PIAGET’S
STAGES OF
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
• “The principle goal of
education is to create men who
are capable of doing new
things, not simply of repeating
what other generations have
done – men who are creative,
inventive and discovers.”
- Jean Piaget
Activity
Read the situation below. The in the analysis answer the
question.
Siblings, Tria, 10; Enzo, 8; and Riel, 4 were sorting out their
stuff animals. They had 7 bears, 3 dogs, 2 cows, and 1
dolphin. Mommy, a psychology teacher, enters and says,
“Good thing you’re sorting those. Do you have more stuffed
animals or bears?” Tria and Enzo says, “stuffed animals.”
Riel says, “Bears.”
Analysis
On situation:
Why do you think Riel answered “Bears?” What
does this say about how she thought to answer the
question?
BASIC COGNITIVE
CONCEPTS
SCHEMA
• Piaget used the term “schema” to refer to
the cognitive structures by which
individuals intellectually adapt to and
organize their environment. It is an
individual’s way to understand or create
meaning about a thing or experience. It is
like the mind has a filing cabinet and each
drawer has folders that contain files of
things he has had an experience with.
ASSIMILATON
• This is the process of fitting a new
experience into an existing or
previously created cognitive structure
or schema. If the child sees another
dog, this time a little smaller one, he
would make sense of what he is
seeing by adding this new information
(a different looking dog) into his
schema of a dog.
ACCOMMODATION
• This is the process of creating a ne schema. If the
same child now sees another animal that look a
little bit like a dog, but somehow different. He might
try to fit into his schema of a dog, and say, “Look
mommy, what a funny looking dog. Its bark is funny
too!” Then the mommy explains “That’s not a funny
looking dog. That’s a goat!” With mommy’s further
descriptions, the child will now create a new
schema, that of a goat. He now adds a new file in
his filing cabinet.
EQUILIBRATION
• Piaget believed that people have the natural
need to understand how the world works and
to find order, structure, and predictability in
their life. Equilibration is achieving proper
balance between assimilation and
accommodation. When our experience do
not math our schema (plural of schema) or
cognitive structure, we experience cognitive
disequilibrium.
PIAGET’S STAGES OF
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
STAGE 1
Sensori-motor Stage
• The first stage corresponds from
birth to infancy. This is the stage
when a child who is initially
reflexive in grasping, sucking and
reaching becomes more
organized in this movement and
activity.
OBJECT PERMANENCE
•This 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-OPERATION STAGE
• This preoperational stage covers from
about two to seven years old, roughly
corresponding to the preschool years.
Intelligence at this stage is intuitive in
nature. At this stage, the child can now
make mental representation and is
able to pretend, the child is now ever
closer to the use of symbols.
SYMBOLIC FUNCTION
• This is the ability to represent objects
and events. A symbol is a thing that
represent something else. A drawing,
a written word, or a spoken word
comes to be understood as
representing a real like a real MRT
train.
EGOCENTRISM
• This is 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. You see this in five year-old boy who
buys a toy truck for his mother’s birthday. Or
a three year old girl who cannot understand
why her cousins call her daddy “uncle” and
not daddy.
CENTRATION
•This refers to the
tendency of the child to
only focus on one
aspect of a thing or
event and exclude other
aspects .
IRREVERSIBILITY
•Pre-operational children
still have the inability to
reverse their thinking. They
can understand that 2 +3 is
5, but cannot understand
that 5-3 is 2.
ANIMISM
• This is tendency of children to
attribute human like traits or
characteristic to inanimate
objects. When at night, the child
is asked, where the sun is, she
will reply, “Mr. Sun is asleep.”
TRANSDUCTIVE REASONING
•This refers to the pre-
operational child’s type of
reasoning that neither inductive
nor deductive. Reasoning
appears to be from particular to
i.e., if A causes B, then B
causes A.
STAGE 3
Concrete-Operational Stage
• This stage is characterized by the
ability of the child to think logically
but only in terms of concrete
objects. This covers
approximately the ages between
8-11 years or the elementary
school years.
DECENTERING
• This refers to the ability of the child
to perceive the different features of
object 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
•This is 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.
SERIATION
•This refer to the ability to
order or arrange things in
a series based on one
dimension such as weight,
volume or size.
STAGE 4
Formal Operation Stage
• In the final stage of formal
operations covering ages between
12 and 15 years, thinking
becomes more logical. They can
now solve abstract problems and
can hypothesize. This stage is
characterized by the following:
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.
Analogical Reasoning
• This is the ability to perceive the
relationship in one instance and then use
that relationship to narrow down possible
answer in another similar situation or
problem. The individual in the formal
operations stage can make an analogy.
If United Kingdom is to Europe, then
Philippines is to_.
• The individual will reason that since
the UK is found in the continent?
The Asia is his answer. Through
reflective thought and even in the
absence of concrete objects, the
individuals can now understand
relationship and do analogical
reasoning
Deductive Reasoning
• This is the ability to think
logically by applying a general
rule to a particular instance or
situation. For example, all
countries near the North pole.
Therefore, Greenland has cold
temperature
Application
This section involves the interaction of family members.
Choose a story you want to use for this task. Use the matrix
below to relate the characters to Piaget’s stages of
cognitive development.
Title of the Story/Movie: ___________________________
Write a brief summary of the story:
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Continued Application
Character/ Piagetian Connection
Description
Father What is his stage of cognitive
development?
Ex. Cite instances why you say he is in this
stage. (what he thought of, how he
thought, his reactions and attitudes)
Mother
Children
Other
Characters
