Piaget's Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget and his cognitive developmental stages have helped us better understand how children obtain information.

WATCH this short youtube clip about Jean Piaget.
Piaget on Piaget, Part 1 Links to an external site.

Three main concepts of Piaget's work you need to understand are:

SCHEMAS - A schema can be viewed as UNIT of THOUGHT, which comes to us through our senses. We hear, smell, taste, feel, see shemas that we need to organize in some way. Schemas coming through our senses from the outside need to go somewhere. How we organize those schemas are explained by ACCOMMODATION and ASSIMLIATION.

ASSIMILATION - When we assimilate something, we MAKE IT FIT into our old space.

When new information comes in through our senses, we need to organize it. If we assimilate a schema we are able to make it fit into an existing category, as expressed by the visual below.

 

EXAMPLE: When a child sees a baseball for the first time. They have experience with other types of balls, an already existing category for balls, therefore this new ball is assimilated into their already existing category, expanding their understanding that balls come in various sizes and colors.

ACCOMMODATION - When we accommodate something, we MAKE a NEW space for it.

When we accommodate we are presented with a schema that does not easily fit into an existing category, as in the example of assimilation above.  In accommodation you have to create a new category to accommodate this new information, as explained in the visual below. 

 

EXAMPLE: A child encounters a glass ornament. They are familiar with round objects and want to assimilate this information into their category for balls, BUT when they try to bounce this new type of ball it shatters into hundreds of pieces. The child now has to accommodate this schema and create a new category for hard, round, objects that do not bounce, with the assistance of an adult, they may learn the term glass ornament.

In reality, both are going on at the same time, so that—just as the mower blade cuts the grass, the grass gradually blunts the blade—although most of the time we are assimilating familiar material in the world around us, nevertheless, our minds are also having to adjust to accommodate it. 

Piaget also identified concepts for what is happening during that moment the child is trying to figure out where this new information must be organized. DISEQUILIBRATION (often times called cognitive dissonance) is what is happening in the moment the new schema is finding its home.

As early childhood practitioners, the types of experiences and stimulation we provide children can support this on-going process of expanding and growing categories. As we learned last week, children's brains need stimulation and interaction or their synaptic connections fall away. We are now learning that the experiences we provide them to expand their categories will expand their understanding AND strengthen brain connections.

EXAMPLE:  A child's life has consisted of mainly experiences with only those in their microsystem. Those adults in their microsytsem have taught through words and actions that women have long hair, wear make-up and wear dresses. This child goes to school for the first time and encounters a female child care provider that has short hair, does not wear make up and wears pants. This child might call their teacher a man, trying to figure out how to make these schemas fit into existing categories. We, as the adults in children's lives, have the responsibility to expand their categories and share with them ways to expand those categories, eg. the teacher may explain that some women have short hair, use other women in the school as examples, read books to the child with different types of women.