1 The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principle
Module 2 Developmental Theories
Lesson 2
Lesson 2: Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Objectives:
After completing this lesson, you will be able to accomplish the following:
1. Identify the different basic cognitive schemas
2. Understand how cognitive develops in human being.
3. Explain the different cognitive developmental stages.
Topics:
1.1 Basic Cognitive Concepts
1.2 Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
ARIANNE ROSS FABIAN LERON, LPT,MAT
INSTRUCTOR
2 The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principle
Lesson 2: Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
He believed that the child plays an active role in the growth of intelligence and learns by
doing. He regarded the child as a philosopher who perceives the world only as he has experienced
it.The theory of cognitive development focuses on mental processes such as perceiving,
remembering, believing, and reasoning.
1.1 Basic Cognitive Concepts
Schema
It is the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize their
environment.
It is in an individual’s way to understand or create meaning about a thing or experience.
Assimilation
This is the process of fitting a new experience into an existing or previously created
cognitive structure or schema.
Accommodation
This is the process of creating a new schema.
Equilibration
Piaget believed that people have the natural need to understand how the world works and
to find order, structure, and predictability in our life.
Equilibration is achieving proper balance between assimilation and accommodation.
When our experiences do not match our schema or cognitive structures, we experience
cognitive disequilibrium. This means there is a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is
understood.
Cognitive development involves a continuous effort to adapt to the environment in terms of
assimilation and accommodation.
1.2 Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage 1- Sensori-motor Stage: 0-2
During this stage senses, reflexes, and motor abilities develop rapidly.
This is the stage when a child who is initially reflexive in grasping, sucking, and reaching
becomes more organized in his movement and activity.
The term sensor-motor focus on the prominence of the senses and muscle movement
through which the infant comes to learn about himself and the world.
Object permanence is the ability of the child to know that an object still exists even when
out of sight. This ability is attained in the sensory motor stage.
Stage 2- Pre-Operational Stage: 2-7
The child in the preoperational stage is not yet able to think logically.
With the acquisition of language, the child is able to represent the world through mental
images and symbols, but in this stage, these symbols depend on his own perception and
his intuition.
The preoperational child is completely egocentric. Although he is beginning to take
greater interest in objects and people around him, he sees them from only one point of
view: his own.
ARIANNE ROSS FABIAN LERON, LPT,MAT
INSTRUCTOR
3 The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principle
This stage may be the age of curiosity; preschoolers are always questioning and
investigating new things. Since they know the world only from their limited experience,
they make up explanations when they don’t have one.
Symbolic Function- this is the ability to represent objects and events. A symbol is a thing
that represents something else.
Egocentrism refers to 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 refers to the tendency of the child to only focus on the aspect of a thing or event
and exclude other aspects.
Irreversibility, pre-operational children still have the inability to reverse their thinking.
Animism, tendency of children to attribute human like traits or characteristics to inanimate
objects.
Transductive reasoning refers to the pre-operational child’s type of reasoning that is either
inductive or deductive. Reasoning appears to be from particular to particular.
Stage 3- Concrete Operational Stage: 8-11
The stage of concrete operations begins when the child is able to perform mental
operations.
Decentering this is the ability of the child to perceive different features of objects and
situations. No longer is the child focused 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, refers to 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. Because of the
development of the child’s ability of decentering and also reversibility, the concrete
operational child can now judge right.
Seriation refers to the ability to order or arrange things in a series based on one dimension
such as weight, volume or size.
Stage 4- Formal Operational Stage: 12-15
Thinking becomes more logical. The child in the concrete operational stage deals with
the present, the here and now; the child who can use formal operational thought can think
about the future, the abstract, the hypothetical.
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.
ARIANNE ROSS FABIAN LERON, LPT,MAT
INSTRUCTOR
4 The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principle
Analogical reasoning, refers to the ability to perceive the relationship in one instance and
then use the relationship to narrow down possible answers in another similar situation or
problem. The individual in the formal operations stage can make an analogy.
Deductive reasoning it is the ability to think logically by applying a general rule to a particular
instance or situation.
From Piaget’s findings and comprehensive theory, we can derive the following
principles:
1. Children will provide different explanations of reality at different stages of cognitive
development.
2. Cognitive development is facilitated by providing activities or situations that engage
learners and require adaptation.
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 teaching methods that actively involve students and present challenges.
ARIANNE ROSS FABIAN LERON, LPT,MAT
INSTRUCTOR
