Piaget's theory of development

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Schemas

Piaget (1952) defined a schema as: "a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning."

Piaget stated that schemas were important in regards to a child's cognitive development. A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations.

Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small amount of innate schemas - being the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. For example, babies have a sucking reflex which is triggered by something touching the baby's lips. Piaget therefore assumed that the baby has a 'sucking schema'.

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Assimilation & Accommodation

Assimilation is when the inidivudal uses an existing schema in order to deal with a new object or situation. e.g a child sees a cat for the first time and since it is walking on 4 legs, he calls it a dog.

Accommodation is when the existing schema doesn't work, and thus needs to be altered to deal with a new object or situation. e.g in the cat-dog misunderstanding, the child's parent may explain that this new animal is a cat which meows, unlike a dog. With the new knowledge, the child will change their schema of a dog.

Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, disequilibrium occurs when new information can't be fitted into existing schemas. Equilibration moves the learning process along.

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Stages of development

Sensorimotor stage (Birth-2 years): The main achievement of this stage is the development of object permanence. The child experiences the world through their senses and begins to classify things. When words are spoken, they are generally concrete lexical choices.

Pre-operational stage (2-7 years): During this stage, young children are able to think about things symbolically. Language and motor skills develop. Thinking and language is still egocentric, the child has difficulty taking the viewpoint of another.

Concrete operational stage (7-11 years): This stage marks the beginning of logical/operational thought. The child can work things out internally. Children can conserve number, mass, and weight. They begin to think logically about concrete events. The ability to take different perspectives develops at around 8-9 years.

Formal operational stage (11+): This stage lasts into adulthood. Abstract reasoning skills develop.

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Research on Piaget's theory

Bower (1982): Showed that infants who were only a few months old were surprised when an object was removed from behind a screen, demonstrating object permanence.

Piaget & Inhelder (1956): Findings from 3 mountains task - thinking in pre-operational children is limited by egocentrism. Ability to understand another's perspective does not develop until around 8-9 years. However, Mossler et al (1976) showed perspective taking abilities in 4 year olds. Also, Borke (1971) showed that 3 year olds were able to gauge a story protagonist's emotional reactions to events.

Donaldson (1978): Highlighted artificiality of the experimental situation that Piaget typically used.

Shayer & Wylam (1978): Shown that by 16 years, around 30% of British children achieve formal operations.

Danner & Day (1977): Formal operational thought could be trained. They trained 10, 13 and 17 year olds on 3 formal operational tasks. Training had a marked effect at 17 years.

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