Cognition

• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) - One of the 20th century’s most influential researchersin the area of developmental psychology.
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) - He originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy and considered himself a – genetic epistemologist.
• Genetic – study of development
• Epistemology – study of knowledge
• Piaget wanted to know how children learned through their development in the study of knowledge
• Piaget’s theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds cognitive structures developing child builds cognitive structures (schemes used to understand and respond to physical environment).
• Cognition - It refers to the mental processes an organism learns, remembers, understands, perceives, solves problems, and thinks about a body of information.
• Cognitive Development – which is the stages a child goes through conceptualizing the world at different age levels.
• Cognitive Development - these mental processes develop from birth until adulthood. In other words, what kind of cognitive skills is a 4-yearold child capable of compared to a 6-year-old.
• Cognitive Development - The acquisition of the ability to think, reason, and problem solve
• Cognitive Development - It is the process by which people’s thinking changes across the life span.
• Cognitive development is gradually and orderly, changes by which mental processes become more complex and sophisticated.
• The essential development of cognition is the establishment of new schemes.
• Assimilation and Accommodation are both processing of the ways of cognitive development.
• Equilibration is the symbol of new stage of the cognitive development.
• Schema: an internal representation of the world.
• A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing.
• Schemas are mental or cognitive structures which enable a person to adapt and to organize the environment.
• Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the world.
• Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior.
• Intelligent behavior - a way of organizing knowledge (includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge)
• , it is useful to think of schemas as units - of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions and abstract (i.e. theoretical) concepts.
• Assimilation: Is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
• The process of taking in new information into our previously existing schema’s is known as assimilation.
• Accommodation: Another part of adaptation involves changing or altering our existing schemas in light of new information, a process known as accommodation
• Accommodation involves altering existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences.
• Accommodation: New schemas may also be developed during this process.
• Equilibration: Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.
• Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas.
• Equilibration – is a balance between assimilation and accommodation.
• Disequilibrium – is an imbalance between assimilation and accommodation.
• As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to accouunt for new knowledge (accommodation).
• Equilibration helps explain how children are able to move from one stage of thought into the next.
• Adaptation: Assimilation and accommodation are the two sides of adaptation, Piaget’s term for what most of us would call learning through which awareness of the outside world is internalized.
• Adaptaion: Although one may predominate at any one moment, they are two sides and inseparable and exist in a dialectical relationship.
• Stages of Cognitive Development

  1. Sensory motor Stage
  2. Preoperational Stage
  3. Concrete Operational Stage
  4. Formal Operational Stage
• Sensory Motor Stage (Birth to age of 2) During this stage, the child begins to develop: Reflexes – sucking, grasping, crying etc.
• Hand Mouth co-ordination [Example: A child may such his or her thumb by accident and then later intentionally repeat the action. These actions are repeated because the infants find them pleasurable]
• Hand-eye co-ordination (4 to 8 months): Respect unusual events.
• Coordination of Reactions (8-12 months): Co-ordination of two schemata: object performance attained.