Piaget's theory proposes that Cognitive development of the child Occurs in four general stages or universally and qualitatively different periods. Each stage arises when there is an imbalance in the mind of the child and the child must adapt learning to think otherwise.
The method that Piaget used to find out how children's thinking worked was based on the observation and formulation of flexible questions by insisting on the answers. For example, he observed how a four-year-old believed that if coins or flowers were placed in a row, they were more numerous than if they were placed in a group. Many of the initial studies he did did with his children.
The theory of Piaget
His theory, one of the richest and most elaborate in the field of psychology, is framed within the cognitive-evolutionary models.
These models are rooted in the writings he developed Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the XVIII century. From here it was suggested that human development was produced with little or no influence of the environment although they are now placing more emphasis on the environment. The main idea is that a child will behave based on the development and organization of their knowledge or intelligence.
Piaget Formulates his theory of the cognitive stages from the consideration of development from an organicist perspective, that is, it raises children's efforts to try to understand and act in their world. This theory provoked a cognitive revolution at that time.
According to this author, the human being acts when it comes into contact with the environment. The actions it carries out in this one are organized in schemes that coordinate physical and mental actions.
There is an evolution from mere reflexes to sensorimotor schemes and later to operational structures, of a more intentional, conscious and generalizable character.
These structures represent a way of actively organizing reality through actions or through the functions of assimilation or accommodation functions to new situations to find the balance that responds to the demands of the environment.
The functions and structures
Human development could be described in terms of cognitive functions and structures, trying to show that the structural and functional aspects of the mind were interrelated and that there was no structure without function and no function without structure.
He also thought that cognitive development progressively evolved from the lower stages to the functioning of reversible and formal mental structures.
- The Functions Are biological processes, innate and equal for all, which remain unchanged. These have the function of constructing internal cognitive structures.
This author thought that the child when related to his environment is conformed in this one more accurate image of the world and develop strategies to manage. This growth is achieved through three functions: organization, adaptation and balancing.
- Organization : Consisting of the tendency of people to create categories to organize information, and that any new knowledge must fit within this system. For example, a newborn is born with a suction reflex that will later be modified adapting to the suction of the mother's breast, the bottle or the thumb.
- Adaptation : Consisting of the ability of children to handle new information regarding things they already know. Within this there are two complementary processes, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when the child has to incorporate new information into previous cognitive structures. That is, there is a tendency to understand new experiences in terms of existing knowledge. And the accommodation given when you must adjust the cognitive structures to accept the new information, ie the structures change in response to new experiences.
For example, a bottle-fed baby who starts after sucking a glass shows assimilation since it uses a previous scheme to face a new situation. On the other hand, when he discovers that in order to suck the glass and drink water he has to move his tongue and mouth to suck, otherwise he is adjusting himself, that is to say he is modifying the previous scheme.
Or for example a child who has associated the concept dog, all those big dogs. One day he goes down the street and sees a mastiff, which is a dog he had never seen before but that fits into his big dog outline, then he assimilates it. However, another day is in the park and you see a child with a chihuahua, this dog is small, then you must modify your scheme by accommodating yourself.
- The Equilibration Refers to the struggle to achieve a stable balance between assimilation and accommodation. Balancing is the engine of cognitive growth. When children can not handle new experiences in the context of previous cognitive structures they suffer a state of unbalance. It is restored when new mental and behavioral patterns that integrate the new experience are organized.
- The Schemes Are psychological structures that reflect the child's underlying knowledge and guide their interactions with the world. The nature and organization of these schemes are those that define the intelligence of the child at any given time.
Stages of Child's Cognitive Development
Piaget proposed that the cognitive development of the child occurred in four general stages or universally and qualitatively different periods. Each stage arises when there is an imbalance in the mind of the child and the child must adapt learning to think otherwise. Mental operations evolve from learning based on simple sensory and motor activities to abstract logical thinking.
The stages proposed by Piaget for which the child develops his knowledge are the following: sensorimotor period, which occurs from 0 to 2 years; Preoperational period, which occurs from 2 to 7 years; Period of concrete operations, which occurs from 7 to 12 years and period of formal operations, which is given from 12 onwards.
In the following scheme the fundamental characteristics of these periods appear.
Sensorimotor period
The child's initial schemes are simple reflexes, and gradually some disappear, others remain unchanged, and others are combined into broader and more flexible units of action.
