Republic of the Philippines

PRESIDENT RAMON MAGSAYSAY STATE UNIVERSITY

(Formerly Ramon Magsaysay Technological University)
San Marcelino Campus
San Marcelino, Zambales

The Child and Adolescent Learner and Learning Principles (FTC 1)

Module 6: Theory of Cognitive Development by Jean Piaget

Basic Terms:
 Cognition- “the mental process or faculty by which knowledge is acquired
 Cognitive development- the changes that occur in children’s mental skills and abilities between birth and early
adulthood, when cognitive growth is essentially complete
 Intelligence- basic life function that helps an organism to adapt to its environment; “a form of equilibrium toward
which all cognitive structures tend”

3 Basic Components of Piaget’s Cognitive Theory

1. Schemas- the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the
world; ways of organizing knowledge (i.e. buying a meal, sucking to feed)

2. Adaptation- the process of adjusting to the demands of the environment

a. Assimilation- process in which children seek to incorporate some new experience into schemata that they already
have; applying existing habits and existing ideas to new objects (i.e., dogs are horses, bald man is clown)
b. Accommodation- modification of child’s existing themes to incorporate new knowledge that does not fit them
(i.e., dogs are not horses, bald man is not clown)
c. Equilibrium- balance between one’s thought process and the environment; when a child’s schemas can deal with
newest information through assimilation

3. Stages of Cognitive Development

A. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2 years)
B. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years)
C. Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years)
D. Formal Operational Stage (11 years and beyond)
* invariant developmental sequence

A. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to years)

 Coordination of sensory inputs and motor capabilities
 Substages:
1. Stage of Reflex Activity- exercising innate reflexes
2. Primary Circular Reactions (birth to 4 months)- infants discover by chance that there are various
responses that they can emit and control (i.e., sucking their thumbs)
3. Secondary Circular Reactions (4 to 8 months)- infants discover by chance that they can make interesting
things happen to objects outside of their own bodies (i.e., shaking a rattle)
4. Coordination of Secondary Schemes (8 to 12 months)- infants coordinate two or more actions to achieve
simple objectives; intentional behaviors; means to an end; earliest form of true problem-solving
5. Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 to 18 months)- infants begin to learn through trial and error exploratory
schemes; active curiosity
6. Symbolic Problem Solving (18 to 24 months)- infants can experiment mentally; ability to symbolize objects
or events mentally
 Deferred imitation- the ability to reproduce the behavior of an absent model (18-24 months); *memory
 Object permanence- the idea the objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible or detectable
through other senses

B. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years)

 “preoperational” because preschool children have not yet acquired the cognitive operations that would
enable them to think logically
  Symbolic function- the ability to make one thing (a word or an object) stand for, or represent, something else
(i.e., language, pretend play)
 Egocentric- tendency to view the world from own perspective and to have difficulty reorganizing another’s
point of view (i.e., “daddy”)
 Centering- tendency to focus on one aspect or dimension of a thing or event and exclude other aspects (i.e.,
two glass beakers)
 Irreversibility- the inability to reverse thinking (i.e., 2 +3 = 5, 5 – 3 = ?)
 Transdeductive reasoning- reasoning from one specific and immediate event to another equally specific and
immediate event (i.e., blown skirt)
 Animism- tendency to attribute human like traits or characteristics to inanimate objects (i.e., “Mr. Sun is
asleep”)

C. Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years)

 Children are rapidly acquiring cognitive operations and applying those important new skills when thinking
about objects, situations, and events that they have seen, heard or experienced
 “concrete operations” because children can apply their operational schemes to objects, situations or events
that are real or imaginable
 Decentering- the ability of the child to perceive the different features of objects or situations
 Conservation- the idea that certain properties of objects remain unchanged when object’s appearances are
altered in some superficial way (i.e., glass beakers)
 Classification- recognition that objects may vary on more than one dimension and thus may be grouped or
classified in many different ways (i.e., animals)
 Reversibility- the ability to mentally undo the problem (i.e., clay)
 Seriation- or relational logic; ability to mentally arrange items along a continuum of increasing value (i.e.,
shortest to tallest)
 Transitivity- ability to describe the necessary relations among elements in a series (i.e., John is taller than
Allan, and Allan is taller than Eric, therefore…)

D. Formal Operational Stage (11 years and beyond)

 formal operations are mental actions performed on ideas and propositions
 formal operators can reason quite logically about hypothetical processes and events that may have no basis
in reality
 The Separation of Possibility and Reality (i.e., hypothetical reasoning)
 The Use of Symbols to Represent Other Symbols (i.e., algebra)
 The Ability to Coordinate Multiple Factors in Problem-Solving (i.e., raise and test hypothesis systematically)
 Analogical Reasoning- the ability to perceive relationship in one instance and then use that relationship to
narrow down possible answers in another similar situation or problem (i.e., UK is to Europe, then Philippines
is to…?)
 Deductive Reasoning- the ability to think logically by applying a general rule to a particular instance or
situation (i.e., All countries near the north pole have cold temperatures. Greenland is near the North Pole.
Therefore…?)

Implications to Education
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.

Prepared by:

CARMEL ESTHER E. CASUGA

Instructor 1