Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development outlines how children's intelligence evolves through four distinct stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Piaget posited that cognitive development is influenced by biological maturation and environmental experiences, with processes like assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration being central to understanding new information. His work has significantly impacted educational practices, although it has faced criticism regarding research methods and the underestimation of children's abilities.

1. Piaget's theory of cognitive
development
By Vandana Thakur
Asst professor
RIE Bhopal

2. An overview of Piaget’s life
• born in Switzerland in 1896
• published his first scientific paper at the
tender age of 10 – a 100-word description of
an albino sparrow in a naturalist magazine
• Between the ages of 15 and 19 he published
numerous papers on molluscs
• offered a job as a curator at a museum,
although he had to decline the offer since he
still had two years of high school to complete

3. • doctoral degree at the University of Neuchatel
• Ph.D. degree at age 22 in natural history
• Simon offered Piaget a position supervising
the standardization of the intelligence tests
developed by Binet and Simon, interest in
children
• Based on his observations, he concluded that
children were not less intelligent than adults,
they simply think differently

4. • Albert Einstein called Piaget's discovery "so
simple only a genius could have thought of it.“
• watching his 13-month-old nephew, Gerard, at
play
• Piaget observed the toddler playing with a ball.
When the ball rolled under a table where the boy
could still see it, Gerard simply retrieved the ball
and continued playing. When the ball rolled
under a sofa out of his sight, however, the child
began looking for it where he had last seen it.
This reaction struck Piaget as irrational.

5. • Piaget came to believe that children lack what
he referred to as the object concept - the
knowledge that objects are separate and
distinct from both the individual and the
individual's perception of that object
• Jean Piaget set out to study his daughter
Jacqueline as she developed through infancy,
toddlerhood, and childhood

6. • during the early months of his daughter's life,
she seemed to believe that objects ceased to
exist once they were out of her sight
• At nearly a year, she made mistakes similar to
the one Gerard made.
• By 21 months, Jacqueline had become skilled
at finding hidden objects and understood that
objects had an existence separate from her
perception of them.

7. • , there are both qualitative and quantitative
differences between the thinking of young
children versus older children.

8. Overview
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a
comprehensive theory about the nature and
development of human intelligence.
• To Piaget, cognitive development was a
progressive reorganization of mental processes
resulting from biological maturation and
environmental experience.
• 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

9. Nature of reality and intelligence
• Reality is a dynamic system of continuous
change; two conditions that define dynamic
systems.
– Transformations refer to all manners of changes
that a thing or person can undergo
– States refer to the conditions or the appearances
in which things or persons can be found between
transformations.

10. • For example, there might be changes in shape or
form (for instance, liquids are reshaped as they
are transferred from one vessel to another, and
similarly humans change in their characteristics
as they grow older), in size (for example, a series
of coins on a table might be placed close to each
other or far apart), or in placement or location in
space and time (e.g., various objects or persons
might be found at one place at one time and at a
different place at another time).

11. Two types of intelligence
• Operative intelligence is the active aspect of
intelligence. It involves all actions, overt or
covert, undertaken in order to follow, recover, or
anticipate the transformations of the objects or
persons of interest.
• Figurative intelligence is the more or less static
aspect of intelligence, involving all means of
representation used to retain in mind the states
(i.e., successive forms, shapes, or locations) that
intervene between transformations.

12. Process of growth- fundamental
concepts
• Schemas - A schema describes both the mental and physical actions
involved in understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of
knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the world.
• 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.

13. • Assimilation
– how humans perceive and adapt to new
information. It is the process of fitting new
information into pre-existing cognitive schemas.
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

14. • They are two sides of a coin.
• 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.

15. • 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.

16. The stages
• According to psychologist Jean Piaget, children
progress through a series of four critical stages of
cognitive development. Each stage is marked by
shifts in how kids understand the world. Piaget
believed that children are like "little scientists"
and that they actively try to explore and make
sense of the world around them.
• Knowing reality means constructing systems of
transformations that correspond, more or less
adequately, to reality."

17. The Sensorimotor Stage
• During this stage, infants and toddlers acquire
knowledge through sensory experiences and
manipulating objects.
• a child's intelligence consists of their basic
motor and sensory explorations of the world
• By devlepoing object permanency, children
are then able to begin to attach names and
words to objects

18. The Preoperational Stage
• At this stage, kids learn through pretend
play but still struggle with logic and taking the
point of
• struggle with understanding the ideal of
constancy view of other people, eg pieces of
clay rolled into different shapes.

19. The Concrete Operational Stage
• begin to think more logically, but their thinking
can also be very rigid
• tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical
concepts.
• children also become less egocentric and begin to
think about how other people might think and
feel
• also begin to understand that their thoughts are
unique to them and that not everyone else
necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and
opinions.

20. The Formal Operational Stage
• an increase in logic, the ability to use
deductive reasoning, and an understanding of
abstract ideas
• people become capable of seeing multiple
potential solutions to problems and think
more scientifically about the world around
them.

21. Support for Piaget's Theory
• Piaget's focus on qualitative development had an
important impact on education. While Piaget did not
specifically apply his theory in this way, many
educational programs are now built upon the belief
that children should be taught at the level for which
they are developmentally prepared.
• n addition to this, a number of instructional strategies
have been derived from Piaget's work. These strategies
include providing a supportive environment, utilizing
social interactions and peer teaching, and helping
children see fallacies and inconsistencies in their
thinking.

22. Criticisms of Piaget
• 1. Problems With Research Methods
• Much of the criticism of Piaget's work is in
regards to his research methods. A major source
of inspiration for the theory was Piaget's
observations of his own three children. In
addition to this, the other children in Piaget's
small research sample were all from well-
educated professionals of high socioeconomic
status. Because of this unrepresentative sample,
it is difficult to generalize his findings to a larger
population.

23. • 2. Problems With Formal Operations
Research has disputed Piaget's argument that
all children will automatically move to the
next stage of development as they mature.
Some data suggests that environmental
factors may play a role in the development of
formal operations.

24. • . Underestimates Children's Abilities
• Most researchers agree that children possess
many of the abilities at an earlier age than Piaget
suspected. Recent theory of mind research has
found that 4- and 5-year-old children have a
rather sophisticated understanding of their own
mental processes as well as those of other
people. For example, children of this age have
some ability to take the perspective of another
person, meaning they are far less egocentric than
Piaget believed.