Cognitive

Development

Developmental Psychology
(EST-101)
Cognitive Development

“cognitive development is a process

by which individuals acquire a
more sophisticated and complex
knowledge of the world around
them”
(Craig, 1986 cited in Henson & Eller, p. 39)
 Cognitive Development

 Various parts of the brain are involved with

various functions

 Two hemispheres of the brain shows

lateralized development
 What do each of these lobes do?
 Frontal Lobe - associated with
reasoning, planning, parts of
speech, movement, emotions,
and problem solving
 Parietal Lobe - associated with
movement, orientation,
recognition, perception of
stimuli
 Occipital Lobe - associated
with visual processing
 Temporal Lobe - associated
with perception and recognition
of auditory stimuli, memory,
and speech
 Two hemispheres of the brain
 Left  Right
Hemisphere Hemisphere

 Language  Spatial abilities

 Math  Face recognition
 Logic  Visual imagery
 Music
 The Cognitive perspective
focuses on the processes that allow people to know,
understand and think about the world.

emphasizes how people internally represent and think about

the world.

By using this perspective, developmental psychologists hope

to understand how children and adults process information,
and how their ways of thinking and understanding affect their
behaviour
 The most popular cognitive
psychologist is…

He was one of the most

significant psychologists of
the twentieth century.

JEAN PIAGET
1896 - 1980

Who is he?
 Piaget noticed…
That even infants have certain skills in
regard to objects in their environment. 
He called
These skills were certainly simple ones, these
skills
sensori-motor skills, but they directed the schemas
way in which the infant explored his or her
environment and so how they gained more
knowledge of the world and more
sophisticated exploratory skills. 
 Two major principles of Piaget
• That the growth in children's understanding
of the world can be explained by two basic
principles
 Adaptation
For individuals to survive in an environment,
they must adapt to physical and mental stimuli.

Assimilation Accommodation

are both part of the adaptation

process
 Adaptation

Assimilation
human beings possess mental mental structures

structures that assimilate accommodate themselves

external events, and convert to new, unusual, and

them to fit their mental constantly changing aspects of

structures. the external environment.

 Organization

Refers to the nature of these adaptive mental

structures.
Piaget suggests that the mind is organized in
complex and integrated ways.
The simplest level is the schema, a mental
representation of some physical or mental action
that can be performed on an object, event, or
phenomenon.
 Accommodation
 refers to the process of changing internal
mental structures to provide consistency with
external reality.
 It occurs when existing schemas or operations
must be modified or new schemas are created
to account for a new experience.
 Obviously, accommodation influences
assimilation, and vice versa. As reality is
assimilated, structures are accommodated.
 Factors of cognitive development
according to Piaget
• Piaget believed that cognitive development
in children is contingent on four factors:

Biological maturation
experience with the physical environment
experience with the social environment
equilibration
 Equilibration

 refers to the biological drive to produce an optimal

state of equilibrium between people's cognitive
structures and their environment (Duncan, 1995).
 It is an attempt to bring about a state of equilibrium
between the first three factors and the reality
associated with one's external environment. This
state must be present for cognitive development to
take place.
 Equilibration involves both assimilation and
accommodation.
 Piaget explained developmental
stages

Adolescence

Late childhood
11-15

4 Formal Operational Stage

Early childhood
7-11

3 Concrete Operational Stage

2-7

2 Preoperational Stage

Infancy
0-2

1 The sensorimotor Stage

 The Sensori-motor Stage

The infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the world, beginning

with reflexes and ending with complex combinations of sensorimotor skills.

There are six sub-stages in this stage;

Reflexes Schema
Primary Circular Reaction
Secondary Circular Reaction
Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions
Tertiary Circular Reaction
Mental Representation
 Preoperational Stage
 The child has mental representations and is able to pretend, it is a
short step to the use of symbols.

 A drawing, a written word, or a spoken word comes to be

understood as representing a real dog.  The use of language is, of
course, the prime example, but another good example of symbol
use is creative play, wherein papers are dishes, a box is the table,
and so on.  By manipulating symbols, we are essentially thinking, in
a way the infant could not:  in the absence of the actual objects
involved!
 The Symbolic Drawings of
Young Children
(a) A 31/2-year-old’s symbolic
drawing. Halfway into this
drawing, the 31/2-year-old
artist said it was “a pelican
kissing a seal.”

(b) This 11-year-old’s

drawing is neater and
more realistic but also
less inventive.
View1 shows the child’s perspective from where he or she is sitting. View2 is an example of
the photograph the child would be shown, mixed in with others from different perspectives.
Egocentrism
 In Piaget’s theory

 If children fail to understand conservation of liquid task is a

sign that children are at the preoperatational stage.

Pass in this test is a sign that hey are at the concrete operational
stage.

In his view that the children’s do not only fail to show conservation
in liquid, but also number, matter, length, volume, and area.
 Concrete Operational Stage

The word operations refers to logical

operations or principles we use when
solving problems. 

The child can manipulate the symbols logically.  Quite

an accomplishment! But, at this point, they must still
perform these operations within the context of concrete
situations.
• Children can perform concrete operations

• Logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning if applied

to specific, concrete examples

• Similar abilities do not appear at same time within

stage of development such as conservation abilities
 Conservation

By six or seven, most children develop the ability to

conserve number, length, and liquid volume. 

Conservation refers to the idea that a quantity remains

the same despite changes in appearance. 
Conservation : MASS
Conservation : AREA
Conservation: Liquid
 Formal Operational Stage

the concrete operations child has a hard time applying his new-
found logical abilities to non-concrete -- i.e. abstract -- events. 

