TOPIC 7

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

7.1 Introduction

Why is man a superior being than other animals? This is because man’s intellectual faculty is
more advanced to incorporate reasoning. How does man then acquire his intelligence? A
human being is endowed with the ability to learn much more than other animals and to
generate more knowledge with time. As a result, human learning is infinite and endless. The
intellectual or cognitive aspect is probably the most crucial to a human being, an animal that
has evolved into civilisation. That is why a human being is able to come up with all the
scientific and technological advancement that there is in the world today.

Objectives
By the end of this topic you should be able to:

• Define cognitive development

• Explain cognitive development as conceptualized by Piaget Explain
how intelligence develops across stages of development.
• Explain Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
• Explain Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development.

Cognitive theories emphasize that individuals think and choose, and that their thoughts and
interpretations are a powerful influence on their future actions and ideas.

Both maturation and learning are necessary for cognitive development although psychologists
disagree on which is more important. Piaget doesn’t think cognitive development should be
pushed, but Bruner thinks that an infant’s environment should be enriched for faster cognitive
development.

7.2 Factors Affecting Intelligence and Cognitive Development

i. Experience
ii. Heredity – Seems to contribute more to intelligence than environment. ii. Age – There
is an improvement of intelligence Quotient score until the late teens or early twenties.
 iii. Culture – Responses in psychological tests are influenced by the culture in which
the individual lives, (e.g., speed factor in a test may vary with where one comes from).
iv. Socio-economic Status – Deprivation and malnutrition are common in low
socioeconomic set-ups, and this adversely affects the development of intelligence.

v. Rural-Urban Setting – Differences may be due to the nature of the test (bias) or
exposure.

7.3 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland in 1986. As a child he was extremely brilliant. By the age
of 10 he had published his first scientific paper. He received his PhD by the age of 21. He was
an early constructivist theorist in psychology. He believed that children actively construct their
own knowledge of the environment using what they already know to interpret new events and
objects. His research focused on how children acquire knowledge as they develop.

Jean Piaget divided cognitive development into four major stages. He assumed that children’s
thinking was qualitatively different at various stages of development.

Jean Piaget viewed intelligence as consisting of two interrelated processes; organization and
adaptation. People organize their thoughts so that they make sense, separating the more
important thoughts from the less important ones, as well as connecting one idea to another. At
the same time, people adapt their thinking to include new ideas as new experiences provide
additional information. Piaget proposed that intellectual development is towards an increased
emancipation from the “here and now” of the immediate, concrete, present, to a conception of
the world in increasingly symbolic and abstract terms.

Cognitive development takes place though the process of assimilation, accommodation and
Equilibration. Through the process of assimilation, children mold new information to fit in
their existing schemes. Schemes are sets of physical actions, concepts, or theories people use
to acquire information about their world. For example, when the child who is familiar with a
dog sees a goat for the first time he/she will refer to it as a dog. The process of changing
schemata is called accommodation. Through the process of accommodation, children change
their schemes to restore a state of equilibrium.

Equilibration is the tendency to keep our cognitive structures in balance.

7.3.1 Sensory-Motor Stage (Infancy) Birth to 2 years

Infant’s thought is called sensory-motor intelligence because babies think with their actions;
using their senses and motor abilities to understand the world. The infant uses senses and
motor abilities to understand the world. Through actions such as sucking and grasping,
children understand the world around them. This period begins with reflexes and ends with
complex coordination of sensory-motor skills. During this stage, the intelligence of a child
lacks a reference to the past and future (the here and now) and there is no differentiation
between “me” and “not me” (egocentrism). The child lacks object permanence, and develops
schemas which are recurrent patterns of actions e.g. grasping and sucking. During this stage
the child acquires two basic competences:

i. Goal-directed behavior (e.g., crawling around to look for a doll); and

ii. Object permanence.

7.3.2 Pre-Occupational Stage (Early Childhood) 2-7 years

The child uses symbolic thinking (including language) to understand the world. Thinking is
based on immediate comprehension and perception rather than logic. They cannot figure out
the logical principles of conversation, classification, and gradual change. Children learn many
aspects of language including pronunciation so rapidly during childhood, which leads
psychologists to wonder if this was the critical period for language development. However,
while these are the best years of learning to talk, language skills continue to develop at a later
stages.

