Cognitive Development and Language Skills Development:

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“Cognitive development underpins all the other aspects of development as children start to explore and make sense of the world around them. It is closely linked to the development of language and communication skills as children interact with the people around them.”

There are many theories written on the subjects of cognitive development and language and communication. These theories vary in several ways, but they all seem to make the link between the too subjects. Childcare settings put these theories into practise in a lot of ways, sometimes without even realising it, just through conversation.

Cognitive development =====================

Piaget’s theories of cognitive development are that children learn through exploration of their environment. An adult’s role in this is to provide children with appropriate experiences.

He said that cognitive development happens in four stages.

1. Sensory – motor

· Babies and young children learn through their senses, activity and interaction with their environment.

· They understand the world in terms of actions.

2. Pre – operations

· Young children learn through their experiences with real objects in their immediate environment.

· They use symbols e.g. words and images to make sense of their world.

3. Concrete operations

· Children continue to learn through their experiences with real objects.

· They access information (using language) to make sense of their immediate and wider environment.

4. Formal operations

· Children and adults learn to make use of abstract thinking.

Piaget also believed that children would only learn when they are ready. Children's use of language represents their stage in cognitive development, but he didn’t see language as a ‘central’ to children's development, as cognitive development begins at birth and is required for language development.

He also states that children are egocentric – they can’t understand another person’s point of view.

Criticisms of Piaget’s work ===========================

Margaret Donaldson suggests that Piaget underestimated young children's abilities; she said that appropriate language with meaningful context allows 3 and 4 year olds to think logically.

She also argued Piaget’s theories about children being egocentric. She believed that children are capable of seeing things from another persons point of view they are just not very good at it. But this is something that adults can find difficult as well.

I have experienced Piaget’s theories both in childcare settings and at home with my own child.

He said that babies learn about the world in terms of actions.When my child was born he used to get very hungry very quickly, and would cry until I had managed to warm up his bottle. By the time he was 3 months old he would cry because he was hungry, but he would stop crying as soon as he saw me leave the room. He had learnt that by cryinga certain way, he could make me leave the room and return with abottle.

His theory of ‘language is being learnt therefore used to learn’ is

also a practical theory as children ask questions to learn, they then remember things that they are told and access it from their memories when needed.

A child in my infant placement, George, was also my next-door neighbour. One night when I was babysitting him, he asked me why the moon changed shape, I told him all about it then thought no more of it until, 3 months later in school the teacher asked the class ifanyone knew why the moon changed shape. George stuck his hand straight up and reeled off everything I had told him.

On Piaget’s theories on children being egocentric, I feel that

Margaret Donaldson was probably more accurate; children can see things from another person’s point of view. I remember my step – daughter (aged 5) coming running into a room really upset having watched a film where 2 dogs and a cat were lost on there own trying to find their way home, she had seen the whole film from the animals point of view. I do believe that children are egocentric to an extent; it entirely depends on the situation and how well the child can relate to it, just as it is with adults.

Lev Semonvich Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)

Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist, like Piaget, he looked atthe active process of cognitive development.

He said that social interaction enables the child to develop

the intellectual skills needed for logical reasoning and thought.

Through language and communication, children learn to think about their world and modify their actions.

Adults have an active role in fostering a child's cognitive development. Children need to receive knowledge from other children and adults. Adults support cognitive development with appropriate framework.

Adults support children's learning by assisting the child's own efforts, enabling the child to gain skills, knowledge, understanding and confidence.

As children develop skills through assisted learning, adults slowly decrease their support until the children are able to work independently. With adult supervision young children are able to complete tasks that they would have been able to complete alone.

A lot of childcare settings use Vygotsky’s theories. Most private nurseries use ‘key workers’ to monitor and nurture a select group of children's development. This ensures that the child has more ‘one on one’ contact with adults.

Another example is a child learning to read. This begins with a lot of adult input, learning letter sounds, putting the sounds together and recognising words, reading simple words with adult assistance,adults

slowly increasing the complexity of the words and assisting in

recognising them until the child can read independently with confidence.

Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development had several differences to Piaget’s even though they were analysing the same subject.

Piaget believed that children are egocentric and separate fromothers for a long period of development (0-7 years) but gradually begin to socialise.

Vygotsky thought differently, stating that children learn a sense of self through interaction with others.

Piaget said that adults provide the stimulants and environmentto learn but too much interference can damage a child's natural development.

Vygotsky believed that social interaction is crucial. The adult role in teaching is very important e.g. providing assisted learning.

Vygotsky also said that language is a tool for thought whereasPiaget believed that thought develops independently of language.

Both men have been extremely influential to childcare today.

In my current placement, in the reception class, children are shown what to do with constant assistance offered. But they are also

encouraged to attempt things alone with assistance given only when required.

In my baby placement, children were encouraged to play together as well as being left to play independently and explore their environment.

All childcare settings offer a wide variety of activities to encourage cognitive development. Babies will be given puzzles including colour, shape, words, young babies are constantly developing cognitiveskills as they take in the world around them, all activities will help gain more knowledge and in turn language.

Language Development.

Language is often used to describe the process of speaking and

listening. But it is much more than verbal communication. Our ability to use language relies on the use of recognised systems and symbols and a common understanding of what those symbols mean. Anybodycould make up their own language but they would not be able to communicate with anyone unless they shared the system or code with them. In this country we speak English, but anyone living in an English speaking society who could not speak the language would struggle to survive. There are many other systems of language throughout the world.

Babies and young children are not able to use our complex language system, it takes time for them to learn the code of their particular home language. Whilst they are learning they use other methods

to communicate their needs and feelings, this can be frustrating for both adults and children as it isn’t always obvious to the adult exactly what the child is trying to say.

