UNIT 4: MODULE 7
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT and
THE DIFFERENT THEORIES
TARGETS
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
Define the cognitive development.
List and describe Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
Explain the main ideas of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory.
Compare and contrast the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky.
Explain the concepts of Information Processing theory.
Differentiate the three main theories.
Abstraction
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his
or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. Among the areas of cognitive
development are information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language reasoning, and
memory.
It was once believed that infants lacked the ability to think or form complex ideas and remained
without cognition until they learned language. It is now known that babies are aware of their
surroundings and interested in exploration from the time they are born. From birth, babies begin
to actively learn. They gather, sort, and process information from around them, using the data to
develop perception and thinking skills.
Historically, the cognitive development of children has been
Did YOU Know?
Cognitive development
studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests, such
is the construction of as the widely used Stanford Binet Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test first
thought processes, adopted for use in the United States by psychologist Lewis Terman (1877–
including remembering, 1956) in 1916 from a French model pioneered in 1905. IQ scoring is based
problem solving, and on the concept of "mental age," according to which the scores of a child of
decision-making, from average intelligence match his or her age, while a gifted child's
childhood performance is comparable to that of an older child, and a slow learner's
through adolescence to
scores are similar to those of a younger child. IQ tests are widely used in
adulthood.
the United States, but they have come under increasing criticism for
defining intelligence too narrowly and for being biased with regard to race
and gender.
THE DIFFERENT THEORIES
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget was a psychological constructivist: in his view, learning proceeded by the interplay of
assimilation and accommodation. The to-and-fro of these two processes leads not only to short-
term learning, but also to long-term developmental change. The long-term developments are
really the focus of Piaget’s cognitive theory.
Piaget proposed that cognition developed through four distinct stages from birth through the end
of adolescence.
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth through 2 years old)
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years old)
Formal Operational (12 years old- adulthood)
The sequence of the stages is universal across cultures and follow the same invariant
(unchanging) order. All children go through the same stages in the same order (but not all at the
same rate).
How Piaget Developed the Theory
Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop
French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons
children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking. He believed
that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and
children.
What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could count, spell or
solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in
which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number, time, quantity, causality, justice and
so on emerged.
Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence using naturalistic observation of his
own three babies and sometimes controlled observation too. From these he wrote diary
descriptions charting their development.
1. SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
According to the Piagetian perspective, infants learn about the world during the primarily
through their senses and motor abilities (Harris, 2005). These basic motor and sensory abilities
provide the foundation for the cognitive skills that will emerge during the subsequent stages of
cognitive development. Piaget called this first stage of cognitive development the sensorimotor
stage.
Piaget’s Six Substages of Sensorimotor Development
One: Simple Reflexes (Birth through 1st The infant's reflexes are what determine
month Substage) cognitive interaction with the outside
world. For example, anything that is
placed in the mouth will be sucked.
Substage Two: First habits and primary Infants begin to coordinate single actions
circular reactions (1st through 4th month) into integrated activities. For example,
infant combines grasping and sucking an
object.
Substage Three: Secondary circular Infants begin to shift their cognitive
reactions (4th through 8th months) actions beyond themselves and toward the
outside world. Banging a rattle against
different surfaces to hear the different
sounds.
Substage Four: Coordination of circular Now the infant can engage in behaviors
reactions (8th through 12th months) that others perform and anticipate
upcoming events.
Substage Five: Tertiary Circular Infants from one year to 18 months of age
Reactions (12th through 18th months) more actively engage in experimentation to
learn about the physical world.
Substage Six: Internalization of Schemes The child is now able to solve problems
and Early Representational thought (18th using mental strategies, to remember
month to 2 years of age) something heard days before and repeat it,
to engage in pretend play, and to find
objects that have been moved even when
out of sight
A. Critical Evaluation Object Permanence
The main development during the sensorimotor stage is the understanding that objects exist, and
events occur in the world independently of one’s own actions (‘the object or ‘object
permanence’).
Object permanence means knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires
the ability to form a mental representation of the object. For example, if you place a toy under a
blanket, the child who has achieved object permanence knows it is there and can actively seek it.
At the beginning of this stage the child behaves as if the toy had simply disappeared.
B. Violation of Expectation Research
A further challenge to Piaget’s claims comes from a series of studies designed by Renee
Baillargeon. She used a technique that has come to be known as the violation of expectation
(VOE) paradigm. It exploits the fact that infants tend to look for longer at things they have not
encountered before.