Most thinking is egocentric, which means that the child thinks of himself/herself as the centre
of the world. During this period, there is development of a reasonably well-ordered world of
ideas. Higher order schemas called operations starts to develop, which enable an internal
manipulation of ideas. However, the child still lacks the idea of conversation, and is confused
by size and shape of objects.

By this time language becomes a useful means of understanding the environment and gaining
new knowledge. This is the basic way of developing symbolic thought. The child expresses
animism, a belief that non-living objects are in fact alive and human, or the tendency to
attribute life to inanimate objects. They also belief in artificialism, a belief that all objects,
whether living or non living are made in the same way, usually by human beings. Thinking
tends be very rigid.
There are many similarities in nature and sequence of cognitive development in all children.
However, there are differences as well, especially in the child’s home environment and how
the parents interact with their children. Middle class children develop language skills faster
than lower class children. The community can have an important influence on pre-school
learning. Children who play with other children and meet a variety of people develop different
skills than the children who live in isolated communities where they play alone. The
interaction between child, home, community and early education, is probably the crucial factor
that determines the cognitive growth of any particular child.
Learning activities:

i How does symbolism liberate a child’s thinking?

iiAttributing human qualities to inanimate objects is called________________
Answers:

i It enables him/her to think about past and future events. ii

Animism

7.3.3 Concrete Operational Stage (Late Childhood) 7-11 years Children are in Piaget’s third
stage of cognitive development known as concrete operations. During this stage, children
develop ability to understand logical principles that apply to concrete, external objects. The
child understands and applies logical operations or principles to help interpret scientific
experiences or perceptions. Children can see things from another’s point of view –
decentering, that is, they become less egocentric and rigid in their thinking. They can reason
more easily and are less fooled by appearances.

The child can think abstractly about aspects of reality such as number and substance.
However, the child’s abstract thinking must be related to concrete events hence not entirely
abstract. By now the child understands the basic principle of conservation – the concept that
the total quantity, number or amount of something remains the same (is preserved) no matter
what the shape or configuration. For example, in the conservation of volume, if you fill two
glasses of equal size with equal amounts of water and transfer the water from one glass into a
taller and thinner glass, the child will perceive the amount as remaining the same despite the
change in height.

Seriation (the ability to order objects in a logical progression, such as from shortest to tallest)
and classification (sorting items by two or more attributes, such squares and rectangles) skills
develop. They can use abstract symbols for example, mathematical signs and letters. They are
also developing complex reasoning skills. However, they still need physical objects to solve
some problems (e.g., counters to solve mathematical problems).

They understand that non-living objects do not have feelings.

7.3.4 Formal Operational Stage (Adolescence) 12 years onwards

The development of cognitive and intellectual abilities does not continue throughout the entire
period of one’s life. It begins to slow down in rate during the early teens and reaches its peak
somewhere in the middle twenties. Nearly the first third of intelligence is developed by age 3.
The second third of intelligence is developed by 6-10 years and the remaining third by 16-18
years. After that it develops at almost a flat rate. The experience gained by older individuals
compensates the decline in intelligence if any. Given that much of our intelligence develops in
childhood, early experience is very vital for depressing or accelerating the development of
intelligence.

The adolescent or adult is able to think about abstract and hypothetical concepts. Thinking
becomes logical and scientific. The individual becomes capable of hypothetical and deductive
thinking e.g., he/she can form a hypothesis, test it, observe the results, and draw conclusions.
They can now think about all possibilities, work systematically, hold several ideas in mind,
and combine them logically, e.g., If Kamau is taller than Juma, and Juma is shorter than
Ouma, who is the shortest of the three? There is also development of very strong idealism i.e.,
strong sense of perfection that may not be possible.