There are several different viewpoints as to how babies and young children learn to communicate-

The ‘nurture’ theory --------------------

This is a behaviourist theory based on the work by John Locke (1600’s) and was developed by psychologists such as Pavlov (1950’s). this theory suggests that a baby is born with a ‘clear mind’, meaning babies have to learn everything, including language, from scratch. Parents and carers shape the way language is learnt by encouraging sounds and words. Children learn language by copying sounds, words and phrases around them and through positive reinforcement of their attempts to communicate.

When my child was learning to talk, one of the first phrases he learnt was ‘what’s that?’ we then spent hours walking around answering to whatever he was pointing at, in time he copied what we were saying and with encouragement hasn’t stopped speaking since!

At baby placement there were posters with animals etc all round the room, we used to take them off the wall and sit with

individual children pointing and talking about the picture. One child in particular loved hearing the noises the animal made and could name them all at a really young age.

The ‘nature’ theory -------------------

This is a nativist theory by Noam Chomsky (1960’s) it states that babies are born with some knowledge of language. He argued that language is too complex to be learnt entirely by copying adults. He said language is innate and all humans have a genetic pre- disposition towards learning language.

Chomsky concludes that humans have a ‘language acquisition device’, which allows use to process and use language. He pointed out that all children learn language the same way and the early stages of language are the same for all children no matter which language they are learning to speak.

The ‘social interaction’ theory

This is a social constructivist theory. Vygotsky( 1930’s) and Burner (1970’s) suggested that children learn language as a means to communicate more affectively with others. This theory is similar to behaviourist theories in that children learn language through interaction with others, but this theory differs in that very young children are seen as active participants in their language development. For example research has shown that babies can

initiate and control pre-verbal conversations with their parents/ carers rather than the other way round; babies make adults pay attention to them using body language, crying, babbling and they end conversations by breaking eye contact or falling asleep. The role of the adult is to provide the social context in which communication can take place.

This theory stresses the link between language development and

cognitive development. Language is learnt due to a need to understand the environment and from social interactions with others.

I agree strongly with the social interaction theory, my child lived a year with just me and a few of my friends and family to talk to, he also suffered with glue ear for 3 months, so his speech was delayed. We spent a lot of time teaching him words and pointing to things, but when he started nursery and had lots of adults and children his own age to talk to everyday he showed a lot of frustration. But ashis language improved his frustration slowly disappeared, I believe the need to socialise drove the need to communicate and in turn understand the world around him.

Childcare settings provide a huge range of activities to promote language and communication skills, the activities tend to fallinto the following topics.

Exploration

· Toys and other interesting objects to look at and play with such as activity centres.

· Sounds to listen to including voices, music, songs, rhymes, and musical mobiles.

· Noise makers such as rattles, simple musical instruments

· Construction toys such as wooden and plastic bricks like Lego

· Natural materials like water, sand, play dough.

· Creative materials like paint.

· Outings like visits to the park.

· Animals, including trips too a farm.

Description

· News time

· Recording events

· A variety of books and stories.

Conversation

· Talking about their day and experiences.

· Talking during imaginary play activities such as role-play.

· Talking about special events such as a birthday.

· Talking whilst doing activities.

Discussion

· Problem solving activities

· Follow up to activities, like after a story

· Co-operative group work.

· Games and puzzles

· Appropriate television programmes

Instruction

· Preparation before an activity.

· Explanation of what to do

· Instructions during an activity to keep the child on task.

· Step by step instructions.

Language is encouraged in all sorts of ways, all childcare settings encourage language just by talking to the children, along with

language comes cognitive development as the children learn more about the world around them through conversation, instruction, exploration and discussion.

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cognitive development 

Children's Health Encyclopedia:

Cognitive DevelopmentHome > Library > Health > Children's Health Encyclopedia

Definition

Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.

Description

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.

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 development, and memory.

Historically, the cognitive development of children has been studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests, such as the widely used Stanford Binet

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test first adopted for use in the United States by psychologist Lewis Terman (1877–1956) in 1916from a French model pioneered in 1905. IQ scoring is based on the concept of "mental age," according to which the scores of a child of average intelligence match his or her age, while a gifted child's performance is comparable to that of an older child, and a slow learner's scores are similar to those of a younger child. IQ tests are widely used in 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.

In contrast to the emphasis placed on a child's native abilities by intelligence testing, learning theory grew out ofwork by behaviorist researchers such as John Watson (1878–1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), who argued that children are completely malleable. Learning theory focuses on the role of environmental factors in shaping the intelligence of children, especially on a child's ability to learn by having certain behaviors rewarded and others discouraged.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

The most well-known and influential theory of cognitive development is that of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Piaget's theory, first published in 1952, grew out of decades of extensive observation of children, including his own, in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how children reacted to their environment, he proposed a more active role for them than that suggested bylearning theory. He envisioned a child's knowledge as composedof schemas, basic units of knowledge used to organize past experiences and serve as a basis for understanding new ones.

Schemas are continually being modified by two complementary processes that Piaget termed assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the process of taking in new information by incorporating it into an existing schema. In other words, people assimilate new experiences by relating them to things they already know. On the other hand, accommodation is what happens when the schema itself changes to accommodate new knowledge. According to Piaget, cognitive

development involves an ongoing attempt to achieve a balance between assimilation and accommodation that he termed equilibration.

At the center of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and abstract levels of thought. These stages always occur in the same order, and each builds on what was learned in the previous stage. They are as follows:

Sensorimotor stage (infancy): In this period, which has six sub-stages, intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world islimited, but developing, because it is based on physical interactions and experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about seven months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbolic (language) abilitiesare developed at the end of this stage.

Pre-operational stage (toddlerhood and early childhood): In this period, which has two sub stages, intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures,and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is donein a non-logical, non-reversible manner. Egocentric thinking predominates.

Concrete operational stage (elementary and early adolescence):In this stage, characterized by seven types of conservation (number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, and volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

Formal operational stage (adolescence and adulthood): In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use ofsymbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35 percent of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.

