PIAGET’S

STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT
MODULE 6
 LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this Module, you should be able to
 describe Piaget's stages in your own words.
 conduct a simple Piagetian Task interview with children.
 match learning activities to the learners" cognitive stage.
 The children in the situations presented above were of different ages
and so also should apparent differences in the way they thought.
 They were in different stages of cognitive development. Perhaps no
one has influenced the field of cognitive development more than Jean
Piaget. As you read through this Module you will come to understand
cognitive development of children and adolescents and also identify
ways of applying this understanding in the teaching learners.
 For sixty years, Jean Piaget conducted research on cognitive
development. His research method involved observing a small number
of individuals as they responded to cognitive tasks that he designed.
 These tasks were later known as Piagetian tasks.
 Piaget called his general theoretical framework "genetic epistemo-logy"
because he was interested in how knowledge developed in human
organisms. Piaget was initially into biology and he also had a background
in philosophy. Knowledge from both these disciplines influenced his
theories and research of child development.
 Out of his researches, Piaget came up with the stages of cognitive
development.
 Piaget examined the implications of his theory not only to aspects of
cognition but also to intelligence and moral development.
 His theory has been applied widely to teaching and curriculum design
specially in the preschool and elementary curricula.
Schema
BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS
-Piaget used the term "schema" to refer to the cogni-five 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 fling cabinet and each drawer has folders that contain files of things he has had an
experience with. For instance, if a child sees a dog for the first time, he creates his own schema of
what a dog is. It has four legs and a tail. It barks. It's furry. The child then "puts this description of
a dog 'on file in his mind." When he sees another similar dog, he "pulls" out the file (his schema
of a dog) in his mind, looks at the animal, and says, "four legs, tail, barks, furry .That's a dog!“
Assimilation
-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 new schema.
-If the same child now sees another animal that looks a little bit like a dog, but somehow different. He
might try to fit it 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
experiences do not match our schemata (plural of schema) or cognitive structures, we experience
cognitive disequilibrium. This means there is a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is
understood. We then exert effort through assimilation and accommodation to establish equilibrium once
more.
 Cognitive development involves a continuous effort to adapt to the environment in terms of assimilation
and accommodation. In this sense, Piaget's theory is similar in nature to other constructivist perspectives
of learning like Bruner and Vygotsky.
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 in highly reflexive in grasping, sucking and reaching becomes more
organized in his movement and activity. The term sensori-motor focuses on the
prominence of the senses and muscle movement through which the infant comes to
learn about himself and the world.
-In working with children in the sensori-motor stage, teachers should aim to
provide a rich and stimulating environment with appropriate objects to play with.
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-Operational Stage
-The 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 representations and is
able to pretend, the child is now ever closer to the use of symbols. This stage
is highlighted by the following:
Symbolic Function
-This is the ability to represent objects and events. A symbol is a thing that
represents something else. A drawing, a written word, or a spoken word comes
to be understood as representing a real object like a real MRI train. Symbolic
function gradually develops in the period between 2 to 7 years. Riel, a two-
year old may pretend that she is drinking from a glass which is really empty.
Though she already pretends the presence of water, the glass remains to be a
glass.
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. For example, when a child is presented with two identical glasses with
the same amount of water . However, once water from one of the glass is transferred to an
obviously taller but narrower glass the child might say that there is more water in the taller
glass.
 The child only focused or “centered” only one aspect of the new glass, that is a taller glass.
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 the tendency of children to attribute human like traits or
characteristics 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 is neither
inductive nor deduc-tive. Reasoning appears to be from particular to
particular ie., if A causes B, then B causes A. For example, since her
mommy comes home everyday around six o' clock in the evening, when
asked why it is already night, the child will say, "because my mom is already
home."
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. The concrete operational stage is marked by the following:
Decentering
 This refers to the ability of the child to perceive the 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, thechild can now follow that certain operations can
be done in reverse. For example, they can already comprehend the 7 commutative property
of addition, and that subtraction is the reverse of addition. They can also understand that a
ball of clay shaped into a dinosaur can again be rolled back into aball of clay?
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.
Because of the development of the child's ability of decentering and also-
reversibility, the concrete operational child can now judge rightly that the
amount of water in a taller but narrower container is still the same as when
the water was in the shorter but wider glass. The children progress to attain
conservation abilities gradually being a pre-conserver, a transitional thinker
and then a conserver.
Seriation
 This 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
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 answers in another similar situation or problem.
The individual in the formal operations stage can make an analogy.
Deductive Reasoning
- This is the ability to think logically no by applying a general rule to a particular instance of
situation. For example, all countries near the north pole have cold temperatures. Greenland is
near the North pole. Therefore, Greenland has cold temperature.
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 (i.e., assimilation and accommodation).
 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.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!