7.3.5 Educational implications

The cognitive theory of development is very relevant to the teaching-learning process because
it explains how children learn and process information at different levels of cognitive
Learning activities:

i. What did Piaget discover about the way children perceive things? ii.
What stage of cognitive development does the child enter in middle childhood?
iii. What is meant by

conservation? iv. What is

reversibility? Answers:

i Children perceive things in a way fundamentally different from adults. ii The

concrete operational stage.

iii Conservation is the child’s ability to see objects as remaining equal in quantity in spite
 of changes in shape or form, as long nothing is added or taken away.

ivThe child’s ability to see that an operation can go both ways.

development. Children in different developmental stages have different abilities and are
different in the way they process information during learning. With this in mind, as a teacher
you can facilitate effective learning through:

• Appreciating the need to wait for cognitive maturity before introducing certain concepts.
As a teacher you should not ask children to learn something they are not developmentally
ready for. • Considering the child’s level of cognitive development when formulating
lessons and curricula.
• Appreciating the fact that children develop at their own rate. A child may enter and leave a
particular stage at different times other than the age limits proposed by Piaget. In addition,
some children in the same stage may be more advanced than others.
• Helping children to develop their thinking and reasoning abilities.
• Providing children with opportunities to explore and try new things, especially in the
concrete operational stage.
• Allowing children to experiment for better understanding.
• Actively involving children in learning. Children develop their reasoning through
experiences that stimulate thinking. Things like games, social interactions, puzzles,
problems and experimentation are experiences that stimulate thinking and learning in
children.
• Using concrete examples when teaching elementary/primary school children.
• Providing concrete examples to children in secondary school who are in transition from
concrete operational stage to the formal stage.

Paget’s theory on cognitive development inspired major curriculum changes in the 1960s and

1970s. It had a major impact on preschool education. The theory provided a theoretical
rationale for constructivist, discovery, inquiry, and problem oriented teaching approaches in
modern education.

7.4 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Lev Vygotsky’s (1896-1934) theory stresses the relationship between the individual and
society. The child is influenced by the culture in which he/she is raised. He believed that the
individual’s pattern of thinking is a product of cultural institutions and social activities. Adult
society has a responsibility to share its collective knowledge with younger and less advanced
members in order to promote intellectual development. Through social activities’ children
learn to incorporate cultural tools such as language, counting systems, writing, art, and other
social inventions into their thinking. Cognitive development occurs as children internalize the
production of their social interactions. According to his theory, both the history of the child’s
culture and the history of the child’s own experiences are important in understanding
cognitive development. In Vygotsky’s view, knowledge is not individually constructed. Social
interactions with more knowledgeable peers and adults provide the main vehicles for
intellectual development. Children are born with elementary innate mental abilities such as
perception, attention and memory which are transformed into higher functions with the
assistance of more knowledgeable members of society.

Language is the most important psychological tool that influences cognitive development. The
child’s intellectual development is contingent/dependent on mastering the social means of
thought, that is, language.

He talked of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which is the gap between the cognitive
activities children can do alone and what they can do with the assistance of others.

Implication

• Learning is a social collaborative process with others

• Learning awakens a variety of developmental processes that are able to operate only when the
child is interacting with people in his/her environment and in collaboration with his/her peers.
• Provision of opportunities for children to collaborate on learning activities together.
• Teachers should provide sufficient instructional support (cues, suggestions, assistance)
to help children perform challenging tasks. This is what is known as scaffolding in
other terms. Summary

• Cognitive development shaped by experience.

• Cognitive development is the growth and changes in thinking, memory, perceiving,
planning, and reasoning which occur throughout the life span.
• Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development looks at an individual as capable of
adapting and organizing his/her experience.
• According to Piaget, cognitive development proceeds through four stages in which
thinking is qualitatively different.
• Vygotsky argued that cognitive development is facilitated by interaction between the
child and other more able members of society. Self Assessment and Revision
Questions
 1. Explain the concept of egocentrism during childhood.
2. Explain factors that shape cognitive and intellectual development of children.
3. What is the role of schemas and operations in cognitive development?
4. Explain how Jean Piaget looks at cognitive development.
5. Discuss cognitive development as perceived by Vygotsky.
6. Compare and contrast Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive
development.\