The most significant alternative to the work of Piaget has been the information-processing approach, which uses the computer as a model to provide new insight into how the human mind receives, stores, retrieves, and uses information.

Researchers using information-processing theory to study cognitive development in children have focused on areas such as the gradual improvements in children's ability to take in information and focus selectively on certain parts of it and their increasing attention spans and capacity for memory storage. For example, researchers have found that the superiormemory skills of older children are due in part to memorization strategies, such as repeating items in order to memorize them or dividing them into categories.

Infancy

As soon as they are born, infants begin learning to use their senses to explore the world around them. Most newborns can focus on and follow moving objects, distinguish the pitch and volume of sound, see all colors and distinguish their hue and brightness, and start anticipating events, such as sucking at the sight of a nipple. By three months old, infants can recognize faces; imitate the facial expressions of others, such as smiling and frowning; and respond to familiar sounds.

At six months of age, babies are just beginning to understand how the world around them works. They imitate sounds, enjoy hearing their own voice, recognize parents, fear strangers, distinguish between animate and inanimate objects, and base distance on the size of an object. They also realize that if they drop an object, they can pick it up again. At four to seven months, babies can recognize their names.

By nine months, infants can imitate gestures and actions, experiment with the physical properties of objects, understandsimple words such as "no," and understand that an object stillexists even when they cannot see it. They also begin to test parental responses to their behavior, such as throwing food onthe floor. They remember the reaction and test the parents again to see if they get the same reaction.

At 12 months of age, babies can follow a fast moving object; can speak two to fours words, including "mama" and "papa"; imitate animal sounds; associate names with objects; develop attachments to objects, such as a toy or blanket; and experience separation anxiety when away from their parents. By18 months of age, babies are able to understand about 10–50

words; identify body parts; feel a sense of ownership by usingthe word "my" with certain people or objects; and can follow directions that involve two different tasks, such as picking up toys and putting them in a box.

Toddlerhood

Between 18 months to three years of age, toddlers have reachedthe "sensorimotor" stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development that involves rudimentary thought. For instance, they understand the permanence of objects and people, visuallyfollow the displacement of objects, and begin to use instruments and tools. Toddlers start to strive for more independence, which can present challenges to parents concerned for their safety. They also understand discipline and what behavior is appropriate and inappropriate, and they understand the concepts of words like "please" and "thank you."

Two-year-olds should be able to understand 100 to 150 words and start adding about ten new words per day. Toddlers also have a better understanding of emotions, such as love, trust, and fear. They begin to understand some of the ordinary aspects of everyday life, such as shopping for food, telling time, and being read to.

Preschool

Preschoolers, ages three to six, should be at the "preoperational" stage of Piaget's cognitive development theory, meaning they are using their imagery and memory skills. They should be conditioned to learning and memorizing,and their view of the world is normally very self-centered. Preschoolers usually have also developed their social interaction skills, such as playing and cooperating with otherchildren their own age. It is normal for preschoolers to test the limits of their cognitive abilities, and they learn negative concepts and actions, such as talking back to adults,lying, and bullying. Other cognitive development in preschoolers are developing an increased attention span, learning to read, and developing structured routines, such as doing household chores.

School Age

Younger school-age children, six to 12 years old, should be atthe "concrete operations" stage of Piaget's cognitive development theory, characterized by the ability to use logical and coherent actions in thinking and solving problems.They understand the concepts of permanence and conservation bylearning that volume, weight, and numbers may remain constant despite changes in outward appearance. These children should be able to build on past experiences, using them to explain why some things happen. Their attention span should increase with age, from being able to focus on a task for about 15 minutes at age six to an hour by age nine.

Adolescents, ages 12 through 18, should be at the "formal operations" stage of Piaget's cognitive development theory. Itis characterized by an increased independence for thinking through problems and situations. Adolescents should be able tounderstand pure abstractions, such as philosophy and higher math concepts. During this age, children should be able to learn and apply general information needed to adapt to specific situations. They should also be able to learn specific information and skills necessary for an occupation. Amajor component of the passage through adolescence is a cognitive transition. Compared to children, adolescents think in ways that are more advanced, more efficient, and generally more complex. This ability can be seen in five ways.

First, during adolescence individuals become better able than children to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thought to what is real. Whereas children's thinking is oriented to the here and now—that is, to things and events that they can observe directly—adolescents are able to consider what they observe against a backdrop of what is possible; they can think hypothetically.

Second, during the passage into adolescence, individuals become better able to think about abstract ideas. For example,adolescents find it easier than children to comprehend the sorts of higher-order, abstract logic inherent in puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies. The adolescent's greater facility with abstract thinking also permits the application of advanced reasoning and logical processes to social and

ideological matters. This is clearly seen in the adolescent's increased facility and interest in thinking about interpersonal relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, and morality.

Third, during adolescence individuals begin thinking more often about the process of thinking itself, or metacognition. As a result, adolescents may display increased introspection and self-consciousness. Although improvements in metacognitiveabilities provide important intellectual advantages, one potentially negative byproduct of these advances is the tendency for adolescents to develop a sort of egocentrism, or intense preoccupation with the self.

A fourth change in cognition is that thinking tends to become multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue. Whereas children tend to think about things one aspect at a time, adolescents can see things through more complicated lenses. Adolescents describe themselves and others in more differentiated and complicated terms and find it easier to look at problems from multiple perspectives. Being able to understand that people's personalities are not one-sided or that

Cognitive development

Age Activity

SOURCE: Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, 5th ed. and Child Development Institute, http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com.

One month Watches person when spoken to.

Two months Smiles at familiar person talking. Begins to follow moving person with eyes.

Four months Shows interest in bottle, breast, familiar toy, or new surroundings.

Five months Smiles at own image in mirror. Looks for fallen objects.

Six months May stick out tongue in imitation. Laughs at peekaboo

Cognitive development

Age Activity

game. Vocalizes at mirror image. May act shy around strangers.