Example; If mom says to junior “You shouldn’t make fun of

that boy’s nose.  How would you feel if someone did that to
you?” he is likely to respond “I don’t have a big nose!”  Even
this simple lesson may well be too abstract, too hypothetical,
for his kind of thinking.
• From around 12 on, we enter the formal

operations stage.  Here we become

increasingly competent at adult-style

thinking.  This involves using logical

operations, and using them in the

abstract, rather than the concrete.  We

often call this hypothetical thinking.

It is the formal operations stage that allows one
to investigate a problem in a careful and
systematic fashion.
  Ask a 16 year old to tell you the rules for
making pendulums swing quickly or slowly,
and he may proceed like :
 Evaluating Piaget

 Contribution:
 Psychologists owe him the current vision of children as
active, constructive thinkers (Vidal,2000).
 Piaget’s observation showed inventive ways to discover
how children act on and adapt to their world.
 Piaget showed some important things to look for in
cognitive development, such as the shift from
preoperational to concrete operation thinking.
 He showed how children need to make their
experiences fit their schemas (Cognitive framework).
 Evaluating Piaget

• Criticisms
• 1. Underestimated abilities
• 2. Competence/performance
• 3. Stages
• 4. How do they progress?
• 5. Ignored social & cultural influences
 Piaget and Education
 Following are some ideas about Piaget’s theory that can be
applied to teaching;
Take a constructivist approach
(children learn when they are active and seek solution for themselves).

Facilitate rather than direct learning

(Effective teachers design situations that allow students to learn by doing).

Consider the child’s knowledge and level of thinking.

(students have many ideas about the physical and natural world).

Use ongoing assessments

(Evaluate students’ progress with such tools as math and language portfolios).
Promote students’ intellectual health
(children should not be pushed and pressured into achieving too much
too early in their development, before they are ready).
Turn the classroom into a setting of exploration and discovery
(The classroom are less structured than what we think of as typical classroom ).
 Vygotsky’s Cognitive theory
Born a Russian Jew
Privately tutored via
Socratic Dialogue
Won the lottery for
Moscow University
Writings translated first in 1962
    Thought and Language (1962)
    Mind and Society (1978)
Died at the age of 38 of tuberculosis
 Sociocultural Theory
– Vygotsky’s perspective on cognitive
development, in which children
acquire their culture’s values, beliefs,
and problem-solving strategies
through collaborative dialogues with
more knowledgeable members of
society.
Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Social contexts; minds are shaped by cultural

context in which they live

Tools are provided by society

Children actively construct their knowledge and

understanding through social interactions
 Main ideas of Vygotsky

Tasks too difficult for children

to master alone but Changing level of support over course
that can be mastered of a teaching session to
with guidance and assistance fit child’s current performance level
from more-skilled person
 Vygotsky: Language and Thought

• Believed young children use language to

plan, guide, and monitor behavior
• Language and thought initially develop
independently, then merge
• Private speech: language of self-
regulation
– Self talk (3 to 7 years of age)
– Inner talk: child’s thoughts
 Teaching Strategies based on
Vygotsky’s Theory

Successfully applied to
education
◦ Use child’s ZPD
◦ Use more-skilled peers as teachers
◦ Monitor and encourage private speech
◦ Effectively assess child’s ZPD
◦ Instruction in meaningful context
◦ Transform classroom
 Evaluating Vygotsky’s Theory

 Social constructivist approach — emphasize

social contexts of learning and construction of
knowledge through social interaction
◦ Shift from individual to collaborative learning

◦ Teachers facilitate and guide, not direct and mold

◦ May overemphasize language’s role in thinking

◦ Facilitators may help too much; make child lazy

 The role of language in Cognitive
Development
 Piaget’s Theory of Language & Thought
 Suggested Language reflects child’s existing
knowledge, not construction of new
knowledge.

 Vygotsky’s Theory of Language & Thought

 Suggested private speech helps children
plan strategies.

 Who is correct?
 Vygotsky and Education

 1.Encourage Student Autonomy and Initiative

 2. Use Raw Data and Primary Sources
 3. Use Manipulative, Interactive, and Physical Materials
 4. Frame Tasks with Cognitive Terminology
 5. Allow Student Responses to Drive Lessons
 6. Inquire About Students’ Understanding
 7. Encourage Students to Engage in Dialogue 
 Vygotsky and Education
Ask Thoughtful, Open-Ended Questions
  9. Encourage Student Inquiry
10. Seek Elaboration of Students’ Responses
11. Use Cognitive Conflict to Encourage
Thought
12. Allow Wait Time After Posing Questions
13. Allow Time for Students to Construct
Relationships
14. Nurture Students’ Natural Curiosity
 Comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget
Topic Vygotsky Piaget

Constructivism Social Constructivist Cognitive constructivist

No general stages of
Stages Strong emphasis on stages
development
Schema, assimilation,
accommodation, operations,
ZPD language, dialogue,
Key processes conservation, classification,
tools of the culture
hypothetical-deductive
reasoning.
A major role; language Language has minimal role;
Role of
language plays a powerful role in cognition primarily directs
shaping thought language
 Comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget

Topic Vygotsky Piaget

View on Education plays a Education merely refines
education central role, helping the child’s cognitive skills
children learn the that already have merged.
tools of the culture.
Teaching Teacher is a Views teacher as a
implicati facilitator and facilitator and guide, not a
on
guide, not a director; provides support
director, establish for children to explore their
many opportunities world and discover,
for children more knowledge.
skilled peers.