Jean Piaget Developmental Theory

Jean Paiget was originally a biologist studying molluscs and moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly. Instead, there are certain points at which thinking simply excels and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these as transitions and believed there take place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. Therefore he believes that before these ages children are simply unable to understand things in certain ways. Because of these beliefs Piaget has in his theories, it has been highly influential and been taken into consideration when constructing the schools educational curriculum. 

Piagets key ideas:

·         Adaption – adapting to the world through assimilation and accommodation.

·         Assimilation - The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit. 

·         Accommodation - The difference made to one's mind or concepts by the process of assimilation. 

Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have one without the other!!

·         Classification - The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features. 

·         Class inclusion – The ability to understand, more advanced than simple classification, that some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. For example, the dad figure in a childs’ life can often be confused with all men by young children. Every time a child sees a man, they automatically call them dad so the ability to tell the difference between their dad and another man is known as class inclusion.

·         Conservation - The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when they are changed about or made to look different.

·         Decentration - The ability to move away from one system of classification to another one as appropriate.

·         Egocentrism - The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an early stage of psychological development. 

·         Operation - The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads. 

·         Schema or scheme - The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together. 

·         Stage - A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others.

Piaget also believed there are stages as well in each childs’ cognitive development. There are 4 stages in total.

The first stage is called sensorimotor stage which occurs between birth and the age of 2. This is the stage where a child learns to differentiate themselves from objects. They also start to learn that they are the cause of certain actions and start to use these actions for their specific purpose. For example, they pull a string of a toy to set it in motion or shake a rattle to create noise. Also at this stage, the infant starts to learn object permanence meaning they realise that things continue to exist even when they are not present to the infants senses. For example, covering a toy with a blanket, the infant begins to come to terms with the fact the item is still there they just can’t see it.

The second stage is called the pre-occupational stage which occurs between the age of 2 and 7 years. This is the stage where the child begins to use language to represent objects by images or words. They are also still very egocentric meaning they find it very difficult taking in the viewpoint of others. At this stage, children also begin to classify objects by specific features. For example, they will begin to group things together if they are the same shape or colour. 

Concrete operational stage is the third stage in cognitive development and this occurs between the ages 7 and 11. At this point, children can think logically about objects and events that have occurred. They also achieve conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7) and weight (age 9). Also when classifying objects, children are able to do it at a more advanced level. For example the can order them in sequences such as size.

The final stage in Piagets cognitive development stages is called the formal operational stage which occurs from age 11 upwards. This is where the child is able to think logically in regards to abstract propositions and also test hypothesis systematically. They also become concerned and interested in hypothetical, the future and ideological problems.

However, Piagets’ theory of cognitive development stages isn’t 100% accurate for every single child. Several studies conducted in regards to his theory have shown some children begin some stages earlier than expected and some later. Piaget however still believes that every child will go through these stages in this specific order and his theory is just a guideline for the educational system.