Seven months

Responds to own name. Tries to establish contact with a person by cough or other noise.

Eight months

Reaches for toys out of reach. Responds to "no."

Nine months Shows likes and dislikes. May try to prevent face-washingor other activity that is disliked. Shows excitement and interest in foods or toys that are well-liked.

Ten months Starts to understand some words. Waves bye-bye. Holds outarm or leg for dressing.

Eleven months

Repeats performance that is laughed at. Likes repetitive play. Shows interest in books.

Twelve months

May understand some "where is...?" questions. May kiss onrequest.

Fifteen months

Asks for objects by pointing. Starting to feed self. Negativism begins.

Eighteen months

Points to familiar objects when asked "where is...?" Mimics familiar adult activities. Know some body parts. Obeys two or three simple orders.

Two years Names a few familiar objects. Draws with crayons. Obeys found simple orders. Participates in parallel play.

Two-and-a-half years

Names several common objects. Begins to take interest in sex organs. Gives full names. Helps to put things away. Peak of negativism.

Three years Constantly asks questions. May count to 10. Begins to draw specific objects. Dresses and undresses doll. Participates in cooperative play. Talks about things that

Cognitive development

Age Activity

have happened.

Four years May make up silly words and stories. Beginning to draw pictures that represent familiar things. Pretends to readand write. May recognize a few common words, such as own name.

Five years Can recognize and reproduce many shapes, letters, and numbers. Tells long stories. Begins to understand the difference between real events and make-believe ones. Asks meaning of words.

social situations can have different interpretations dependingon one's point of view permits the adolescent to have far moresophisticated and complicated relationships with other people.

Finally, adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than absolute. Children tend to seethings in absolute terms—in black and white. Adolescents, in contrast, tend to see things as relative. They are more likelyto question others' assertions and less likely to accept factsas absolute truths. This increase in relativism can be particularly exasperating to parents, who may feel that their adolescent children question everything just for the sake of argument. Difficulties often arise, for example, when adolescents begin seeing their parents' values as excessively relative.

Common Problems

Cognitive impairment is the general loss or lack of development of cognitive abilities, particularly autism and learning disabilities. The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) describes learning disabilities as a disorder that affects people's ability to either interpret what they see and hear or to link information from different parts of the brain. These limitations can show up in many ways, such asspecific difficulties with spoken and written language,

coordination, self-control, or attention. Such difficulties extend to schoolwork and can impede learning to read or write or to do math. A child who has a learning disability may have other conditions, such as hearing problems or serious emotional disturbance. However, learning disabilities are not caused by these conditions, nor are they caused by environmental influences such as cultural differences or inappropriate instruction.

Parental Concerns

As of 2004 it is widely accepted that a child's intellectual ability is determined by a combination of heredity and environment. Thus, although a child's genetic inheritance is unchangeable, there are definite ways that parents can enhancetheir child's intellectual development through environmental factors. They can provide stimulating learning materials and experiences from an early age, read to and talk with their children, and help children explore the world around them. As children mature, parents can both challenge and support the child's talents. Although a supportive environment in early childhood provides a clear advantage for children, it is possible to make up for early losses in cognitive development if a supportive environment is provided at some later period, in contrast to early disruptions in physical development, which are often irreversible.

When to Call the Doctor

If, by age three, a child has problems understanding simple directions or is perplexed when asked to do something simple, the parents or primary caregiver should consult a physician orpediatrician. The child may have a delay in cognitive development. Parents should also consult a healthcare professional if, after age three, their child's cognitive development appears to be significantly slower than their peers.

Resources

Books

Bjorklund, David F. Children's Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences. Stamford, CT: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004.

Pica, Rae. Your Active Child: How to Boost Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive Development Through Age-Appropriate Activity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Thornton, Stephanie. Growing Minds: An Introduction to Children's Cognitive Development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Wadsworth, Barry J. Piaget's Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development: Foundations of Constructivism, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Allyn & Bacon, 2003.

Periodicals

Blumberg, Fran. C., and Lori M. Sokol. "Boys' and Girls' Use of Cognitive Strategy when Learning to Play Video Games." The Journal of General Psychology (April 2004): 151–58.

Dahl, Ronald. "Risk-Taking and Thrill-Seeking." Behavioral Healthcare Tomorrow (June 2004): SS6–SS7.

Li, Xiaoming, and Melissa S. Atkins. "Early Childhood ComputerExperience and Cognitive and Motor Development." Pediatrics (June2004): 1715–22.

Thurber, Christopher A. "I Am. Therefore, I Think: Explanations of Cognitive Development." Camping Magazine (July-August 2003): 36–41.

Wacharasin, Chintana, et al. "Factors Affecting Toddler Cognitive Development in Low-Income Families: Implications forPractitioners." Infants & Young Children (April-June 2003): 175–81.

Zinner, Susan. "The Role of Cognitive Development in PediatricMedical Decision-Making." Global Virtue Ethics Review (January 2004):N/A.

Organizations

Cognitive Development Society. University of North Carolina, PO 3270,Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Web site: www.cogdevsoc.org.

National Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 3615 Wisconsin Ave. NW,Washington, DC 20016. Web site: www.aacap.org.

Web Sites

Developmental Psychology: Cognitive Development, 2004. Available online at www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Areas/Developmental/CogDev-Child/index.htm (accessed November 9, 2004).

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development, 2003. Available online at (accessed November 9, 2004).

[Article by: Ken R. Wells]

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Citation: Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date] from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/piaget.html

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Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology during the20th century. Piaget originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy and considered himself a "genetic epist e mologist ." He was mainly interested in the biological influences on "how we come to know." He believed that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is our ability

to do "abstract symbolic reasoning." Piaget's views are often compared with those of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who looked more to social interaction as the primary source of cognition and behavior. This is somewhat similar to the distinctions made between Freud and Erikson in terms of the development of personality. The writings of Piaget (e.g., 1972, 1990; see Piaget, Gruber, & Voneche) and Vygotsky (e.g. Vygotsky, 1986; Vygotsky & Vygotsky, 1980), along with the work of John Dewey (e.g., Dewey, 1997a, 1997b), Jerome Bruner (e.g., 1966, 1974) and Ulrick Neisser (1967) form the basis of the constructivisttheory of learning and instruction.

