MODULE 6:

PIAGET’S
STAGES OF
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
LEONARD JOHN FLORES
Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
• Born: August 9, 1896,
Switzerland
• Died: September 16,1980
(Age 84)
• Parents: Eldest son of
Arthur Piaget and Rebecca
Jackson.
• Education: Received Ph.D.
from University of
Neuchatel in 1918.
2
Introduction
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the 20th century's most influential
researchers in the area of developmental psychology.
• He was originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy and
considered himself a "Genetic Epistemologist".
• Piaget wanted to know how children learned through their development in
the study of knowledge.
• He administered Binet's IQ test in Paris and observed that children's
answers were qualitatively different.
• Piaget's theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds
cognitive structures.
• He believes that the child's cognitive structure increases with the
development.
• Piaget's Theory of infant development were based on his observations of
his own three children. 3
 What is Cognition?
• The term cognition is
derived from the latin
word "cognoscere" which
means "to know" or "to
recognise" or "to
conceptualise".
• Cognition is "the mental
action or process of
acquiring knowledge and
understanding through
thought, experience, and
the senses. 4
What is Cognitive Development?
• Cognitive Development is the emergence of the ability to
think and understand.
• The acquisition of the ability to think, reason and
problem solve.
• It is the process by which people's thinking changes
across the life span.
• Piaget studied Cognitive Development by observing
children in particular, to examine how their thought
processes changed with age.
• It is the growing apprehension and adaptation to the
physical and social environment. 5
Basic Cognitive Concepts:
• Schema
• Assimilation
• Accommodation
• Equilibration

6
Schema
Refers to the cognitive structures by which individuals
intellectually adapt to and organize their environment.
Schema is an internal representation of the world. It helps
an individual understand the world they inhabit. They are
cognitive structures that represent a certain aspect of the
world, and can be seen as categories which have certain
pre-conceived ideas in them.
• For example, my schema for Christmas includes: Christmas
trees, presents, giving, money, green, red, gold, winter, Santa
Claus etc. Someone else may have an entirely different schema,
such as Jesus, birth, Church, holiday, Christianity etc
7
Assimilation
Assimilation – This is the process of fitting a
new experience into an existing or previously
created cognitive structure or schema
• Example : A 2 year old child sees a man who
is bald on top of his head and has long
frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s
horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown”

8
Accomodation
Accommodation – This is the process of
creating a new schema.
• Example : In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father
explained to his son that the man was not a clown and
that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t
wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things
to make people laugh.
• With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change
his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a
standard concept of “clown”.
9
Equilibration
Equilibration – is achieving proper balance between
assimilation and accommodation. When our
experiences do not match our schemata or cognitive
structures, we experience cognitive disequilibrium.
This means there is a discrepancy between what is
perceived and what is understood. We then exert
effort through assimilation and accommodation to
establish equilibrium once more.

10
11
 STAGE 1 SENSORI-MOTOR STAGE
(Birth to Infancy) - This is a stage when a child who is initially reflexive in grasping, sucking and
reaching becomes more organized in his movement and activity.

- The term “sensori-motor” focuses on the prominence of the senses and

muscle movement through which the infant comes to learn about himself and
the world.

Object permanence (memory)– This is the ability of the child to know that an
object still exists even when out of sight.

STAGE 2 PRE-OPERATIONAL STAGE

(2-7 years old) - Corresponds to the preschool years
-Toddler and Early - Intelligence at this stage is intuitive in nature.
Childhood - The child can now make mental representations is able to pretend, the child is
now ever closer to the use of symbols.
12
 STAGE 2 Symbolic Function – This is the ability to represent objects and events. A symbol is a thing
(2-7 years old) that represents something else. A drawing, a written word, or a spoken word
-Toddler and Early comes to be understood as representing a real object.
Childhood
Egocentrism – This is the tendency of the child to only see his point of view and to assume
that everyone also has his same point of view. The child cannot take the
perspective of others.

Centration –This refers to the tendency of the child to only focus on one aspect of a thing
or event and exclude other aspects.

Irreversibility – Pre-operational children still have the inability to reverse their thinking.
They can understand that 2 + 3 is 5, but cannot understand that 5 – 3 is 2.

Animism – this is the tendency of children to attribute human like traits or characteristics
to inanimate objects.

Transductive reasoning – This refers to the pre-operational child’s type of reasoning that
is neither inductive nor deductive.
13
 STAGE 3 CONCRETE-OPERATIONAL STAGE
(between 8 – 11 - This stage is characterized by the ability of the child to think logically but
years) only in terms of concrete objects.
- Childhood and Decentering – This refers to the ability of the child to perceive the different
Early features of the objects and situations. No longer is the child focused
Adolescence or limited to one aspect or dimension. This allows the child to be
more logical when dealing with concrete objects and situations.

Reversibility – During the stage of concrete operations, the child can now
follow that certain operations can be done in reverse.

Conservation – This is the ability to know that certain properties of objects

like number, mass, volume, or area do not change even if there is a
change in appearance.

Seriation – This refers to the ability to order or arrange things in a series

based on one dimension such as weight, volume or size.
14
 STAGE 4 FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE
(between 12 – - In the final stage of formal operations, thinking becomes more logical. They can
above) now solve abstract problems and can hypothesize. This stage is characterized by
Adolescence and the following:
Adulthood
Hypothetical Reasoning – This is the ability to come up with different hypothesis
about a problem and to gather and weigh data in order to make a final
decision or judgment. This can be done in the absence of concrete
objects. The individuals can now deal with “What if” questions.

Analogical reasoning – this is the ability to perceive the relationship in one instance
and then use that relationship to narrow down possible answers in
another similar situation or problem. The individual in this stage can
make an analogy.

Deductive reasoning – This is the ability to think logically by applying a general rule to
a particular instance or situation.

15
From Piaget’s findings and comprehensive theory, we
can derive the following principles:
1. Children will provide explanations of reality at different stages
of cognitive development.
2. Cognitive development is facilitated by providing activities or
situations that engage and require adaptation (i.e. assimilation
and accommodation)
3. Learning materials and activities should involve the appropriate
level of motor or mental operations for a child of given age;
avoid asking students to perform tasks that are beyond their
current cognitive capabilities
4. Use searching methods that actively involve students and
present

16
 Leonard John Flores

+6391 0628 1705

leofloresjohn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/leonard037

17