainly need a change or
modification in the already existing cognitive
structure .
 Now the child will have to change his old way of
thinking and behaving in order to adopt or adjust to
the new situation .
 Consequently , now instead of sucking, the child may
respond by pushing or grasping the toy. This is called
accommodation.

11.  The process of assimilation and accommodation helps
the organism to adjust or maintain a harmonious
relationship between himself and his environment.
 This adjustment mechanism was called equilibration
by Piaget.

12. 1. The Biological inherited reflexes.
2. The change & development brought about in the
cognitive structure.(The process of Natural Growth)
3. The change & development in the cognitive structure
brought about through experiences.

13.  The Sensory-motor Stage (from birth to 2 years)
Piaget called the first stage of intellectual development the
sensory-motor stage. Because:
a. It is characterized by the absence of language.
b. As the name implies, the infant uses senses and motor abilities
to understand the world.
c. It is limited to direct sensory interactions with the
environment.
.

14.  In this stage , the cognitive development occurs along the
following pattern.
1. At birth the infant exhibits a limited number of
uncoordinated reflexes such as sucking , looking ,
reaching and grasping.
2. During next four month the uncoordinated reflexes are
coordinated into simple schemas e.g. the infant now
 tries to suck anything which is put into his mouth
 stares at whatever he sees ,
 reaches for everything and grasps all that put into his
hands.

15. (3) First his view about environmental objects is that what is out of
sight is purely out of mind.
 Gradually the concept of object permanence evolves in the cognitive
structure of the infant.
 By the age of 8 months the infant is able to react to objects outside
himself.
 He begins to realize that object around are separate from himself and
they have their independent and permanent existence.

16.  While stepping into this stage , the child begins to
replace direct action in the form of sensory or motor
exploration with symbols.
 The learning of language provides him with a good
tool for thinking. He begins to utter words to ask for
something rather than just reaching out to get it.
 This stage can be further sub divided into
1. The Pre-Conceptual phase (2 to 4 years)
2. Intuitive phase (4 to 7 years)

17. a) In this early part, the children seem to identify object
by their names but make mistakes in this process of
identification and concept formation e.g. they think
all men are daddy & all women are mummy.
b) Their mode of thinking and reasoning is quite
illogical at this stage. (e.g. cow)
c) Their thinking is sometime too imaginative and they
cannot distinguish between living and non living.
(e.g. block of wood , doll)
d) They have egocentric nature. Child thinks the world
is only for him.

18. At this stage
a) Various concepts of child are at more advanced level.
b) But what he thinks or solves is carried out intuitively,
rather than logically.
c) His thinking are full of contradictions.
d) Absence of two main cognitive characteristics
(1) Reversibility (2) conservation

20.  In this stage
a) Now he learns to deal with concepts and ideas that
only in mental terms.
b) Thinking becomes more logical and systematic.
c) Develops the ability to conserve both in terms of
quantity and number of objects.
d) Develops the ability to reverse.
e) No longer ego-centric in his thinking.

21.  At this stage
a) The intellectual development and functioning takes a very
sophisticated shape.
b) Learns to deal with abstraction by logical thinking.
c) Believes that hypothetical problem can also be solved mentally as
concrete problem.
d) Creative aspects are much visible.
e) High level of intellectual functioning developed

22.  In short , according to Piaget ,this stage is usually
characterized by the presence of the most
sophisticated cognitive abilities to
(a) build up multiple hypotheses & a number of
solutions;
(b) verify all possible solutions in a systematic &
logical way
(c) generalize & arrive at abstract that covers many
specific situations.