While working in Binet's IQ test lab in Paris, Piaget became interested in how children think. He noticed that young children's answers were qualitatively different than older children which suggested to him that the younger ones were notdumber (a quantitative position since as they got older and had more experiences they would get smarter) but, instead, answered the questions differently than their older peers because they thought differently.

There are two major aspects to his theory: the process of coming to know and the stages we move through as we gradually acquire this ability.

Process of Cognitive Development. As a biologist, Piaget was interested in how an organism adapts to its environment (Piaget described as intelligence.) Behavior (adaptation to the environment) is controlled through mental organizations called schemes that the individual uses to represent the worldand designate action. This adaptation is driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment (equilibration).

Piaget hypothesized that infants are born with schemes operating at birth that he called "reflexes." In other animals, these reflexes control behavior throughout life. However, in human beings as the infant uses these reflexes to adapt to the environment, these reflexes are quickly replaced with constructed schemes.

Piaget described two processes used by the individual in its attempt to adapt: assimilation and accomodation. Both of these

processes are used thoughout life as the person increasingly adapts to the environment in a more complex manner.

Assimilation is the process of using or transforming the environment so that it can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures. Accomodation is the process of changing cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment. Both processes are used simultaneously and alternately throughout life. An example of assimilation would be when an infant uses a sucking schema that was developed by sucking on a small bottle when attempting to suck on a larger bottle. An example of accomodation would be when the child needs to modify a sucking schema developed by sucking on a pacifier to one that would be successful for sucking on a bottle.

As schemes become increasingly more complex (i.e., responsiblefor more complex behaviors) they are termed structures. As one's structures become more complex, they are organized in a hierarchical manner (i.e., from general to specific).

Stages of Cognitive Development. Piaget identified four stagesin cognitive development:

1. Sensorimotor stage (Infancy). In this period (which has 6stages), intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited (but developing) because its based on physical interactions / experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about 7 months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begindeveloping new intellectual abilities. Some symbollic (language) abilities are developed at the end of this stage.

2. Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood). In this period (which has two substages), intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures, and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a nonlogical, nonreversable manner. Egocentric thinking predominates

3. Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence). In this stage (characterized by 7 types of conservation: number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area,volume), intelligence is demonstarted through logical and

systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

4. Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood). In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.

Many pre-school and primary programs are modeled on Piaget's theory, which, as stated previously, provides part of the foundation for constructivist learning. Discovery learning andsupporting the developing interests of the child are two primary instructional techniques. It is recommended that parents and teachers challenge the child's abilities, but NOT present material or information that is too far beyond the child's level. It is also recommended that teachers use a widevariety of concrete experiences to help the child learn (e.g.,use of manipulatives, working in groups to get experience seeing from another's perspective, field trips, etc).

Piaget's research methods were based primarily on case studies[they were descriptive]. While some  of his ideas have been supported through more correlational and experimental methodologies, others have not. For example, Piaget believed that biological development drives the movement from one cognitive stage to the next. Data from cross-sectional studiesof children in a variety of western cultures seem to support this assertion for the stages of sensorimotor, preoperational,and concrete operations ( Renner, Stafford, Lawson, McKinnon, Friot & Kellogg, 1976).

However, data from similar cross-sectional studies of adolescents do not support the assertion that all individuals will automatically move to the next cognitive stage as they biologically mature. Data from adolescent populations indicates  only 30 to 35% of high school seniors attain the cognitive development stage of formal operations (Kuhn, Langer, Kohlberg & Haan, 1977). For formal operations, it appears that maturation establishes the basis, but a special environment is required for most adolescents and adults to attain this stage.

There are a number of specific examples of how to use Piagetian theory in teaching/learning process.

References

Bruner, J. (1966). Studies in cognitive growth : A collaboration at the Center for Cognitive Studies. New York: Wiley & Sons.

Bruner, J. (1974). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Dewey, J. (1997a). Experience and education. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co.

Dewey, J. (1997b). How we think. New York: Dover Publications.

Kuhn, D., Langer, J., Kohlberg, L., & Haan, N. S. (1977).The development of formal operations. in logical and moral judgment. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 95, 97-188.

Neisser, U. (1967) Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.

Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books.

Piaget, J. (1990). The child's conception of the world. New York: Littlefield Adams.

Piaget, J., Gruber, H. (Ed.), & Voneche, J. J. (Ed.). The essential Piaget (100th Anniversary Ed.). New York: Jason Aronson.

Renner, J., Stafford, D., Lawson, A., McKinnon, J., Friot, E., & Kellogg, D. (1976). Research, teaching, and learningwith the Piaget model. Norman, OK: University of  Oklahoma Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Boston: MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L., & Vygotsky, S. (1980). Mind in society : The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence first developed by Jean Piaget. It is primarily known as a developmental stage theory, but in fact, it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire it, construct it, and use it. Moreover, Piaget claims the idea that cognitive development is at the centre of human organism and language is contingent on cognitive development. Below, there is first a short description of Piaget's views

about the nature of intelligence and then a description of thestages through which it develops until maturity.