As for the primary, secondary and tertiary reactions, say that the former involve the perfection of sensorimotor schemes based on the primitive reflexes that go from being a reflex activity to being a self-generated activity in a more conscious way. For example, the boy sucks his thumb and repeats it because he likes the feeling.
Secondary reactions are due to the repetition of actions that are reinforced by external events. That is to say, if a child has seen that when a rattle shakes, it makes a noise, will shake it again to listen to it, first it will do it in a slow and hesitant way, but will end up repeating it with firmness.
In tertiary circular reactions the child acquires the capacity to create new sequences of behaviors to deal with new situations. That is, the child repeats those actions that he finds interesting. An example would be that child who observes that when he shakes the rattle it sounds different than when he catches it and hits the ground.
At the end of this stage the child is already able to have mental representations that allow him to be free of his own actions. And they develop the deferred imitation, which is that which occurs even if the model is not present.
Preoperative period
This stage is characterized because the child begins to use symbols to represent the world in a cognitive way. The symbolic function is manifested in imitation, symbolic play, drawing and language.
Objects and events are replaced by words and numbers. In addition, the actions that previously had to be done physically can now be done mentally, by means of internal symbols.
The child at this stage does not yet have the capacity to solve symbolic problems, and there are various gaps and confusions in his attempts to understand the world.
Thinking is still dominated by the perceptual aspects of problems, by the tendency to focus on a single aspect (centration), for its invariability and inability to perform transformations and for the use of transductive reasoning (the child goes from the particular to The particular).
Period of concrete operations
The fundamental novelty that occurs in this stage is the appearance of operational thinking, based on the use of operations. That is, an internalized action (unlike in the sensorimotor, which were external and observable), reversible, which is integrated into a set structure.
Understanding reversibility is one of the fundamental features of the operation. It is based on two rules: investment and compensation.
The investment ensures that transformations occurring in one direction can also be made in the opposite direction. And the compensation is the realization of a new operation that nullifies or compensates the effects of a transformation.
At this stage, children are already able to perform mental operations with the part of knowledge they possess, ie they can perform mathematical operations such as adding, subtracting, ordering and inverting, and so on. These mental operations allow a type of resolution of logical problems that were not possible during the preoperative stage.
As examples of logical-mathematical operations we find conservation, classifications, seriations and concept of number.
Conservation consists in understanding that the quantitative relations between two elements remain unchanged and are preserved, although some transformation may occur in some of the elements. Example: the child learns that a ball of plasticine remains the same in its rounded form as elongated. And not being elongated is greater than the rounded shape.
Classifications refer to similar relationships between elements belonging to a group.
The seriations consist of the order of the elements according to their increasing or decreasing dimensions.
The number concept is based on the previous two. It is given when the person understands that number 4 includes 3, 2 and 1.
Period of formal operations
This includes all those operations that require a higher level of abstraction, and which do not require concrete or material objects. As examples we can speak of the capacity to deal with events or relationships that are only possible in opposition to what actually exists.
The characteristics of this formal thought are as follows. The adolescent appreciates the difference between the real world and the possible. When you encounter a problem you can pose a multitude of possible solutions trying to find out which ones are the most appropriate.
In addition, hypothetical deductive thinking appears, this consists of the use of a strategy consisting in the formulation of a set of possible explanations and subsequently the submission of these approves to check if they occur. And finally, it is capable of integrating the two types of reversibility practiced in isolation, inversion and compensation.
Criticisms of Piaget's theory
According to some authors, Piaget underestimated the capacities of infants and young children and some psychologists questioned their stages and provided evidence that cognitive development was more gradual and continuous.
In addition, they assert that, in fact, children's cognitive processes would be linked to the specific content (what they think), the context of the problem, and the information and ideas that a culture considers important.
Before these criticisms Piaget reformulated its postulates and assured that all the normal subjects arrive at the formal operations and structures, between the 11-12 and 14-15 years, and in all the cases between the 15-20 years.
Bibliography
- Cárdenas Páez, A. (2011). Piaget: language, knowledge and Education. Colombian Journal of Education. N.60.
- Medina, A. (2000). The legacy of Piaget. Educere Articles.
- Papalia, D.E. (2009). Developmental psychology . McGraw-Hill.
- Vasta, R., Haith, H.H. And Miller, S. (1996). Child psychology. Barcelona. Ariel.