1

Cognitive Development › combining, arranging,

behaviors and thoughts into
Jean Piaget coherent system

 Full Name - Jean William Fritz Piaget  Adaptation

 Born - 9 August 1896 › adjusting to the environment

 Died - 16 September 1980 (aged 84)  We organize schemas using 2

processes:
 Swiss psychologist
› Assimilation - Child attempts
 taught at the Grange-Aux-Belles street to put information into
school for boys. The school was run by schemas he/she has already
Alfred Binet formed.

 Based his observation on his three › Accommodation - The child

children creates a new schemas to
organize information that he or
Cognitive Theory of Development by Jean she cannot possibly assimilate
Piaget into existing schema
Mechanism: Stages of Cognitive Development

 Horizontal Decalage 1. Sensorimotor Stage

› Temporary difference in levels 2. Preoperational Stage

of performance a child shows
between various cognitive 3. Concrete Operational Stage
domains or activities
4. Formal Operational Stage
 Equilibrium
Sensorimotor Stage
› Process of restoring balance
between present  0 – 2 years of age
understanding and new
experiences  Object permanence – existence of an
object even when it disappears in sight
 Equilibrium
 Goal-directed behavior- behaviors are
› Process of restoring balance done for learning purposes
between present
understanding and new  Representational thought- concept of
experiences object imprinted on the child’s mind

 Equilibrium vs. Disequilibrium Preoperational Stage

› Children are uncomfortable  2 – 7 years of age

with disequilibrium and they
attempt to restore equilibrium  Semiotic function – ability to use
symbols, languages, pictures , signs
 Schemas / Schemes and gestures to represent actions or
object mentally
› Cognitive framework that
provide a way to understand › miming
and organize new knowledge.
Concrete Operational Stage
 Organization
 7 – 12 years old

 Ability to grasp the idea of:


› Conservation – even when
physical appearance of objects
change, the underlying
quantity remains the same
› Reversibility – ability to
perform a task and reverse it
back to its starting point
› Seriation – arranging objects in
sequence according to one
aspect
Formal Operational
 11 or 12 years old - adulthood
 Hypotheco-deductive Reasoning
› Identify factors and deduce
systematic evaluation
 Adult Egocentrism – everyone else
shares one’s thoughts, feelings and
concerns
Implications on Teaching (Jean Piaget)
 Use of developmentally appropriate
teaching materials
 Focus on the child’s thinking, not its
products.
 Recognize the importance of self-
initiated, active involvement in
learning.
 Do not aim at making children think
adult-like.
 Accept individual differences in
developmental progress.
Lev Vygotsky
 Full Name: Lev Semionovich Vygotsky
 born in 1896 in Orsha in Russia
 graduated from Moscow State
University in 1917
 worked at the Institute of Psychology
(mid-1920s)and other educational,
research and clinical institutions in
Moscow, Leningrad, and Kharkov
 died in 1934 in Moscow of tuberculosis
Sociocultural Theory Proposition
2
 Intellectual development can be
understood in terms of historical and
cultural context children experience
 Development depends on the sign
system that individuals grow up with
 Cognitive development is strongly
linked to input from others.
Key Concepts
 Internalization / self-regulation
 Zone of proximal development
 Scaffolding
Internalization / Self- Regulation
 Ability to take in knowledge from the
social context in which it is observed
 Language development or the
acquisition of a sign system is the key
in internalizing ideas
› Private speech
Zone of Proximal Distance (ZPD)
 Also called Zone of Potential
Development
 Range between a child’s level of
independent performance and the level
of performance a child can do through
expert guidance
Testing ZPD
 Dynamic Assessment Environment
› Examiner gives the child
problems to solve and a graded
series of hints when he / she is
unable to solve the problem.
› Static Assessment Environment
› examiner gives a problem but
there is no or little feedback on
its result
Scaffolding
 Support give for learning and problem
solving
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 Competent assistance given through

mediation of the parent or teacher by
which cognitive, socioemotional and
behavioral development can occur.

 Direct Instruction - Teaching situations

where the teacher or parent will impart
knowledge by teaching it.

 Mediated Learning Experience - Adult

or older child helps indirectly helps a
child by explaining events in the
environment without directly teaching
some lessons

Implications on Teaching (Vygotsky’s Theory)

 Children learn by internalizing external

dialogues

 Children almost never operate at the

peak of their capacity

 Language and thought are intimately

and inextricably related

 Give emphasis on cooperative learning

 Put emphasis on scaffolding as

problem solving methods

Piaget versus Vygotsky

Theory Theorist Origin of Learning

- Prepared by - Jan Camille Tongco (April 19 Cognitive Emphasis
-20,2010) Development on

Four Stages Jean Piaget Knowledge Developmen

of Cognitive comes from t of internal
Developmen action components
t that helps in
acquiring
knowledge

Sociocultural Lev Cognitive Interaction

Theory Vygotsky development is with others
linked from
external input