Contents[hide]

1 The Nature of Intelligence: Operative and Figurative Intelligence

2 Piaget's four stages o 2.1 Sensorimotor stage o 2.2 Preoperational stage o 2.3 Concrete operational stage o 2.4 Formal operational stage

3 Challenges to Piagetian stage theory 4 Post Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian stages 5 Postulated physical mechanisms underlying "schemes"

and stages 6 Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage

theories/heuristics 7 References 8 External links

[edit] The Nature of Intelligence: Operative and Figurative Intelligence

Piaget believed that reality is a dynamic system of continuouschange, and as such is defined in reference to the two conditions that define dynamic systems that change. Specifically, he argued that reality involves transformations and states. Transformations refer to all manners of changes that a thing or person can undergo. States refer to the conditions or the appearances in which things or persons can be found between transformations. For example, there might be changes in shape or form (for instance, liquids are reshaped as they are transferred from one vessel to another, humans change in their characteristics as they grow older), in size (e.g., a series of coins on a table might be placed close to each other or far apart) in placement or location in space andtime (e.g., various objects or persons might be found at one place at one time and at a different place at another time). Thus, Piaget argued, that if human intelligence is to be adaptive, it must have functions to represent both the

transformational and the static aspects of reality. He proposed that operative intelligence is responsible for the representation and manipulation of the dynamic or transformational aspects of reality and that figurative intelligence is responsible for the representation of the static aspects of reality).[1]

Operative intelligence is the active aspect of intelligence. It involves all actions, overt or covert, undertaken in order to follow, recover, or anticipate the transformations of the objects or persons of interest. Figurative intelligence is themore or less static aspect of intelligence, involving all means of representation used to retain in mind the states (i.e., successive forms, shapes, or locations) that intervene between transformations. That is, it involves perception, imitation, mental imagery, drawing, and language. Therefore, the figurative aspects of intelligence derive their meaning from the operative aspects of intelligence, because states cannot exist independently of the transformations that interconnect them. Piaget believed that the figurative or the representational aspects of intelligence are subservient to its operative and dynamic aspects, and therefore, that understanding essentially derives from the operative aspect ofintelligence.

At any time, operative intelligence frames how the world is understood and it changes if understanding is not successful. Piaget believed that this process of understanding and change involves two basic functions: Assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the active transformation of information so as to be integrated into the mental schemes already available. Its analog at the biological level might bethe transformation of food by chewing and digestion to fit in with the structural and bio-chemical characteristics of the human body. Accommodation refers to the active transformation of these schemes so as to take into account the particularities of the objects, persons, or events the thinkeris interacting with. Its analog at the biological level might be the adaptation of eating and digestion to the particulars of the different kinds of food we eat. For Piaget, none of these functions can exist without the other. To assimilate an object into an existing mental scheme, one first needs to take

into account or accommodate to the particularities of this object to a certain extent; for instance, to recognize (assimilate) an apple as an apple one needs first to focus (accommodate) on the contour of this object. To do this one needs to roughly recognize the size of the object. We will seebelow that development increases the balance or equilibration between these two functions. When in balance with each other, they generate mental schemes of the operative intelligence. When the one dominates over the other, they generate representations which belong to figurative intelligence.

Following from this conception Piaget theorized that intelligence is active and constructive. In fact, it is activeeven in the literal sense of the term as it depends on the actions (overt or covert, assimilatory or accommodatory), which the thinker executes in order to build and rebuild his models of the world. And it is constructive because actions, particularly mental actions, are coordinated into more inclusive and cohesive systems and thus they are raised to ever more stable and effective levels of functioning. Piaget believed that this process of construction leads to systems ofmental operations better able to resist the illusions of perceptual appearances and thus less prone to error. In other words, the gradual construction of the system of mental operations involved in the operative aspect of intelligence enables the developing person to grasp ever more hidden and complex aspects of the world. Below we will summarize the development of operative intelligence.

[edit] Piaget's four stages

According to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, intelligence is the basic mechanism of ensuring equilibrium inthe relations between the person and the environment. This is achieved through the actions of the developing person on the world. At any moment in development, the environment is assimilated in the schemes of action that are already available and these schemes are transformed or accommodated tothe peculiarities of the objects of the environment plus of the surroundings and entire universe, if they are not completely appropriate. Thus, the development of intelligence is a continuous process of assimilations and accommodations

that lead to increasing expansion of the field of application of schemes, increasing coordination between them, increasing interiorization, and increasing abstraction. The mechanism underlying this process of increasing abstraction, interiorization, and coordination is reflecting abstraction. That is, reflecting abstraction gradually leads to the rejection of the external action components of sensorimotor operations on objects and to the preservation of the mental, planning or anticipatory, components of operation. These are the mental operations that are gradually coordinated with eachother, generating structures of mental operations. These structures of mental operations are applied on representationsof objects rather than on the objects themselves. Language, mental images, and numerical notation are examples of representations standing for objects and thus they become the object of mental operations. Moreover, mental operations, withdevelopment, become reversible. For instance, the counting of a series of objects can go both forward and backward with the understanding that the number of objects counted is not affected by the direction of counting because the same number can be retrieved both ways.[2] Piaget described four main periods in the development towards completely reversible equlibrated thought structures. These are the periods described below. As shown below, for Piaget intelligence is not the same at different ages. It changes qualitatively, attaining increasingly broader, more abstract, and more equilibrated structures thereby allowing access to different levels of organization of the world.

[edit] Sensorimotor stage

The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages of cognitive development. "In this stage, infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences(such as seeing and hearing) with physical, motoric actions. Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they perform on it. An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage. Piaget divided the sensorimotor stage into six sub-stages"[3]:

Sub-Stage Age Description

1 Simple ReflexesBirth-6 weeks

"Coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors".[3] Three primary reflexes are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth, following moving or interesting objects with the eyes,and closing of the hand when an object makescontact with the palm (palmar grasp). Over the first six weeks of life, these reflexes begin to become voluntary actions; for example, the palmar reflex becomes intentional grasping.[4]).

