Jean Piaget Classified Cognitive Development Theory – Four Stages

Have you ever wondered how a child sees a new thing, understands it, and forms concepts about it even without any knowledge of language, solely based on their actions or senses? This theory suggests that children’s knowledge undergoes changes as they grow.

Jean Piaget

The theory was proposed by Jean Piaget, who was born on 9 August 1896 in Switzerland. At the age of 22, he completed his Ph.D. in zoology. He conducted intelligence tests of students in a French school under the direction of Alfred Binet and became intrigued by the incorrect answers given by children.

This led him to conduct research on cognitive development. Piaget even tested his own three children and meticulously noted every detail of their mental development. After thorough evaluation, he published over 400 books, in which his theory of cognitive development gained significant attention and acclaim. John Dewey and Jean Piaget both believed in self – regulation in intellectual thinking.

Terms of Piaget

• Organisation – When children explore their surroundings, they construct their own knowledge and organize it in a meaningful manner to help them interact between their knowledge and actions. For example, when a child sees a cow, he constructs knowledge about the cow’s appearance, sound, and features. The next day, if he sees a cow again, he can easily identify it using his previous knowledge of cows.
• Adaptation – However, if the child sees a buffalo instead of a cow the next day, his previous knowledge wouldn’t have helped him. In this situation, he will add new information about buffaloes to his existing knowledge. This process is called adaptation.
• Adaptation is the process by which a person balances new experiences with previous knowledge.

It involves two types: Assimilation and Accommodation.

• • Assimilation- assimilation involves adding new knowledge to existing knowledge based on prior experiences.
  • Accommodation- accommodation involves making changes, elaborations, or corrections to existing knowledge.

• Equilibrium – These processes together help children maintain balance in their cognitive functions and is known as equilibrium.
• Scheme- An organised pattern which a child can easily repeat is known as schemes. Ex- a child getting ready to go to the school.
• Schema- Schemas are both mental and physical actions that help them understand. Schema is a form of knowledge and also a process of acquiring knowledge.

• Piaget was the first psychologist to believe that humans are active and information-processing beings from birth.

Stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor Stage (0 – 2 Years)

This is the earliest stage of cognitive development. Infants acquire knowledge through their senses and reflexes. Children see, touch, grasp, and suck to acquire knowledge. Gradually, they use their actions to achieve their objectives. During this stage, children become active, semi-verbal, and intelligent in a social perspective.

Important Characteristics

• They respond to sound and light
• Try to do interesting things
• Gain knowledge of object permanence
• By the age of 1½, children start thinking before doing
• Children do goal-directed behavior
• Deferred Imitation (is also a sign of memory development)
• Object permanence develops after 4 to 7 months of birth.

Pre Operational Stage (2 – 7 Years)

This stage marks the emergence of symbolic functions before logical thinking. Children begin to use language.This is a stage of the emergence of symbolic functions. Children start using language.
This includes two sub-stages. The pre-conceptual stage (2-4 years) is an exploration stage. Children start imitating their parents, cousins in their work.
The intuitive stage (4-7 years) is about accepting things the way they seem. Children see things and make conclusions without logical thinking.

Important Characteristics

• Transductive Reasoning: Children often use transductive reasoning, where they make connections between events that may not be accurate or logical.
• Cause & Effect: By the end of this stage children start understanding cause and effect.
  For Example, If we put wet clothes in sunlight, they will be dry in some time.
• Animism:  Children of this stage think everything around them is a living thing.
  For example: When a child is hurt by a table he will start kicking and taking revenge.
• Irreversibility: Children of this stage can’t think reverse of anything. They even don’t remember the path from their school to their house, due to lack of reversibility.
• Lack Of Conservation: The child is not able to differentiate between quantity and value, and because of this he chooses more quantity over value.
  For example: offering a 10 rupee coin and 5 coins of 1 rupee per coin, the child will choose 5 coins instead of 10 rupee coin.
• Centration: Focusing on one aspect and ignoring the others.

Two Substages of Pre-operational stage

Symbolic function substage (2 – 4 Years)

Children of this stage start representing things using symbols.
Example: Make drawings of fish, apples, and other concrete objects.

Intuitive Stage (4 – 7 Years)

Children ask so many questions to everyone. They believe that their thoughts are powerful, and they may think that their thoughts can cause things happen.
Example: When the mother gave soup in two bowls of different shapes with equal volume, one child who got the square-shaped bowl was very happy as he thought he had more soup than his brother. The other child who received the circular bowl started crying because the circular bowl looked smaller than the square bowl.

Concrete Operational Stage (7 – 11 Years)

In this stage, the child can think logically about concrete objects. They can effectively measure and count objects. If the things are concrete, they can compare them accurately. The decrease of egocentrism during this stage enables them to understand other perspectives.

Important Characteristics

• A child can think logically if things are in the form of concrete or front of his eyes
• Reverse Thinking: They can reverse their thoughts and actions as well.
• Conservation: They are capable of doing conservation of concrete things.
• Classification: Children start classification based on the properties of objects.
• Seriation: They can understand the concept of sequence.
• Transitivity: Children solve logical problems using objects (That’s why the stage name is concrete operational).
• Children develop “Inductive Reasoning” (example to rule).

Formal Operational Stage (11 – 15 Years)

The formal operational stage helps the child to think outside the box and consider possibilities beyond reality. At this stage, a child can think logically about abstract things. Verbal words and symbols are used in place of concrete items for thinking. A child starts to conclude, explain, and make hypotheses as well.

Important Characteristics

• Children develop abstract thinking
• They develop hypothetical thinking
•  A child can think sequentially, understand more than one fact at a time, and comprehend different perspectives.
• They begin self-evaluation and critically analyze old values and systems.
• Develop Adolescence Egocentrism: Children thinking everyone seeing to me or they thought they were  centre of stage.

Summary

According to Piaget, the four stages of development occur gradually, not hastily. Children’s thinking does not always progress smoothly and they can manipulate their sensory world. Piaget also emphasized that guided discovery is more beneficial for children. Additionally, he highlighted the importance of play as an adaptive, organized means to help children make sense of their physical and social environment.

Educational Implications Piaget’s Theory

Piagetian classrooms emphasize active learning through discovery, hands-on experiences, and problem-solving. Teachers act as guides, assessing student readiness and providing tailored support to foster individual learning journeys.

• According to Piaget classrooms should constructivism
• Classrooms should include:
  • Discovery Learning
  • Hands-on experiences
  • Problem-solving
• The teacher’s role should be a facilitator or a guide
• Teachers should check the student’s Readiness to learn (cognitive level)

Criticisms Of Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget overlooked the influence of culture and society on children.
• He disregarded the impact of training.
• He underestimated young children’s abilities compared to those of adults.

Refrence Links

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#:~:text=Stages%5Bedit,in%20multiple%20steps.
•  Resarch Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362524801_Theory_Of_Cognitive_Development_By_Jean_Piaget