In a VOE experiment, an infant is first introduced to a novel situation. They are
repeatedly shown this stimulus until they indicate, by looking away, that it is no longer new to
them. In Baillargeon’s (1985, 1987) study, the habituation stimulus was a ‘drawbridge’ that
moved through 180 degrees.
C. The A-not-B Error
The data does not always support Piaget’s claim that certain processes are crucial in
transitions from one stage to the next. The A-not-B error is the term used to describe this
common mistake. Older infants are less likely to make the A-not-B error because their concept of
object permanence is more complete
2. Preoperational Stage
Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development is called the preoperational stage and
coincides with ages 2-7 (following the sensorimotor stage). The word operation refers to the use
of logical rules, so sometimes this stage is misinterpreted as implying that children are illogical.
While it is true that children at the beginning of the preoperational stage tend to answer questions
intuitively as opposed to logically, children in this stage are learning to use language and how to
think about the world symbolically. These skills help children develop the foundations they will
need to consistently use operations in the next stage.
A. Pretend Play
Piaget believed that children’s pretend play and experimentation helped them solidify the
new schemas they were developing cognitively. This involves both assimilation and
accommodation, which results in changes in their conceptions or thoughts. As children progress
through the preoperational stage, they are developing the knowledge they will need to begin to
use logical operations in the next stage.
B. Egocentrism
Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children to think that
everyone sees things in the same way as the child. Piaget’s classic experiment on egocentrism
involved showing children a three-dimensional model of a mountain and asking them to describe
what a doll that is looking at the mountain from a different angle might see.
C. Precausal Thinking
THREE MAIN CONCEPTS OF CAUSALITY
Animism is the belief that inanimate objects are
capable of actions and have lifelike
qualities.
Artificialism refers to the belief that environmental
characteristics can be attributed to
human actions or interventions.
Transductive Reasoning is when a child fails to understand the
true relationships between cause and
effect.
Similar to preoperational children’s egocentric thinking is their structuring of cause-and-
effect relationships based on their limited view of the world. Piaget coined the term “precausal
thinking” to describe the way in which preoperational children use their own existing ideas or
views, like in egocentrism, to explain cause-and-effect relationships.
D. Cognition Errors
Between about the ages of four and seven, children tend to become very curious and ask
many questions, beginning the use of primitive reasoning. There is an increase in curiosity in the
interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are. Piaget called it the
intuitive substage because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge, but they are
unaware of how they acquired it.
E. Limitations in the Child’s Thinking
Piaget focused most of the description of this stage on limitations in the child’s thinking,
identifying a number of mental tasks which children seem unable to do. These include the
inability to decenter, conserve, understand seriation (the inability to understand that objects can
be organized into a logical series or order) and to carry out inclusion tasks.
3. Concrete Operational Stage
From ages 7 to 11, children are in what Piaget referred to as the concrete operational stage of
cognitive development (Crain, 2005). This involves mastering the use of logic in concrete ways.
The word concrete refers to that which is tangible; that which can be seen, touched, or
experienced directly. The concrete operational child is able to make use of logical principles in
solving problems involving the physical world.
Major abilities that the concrete child exhibits.
Classification As children’s experiences and vocabularies grow, they build
schemata and are able to organize objects in many different ways.
Reversibility The child learns that some things that have been changed can be
returned to their original state.
Conservation Concrete operational children can understand the concept of
conservation which means that changing one quality (in this
example, height or water level) can be compensated for by changes
in another quality (width).
Decentration Concrete operational children no longer focus on only one
dimension of any object (such as the height of the glass) and instead
consider the changes in other dimensions too (such as the width of
the glass). This allows for conservation to occur.
Seriation Arranging items along a quantitative dimension, such as length or
weight, in a methodical way is now demonstrated by the concrete
operational child.
4. Formal Operational Stage
Begins at approximately age twelve and lasts into adulthood. As adolescents enter this
stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner by manipulating ideas in their head,
without any dependence on concrete manipulation (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). He/she can do
mathematical calculations, think creatively, use abstract reasoning, and imagine the outcome of
particular actions.
A. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
The ability to think scientifically through generating predictions, or hypotheses, about the
world to answer questions is hypothetico-deductive reasoning. The individual will approach
problems in a systematic and organized manner, rather than through trial-and-error.
