PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE

(MEANS “TO KNOW”) DEVELOPMENT

Stages are sequential but are they “stage-like” as he suggested or are
they continuous?
• Rate depends on maturation and experience

Performance
Continuity view

Discontinuity view
Age
PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT

• Piaget proposed that

children move through
four stages.

• Periods of time are

consistent in age and
developmental
sequence.
• Age ranges are averages.
• Some children are in transition
from one stage to the next.
 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Piaget believed that the driving force behind
intellectual development is our biological
development amidst experiences with the
environment.
.

Both photos: Courtesy of Judy DeLoache

 CONSTRUCTIVISM

• According to Piaget, knowledge is constructed

• Our cognitive development is shaped by the errors
we make
 SCHEMAS

• These are cognitive networks that

contain our associations with
certain places, people, events, or
things
• These change with age
• We develop these schemas so that
we have familiarity with them and
don’t have to encode this
information EVERY time we come
into contact with them.
 A QUICK CONVERSATION

• F: Jevon didn’t pack my lunch. That’s Dad’s name. Did

you know that his name is Jevon?
• Ms. Vaessen: Yes, I know your dad’s name.
• F: I also know Mum’s name.
• Ms. Vaessen: Really? Wow!
• F: Auntie Rachel, if Dad’s name is Jevon and Mum’s
name is Melissa, what’s your name?
• F’s initial schema: His father is named
Dad, his mother is named Mum, etc.
what you call someone is their name
 ADAPTATION & ORGANIZATION

• Two processes of change in schemas

• Adaptation involves building schemes (schemas)
through direct interaction with the environment
• Assimilation and Accommodation
 ASSIMILATION
• Assimilation is when individuals use their
current schemas to interpret the external
world
• A toddler sees their first camel at the zoo
and calls out ‘Horse!’
 ACCOMMODATION

• This is where individuals adjust old schemas

or create new ones in response to new
information
• The toddler calls the camel “lumpy horse”
because they noticed the hump(s)
• The horse schema was revised

• F learns that parents have actual names and that Mum and
Dad are titles
 ADAPTATION & ORGANIZATION

• Two processes of change in schemas

• Adaptation involves building schemes (schemas)
through direct interaction with the environment
• Assimilation and Accommodation

• Organization involves internal rearrangement

by linking new structures to old schemas
• F realizing Auntie Rachel also has a name and
title – parents have names and titles applied to
other important adults and family schema
STAGE 1: SENSORIMOTOR (0-2)

• Child knows world mostly through motor schemes

• Proof?
• After sucking on one of these, babies looked longer
at the nipple they had felt in their mouth
 STAGE 1: SENSORIMOTOR (0-2)
• Child knows world mostly through motor schemes
• Child is learning connections between sensations and
motor actions (sensorimotor)
• Key development: Object Permanence
• objects continue to exist even when not visible
 STAGE 2: PREOPERATIONAL
(2-6)

• Child is not logical

• Key development:
Egocentrism
• incapable of seeing
another point of view
 STAGE 3: CONCRETE
OPERATIONAL (7-11)
• Thinks logically about concrete events
• Key development: Conservation
• objects stay the same even when their form changes
CONSERVATION
STAGE 4: FORMAL OPERATIONAL
(11-)

• Able to reason and think logically

• Key development:
• reasoning
• abstract thinking
WHO IS REALLY HOT?
VYGOTSKY!

Similar to Piaget in that knowledge is constructed

but different in that he said it is socially
constructed – it is a sociocultural
perspective

The buzz words that people associate with him are

“zone of proximal development” and private
speech
 SOCIOCULTURAL LEARNING
• Objected to the notion that young children’s
language is egocentric and nonsocial…

• Children speak to themselves for guidance and

self-direction – it is helping children to think about
their own behaviour when they are talking to
themselves

• Vygotsky saw this as the foundation for all higher

cognitive processes
 PRIVATE SPEECH

• Children use this more when tasks are difficult,

after they make errors or when they are confused
about how to proceed
• We still do this as adults but it typically
progresses to whispers then lip movements
• Children who use private speech are more attentive
and show greater performance than less talkative
same age peers
ZONE PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

• Meaning that when people are learning they need to

be challenged enough that they will learn but they
need enough prior learning that they can attach
the new material to