2 First habits and primary circular reactions phase

6 weeks-4 months

"Coordination of sensation and two types of schemes: habits (reflex) and primary circular reactions (reproduction of an eventthat initially occurred by chance). Main focus is still on the infant's body." [3] As an example of this type of reaction, an infant might repeat the motion of passing their hand before their face. Also at this phase, passive reactions, caused by classical or operant conditioning, can begin.[4]

3 Secondary circular reactions phase

4–8 months

Development of habits. "Infants become more object-oriented, moving beyond self-preoccupation; repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results."[3] This stage is associated primarily with the development of coordination between vision and prehension. Three new abilities occur atthis stage: intentional grasping for a desired object, secondary circular reactions, and differentiations between endsand means. At this stage, infants will intentionally grasp the air in the directionof a desired object, often to the amusement of friends and family. Secondary circular reactions, or the repetition of an action involving an external object begin; for

example, moving a switch to turn on a light repeatedly. The differentiation between means and ends also occurs. This is perhaps one of the most important stages of a child's growth as it signifies the dawn of logic.[4]

4 Coordination of secondary circular reactions stage

8–12 months

"Coordination of vision and touch--hand-eye coordination; coordination of schemes and intentionality." [3] This stage is associatedprimarily with the development of logic and the coordination between means and ends. This is an extremely important stage of development, holding what Piaget calls the "first proper intelligence." Also, this stage marks the beginning of goal orientation, the deliberate planning of steps to meet an objective.[4]

5 Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity

12–18 months

"Infants become intrigued by the many properties of objects and by the many thingsthey can make happen to objects; they experiment with new behavior." [3] This stageis associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals. Piaget describesthe child at this juncture as the "young scientist," conducting pseudo-experiments todiscover new methods of meeting challenges.[4]

6 Internalization of Schemes

18–24 months

"Infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations." [3] This stage is associated primarily with the beginnings of insight, or true creativity. This marks the passage into the preoperational stage.

"By the end of the sensorimotor period, objects are both separate from the self and permanent."[3] "Object permanence isthe understanding that objects continue to exist even when

they cannot be seen, heard, or touched."[3] "Acquiring the sense of object permanence is one of the infant's most important accomplishments, according to Piaget."[3]

[edit] Preoperational stage

The preoperative stage is the second of four stages of cognitive development.[5] By observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to demonstrate that towards the end of the second year, a qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs.

(Pre)Operatory Thought is any procedure for mentally acting onobjects. The hallmark of the preoperational stage is sparse and logically inadequate mental operations. During this stage,the child learns to use and to represent objects by images, words, and drawings.[5] The child is able to form stable concepts as well as mental reasoning and magical beliefs.[5] The child however is still not able to perform operations; tasks that the child can do mentally rather than physically.[5]

Thinking is still egocentric: The child has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Two substages can be formed from preoperative thought.[5]

The Symbolic Function Substage

Occurs between about the ages of 2 and 7.[5] The child is able to formulate designs of objects that are not present.[5] Other examples of mental abilities are language and pretend play.[5] Although there is an advancement in progress, there are still limitations such as egocentrism and animism.[5] Egocentrism occurs when a child is unable to distinguish between their ownperspective and that of another person's.[5] Children tend to pick their own view of what they see rather than the actual view shown to others.[5] An example is an experiment performed by Piaget and Barbel Inhelder.[5] Three views of a mountain are shown and the child is asked what a traveling doll would see at the various angles; the child picks their own view comparedto the actual view of the doll.[5] Animism is the belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities.[5] An example is a child believing that the sidewalk was mad and made them fall down.[5]

The Intuitive Thought Substage

Occurs between about the ages of 2 and 7.[5] Children tend to become very curious and ask many questions; begin the use of primitive reasoning.[5] There is an emergence in the interest ofreasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are.[5] Piaget called it the intuitive substage because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge but they are unaware of how they know it.[5] Centration and conservation are both involved in preoperative thought.[5] Centration is the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic compared to the others.[5] Centration is noticed in conservation; the awareness that altering a substance's appearance does not change its basic properties.[5] Children at this stage are unaware of conservation.[5][5] In Piaget's most famous task, a child is presented with two identical beakers containing the same amount of liquid.[5] The child usually notes that the beakers have the same amount of liquid.[5] When one of the beakers is poured into a taller and thinner container, children who are typically younger than 7 or 8 years old say that the two beakers now contain a different amount of liquid.[5] The child simply focuses on the height and width of the container compared to the general concept.[5] Piaget believes that if a child fails the conservation-of-liquid task, it is asign that they are at the preoperational stage of cognitive development.[5] The child also fails to show conservation of number, matter, length, volume, and area as well.[5] Another example is when a child is shown 7 dogs and 3 cats and asked if there are more dogs than cats. The child would respond positively. However when asked if there are more dogs than animals, the child would once again respond positively. Such fundamental errors in logic show the transition between intuitiveness in solving problems and true logical reasoning acquired in later years when the child grows up.

Piaget considered that children primarily learn through imitation and play throughout these first two stages, as they build up symbolic images through internalized activity.[6][7]

Studies have been conducted among other countries to find out if Piaget's theory is universal.[5] Psychologist Patricia

Greenfield conducted a task similar to Piaget's beaker experiment in the West African nation of Senegal.[5] Her results stated that only 50 percent of the 10-13 year old understood the concept of conservation.[5] Other cultures such as central Australia and New Guinea had similar results.[5] If adults had not gained this concept, they would be unable to understand the point of view of another person.[5] There may have been discrepancies in the communication between the experimenter and the children which may have altered the results.[5] It has also been found that if conservation is not widely practiced in a particular country, the concept can be taught to the child and training can improve the child's understanding.[5] Therefore, it is noted that there are different age differences in reaching the understanding of conservation based on the degree to which the culture teaches these tasks.[5]

[edit] Concrete operational stage

The concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Preoperational stage, occurs between the ages of 7and 11 years[8] and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are:

Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according tosize, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.

Transitivity- The ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order, and perform 'transitive inferences' (for example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C).

Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic,including the idea that one set of objects can include another.

Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.

Reversibility—the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.

Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.

Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic in which Jane puts a doll undera box, leaves the room, and then Melissa moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child in the concrete operations stage will say that Jane will still think it's under the box even though the child knows it is in the drawer.(See also False-belief task).

Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not abstractconcepts or hypothetical tasks.

[edit] Formal operational stage

The formal operational period is the fourth and final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget's theory.[9] This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commencesat around 11 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood.[9] In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.[9] Theabstract quality of the adolescent's thought at the formal operational level is evident in the adolescent's verbal problem solving ability.[9] The logical quality of the adolescent's thought is when children are more likely to solveproblems in a trial-and-error fashion.[9] Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions.[9] They use hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses or best guesses, and systematically deduce,or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem.[9] During this stage the adolescent is able to

understand such things as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs and values. During this stage the young person begins to entertain possibilities for the future and is fascinated with what they can be.[9] Adolescents are changing cognitively also by the way that they think about social matters.[9] Adolescent Egocentrism governs the way that adolescents think about social matters and is the heightened self-consciousness in them as they are which is reflected in their sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.[9] Adolescent egocentrism can be dissected into two types of social thinking, imaginary audience that involves attention getting behavior, and personal fable which involves an adolescent's sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility.[9]

[edit] Challenges to Piagetian stage theory

Piagetians' accounts of development have been challenged on several grounds. First, as Piaget himself noted, development does not always progress in the smooth manner his theory seemsto predict. 'Decalage', or unpredicted gaps in the developmental progression, suggest that the stage model is at best a useful approximation. More broadly, Piaget's theory is 'domain general', predicting that cognitive maturation occurs concurrently across different domains of knowledge (such as mathematics, logic, understanding of physics, of language, etc.). During the 1980s and 1990s, cognitive developmentalistswere influenced by "neo-nativist" and evolutionary psychology ideas. These ideas de-emphasized domain general theories and emphasized domain specificity or modularity of mind. Modularity implies that different cognitive faculties may be largely independent of one another and thus develop according to quite different time-tables. In this vein, some cognitive developmentalists argued that rather than being domain generallearners, children come equipped with domain specific theories, sometimes referred to as 'core knowledge', which allows them to break into learning within that domain. For example, even young infants appear to be sensitive to some predictable regularities in the movement and interactions of objects (e.g. that one object cannot pass through another), orin human behavior (e.g. that a hand repeatedly reaching for anobject has that object, not just a particular path of motion, as its goal). These basic assumptions may be the building

block out of which more elaborate knowledge is constructed. More recent work has strongly challenged some of the basic presumptions of the 'core knowledge' school, and revised ideasof domain generality—but from a newer dynamic systems approach, not from a revised Piagetian perspective. Dynamic systems approaches harken to modern neuroscientific research that was not available to Piaget when he was constructing his theory. One important finding is that domain-specific knowledge is constructed as children develop and integrate knowledge. This suggests more of a "smooth integration" of learning and development than either Piaget, or his neo-nativist critics, had envisioned. Additionally, some psychologists, such as Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner, thought differently from Piaget, suggesting that language was more important than Piaget implied.

Another recent challenge to Piaget's theory is a new theory called Ecological Systems Theory. This is based on the contextual influences in the child's life like his/her immediate family, school, society and the world, and how theseimpact the child's development.

The experience of Sudbury model schools shows that a great variety can be found in the minds of children, against Piaget's theory of universal steps in comprehension and general patterns in the acquisition of knowledge: "No two kidsever take the same path. Few are remotely similar. Each child is so unique, so exceptional" (Greenberg, 1987).[10]

[edit] Post Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian stagesMain article: Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development

In the recent years, several scholars attempted to ameliorate the problems of Piaget's theory by developing new theories andmodels that can accommodate evidence that violates Piagetian predictions and postulates. These models are summarized below.

The neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, advanced by Case, Demetriou, Halford, Fischer, and Pascual-Leone, attempted to integrate Piaget´s theory with cognitive and differential theories of cognitive organization and development. Their aim was to better account for the cognitivefactors of development and for intra-individual and inter-

individual differences in cognitive development. They suggested that development along Piaget´s stages is due to increasing working memory capacity and processing efficiency. Moreover, Demetriou´s theory ascribes an important role to hypercognitive processes of self-recording, self-monitoring, and self-regulation and it recognizes the operation of severalrelatively autonomous domains of thought (Demetriou, 1998; Demetriou, Mouyi, Spanoudis, 2010).

Postformal stages have been proposed. Kurt Fischer suggested two, Michael Commons presents evidence for four postformal stages: the systematic, metasystematic, paradigmatic and crossparadigmatic. (Commons & Richards, 2003; Oliver, 2004).

A "sentential" stage has been proposed, said to occur before the early preoperational stage. Proposed by Fischer, Biggs andBiggs, Commons, and Richards.

Searching for a micro-physiological basis for human mental capacity, Traill (1978, Section C5.4[1]; - 1999, Section 8.4[2]) proposed that there may be "pre-sensorimotor" stages ("M−1L", "M−2L", … … ) — developed in the womb and/or transmitted genetically.

[edit] Postulated physical mechanisms underlying "schemes" and stages

Piaget himself (1967) considered the possibility of RNA molecules as likely embodiments of his still-abstract "schemes" (which he promoted as units of action) — though he did not come to any firm conclusion. At that time, due to work such asthat of Holger Hydén, RNA concentrations had indeed been shownto correlate with learning, so the idea was quite plausible.

However, by the time of Piaget's death in 1980, this notion had lost favour. One main problem was over the protein which (it was assumed) such RNA would necessarily produce, and that did not fit in with observation. It then turned out, surprisingly, that only about 3% of RNA does code for protein (Mattick, 2001, 2003, 2004). Hence most of the remaining 97% (the "ncRNA") could now theoretically be available to serve asPiagetian schemes (or other regulatory roles now under investigation). The issue has not yet been resolved

experimentally, but its theoretical aspects have been reviewed; (Traill 2005 / 2008).