B. Abstract Thought
Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out
on ideas. The individual can think about hypothetical and abstract concepts they have yet to
experience. Abstract thought is important for planning regarding the future.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who argued that culture has a major impact on
a child’s cognitive development. He believed that the social interactions with adults and more
interpersonal instruction, he believed children’s minds would not advance very far as their
knowledge would be based only on their own discoveries.
Zone of Proximal Development: Vygotsky believed that learning takes place within the
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). In this, students can, with help from adults or children
who are more advanced, master concepts and ideas that they cannot understand on their own.
This model has two developmental levels:
1. The level of actual development – point the learner has already reached & can problem-
solve independently.
2. The level of potential development – point the learner is capable of reaching under the
guidance of teachers or in collaboration with peers.
FEATURES OF ZPD
Intersubjectivity the process whereby two participants who begin a task
with different understandings arrive at a shared
understanding (Newson & Newson, 1975). This creates
a common ground for communication as each partner
adjusts to the perspective of the other.
Scaffolding adjusting the support offered during a teaching session
to fit the child’s current level of performance. This
captures the form of teaching interaction that occurs as
individuals work on tasks such as puzzles and academic
assignments.
Guided Participation a broader concept than scaffolding that refers to shared
endeavors between expert and less expert participants
Private Speech Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a
problem, trying to remember something, or feel very
emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves
too. Piaget interpreted this as egocentric speech or
speech that is focused on the child and does not include
another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed
that children talk to themselves in order to solve
problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think
in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing
their lips and engaging in private speech or inner
speech.
Information Processing Theory
Information Processing is not the work of a single theorist but based on the ideas and
research of several cognitive scientists studying how individuals perceive, analyze, manipulate,
use, and remember information. This approach assumes that humans gradually improve in their
processing skills; that is, cognitive development is continuous rather than stage-like. The more
complex mental skills of adults are built from the primitive abilities of children. We are born
with the ability to notice stimuli, store, and retrieve information, and brain maturation enables
advancements in our information processing system. At the same time, interactions with the
environment also aid in our development of more effective strategies for processing information.
Attention
Changes in attention have been described by many as the key to changes in human
memory. However, attention is not a unified function; it is comprised of sub-processes. The
ability to switch our focus between tasks or external stimuli is called divided attention or
multitasking. This is separate from our ability to focus on a single task or stimulus, while
ignoring distracting information, called selective attention. Different from these is sustained
attention, or the ability to stay on task for long periods of time. Moreover, we also have attention
processes that influence our behavior and enable us to inhibit a habitual or dominant response,
and others that enable us to distract ourselves when upset or frustrated.
Attention in Infancy
An approach to understanding cognitive development by observing the behavior of
infants is through the use of the habituation technique. Habituation refers to the decreased
responsiveness toward a stimulus after it has been presented numerous times in succession.
Organisms including infants, tend to be more interested in things the first few times they
experience them and become less interested in them with more frequent exposure.
Attention in Childhood
A. Divided Attention
Young children (age 3-4) have considerable difficulties in dividing their attention
between two tasks, and often perform at levels equivalent to our closest relative, the chimpanzee,
but by age five they have surpassed the chimp. Despite these improvements, 5-year-olds
continue to perform below the level of school-age children, adolescents, and adults.
B. Selective Attention:
Children’s ability with selective attention tasks improve as they age. However, this ability
is also greatly influenced by the child’s temperament, the complexity of the stimulus or task, and
along with whether the stimuli are visual or auditory.
C. Sustained Attention
Most measures of sustained attention typically ask children to spend several minutes
focusing on one task, while waiting for an infrequent event, while there are multiple distractors
for several minutes.
EXPANDING SKILLS
Answer the following:
1. In your own words, explain what Cognitive Development is.
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2. Enumerate the piaget’s four distinct stages from birth through the end of adolescence and
explain.
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3. What are the differences of the three theories? Explain briefly.
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REFERENCES
Cognitive development
http://www.healthofchildren.com/C/Cognitive-Development.html
jean piaget’s theory
https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
Vygotsky sociocultural theory of cognitive development
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-lifespandevelopment/chapter/vygotskys-sociocultural-
theory-of-cognitive-development/
information processing theory
https://research.com/education/what-is-information-processing-theory\
