You’re trying to explain something to a child, and even though it seems evident to you, the child just doesn’t seem to understand.
They repeat the same mistake, over and over, and you become increasingly frustrated.
Well, guess what?
- The child is not naughty.
- They’re also not stupid.
- But their lack of understanding is not your fault either.
Their cognitive development limits their ability to understand certain concepts. Specifically, they’re incapable of understanding what you’re trying to explain right now.
In this post, we’ll learn more about Jean Piaget, a famous psychologist whose ideas about cognitive development in children were highly influential. We’ll cover quite a lot in this post, so make sure you have a cup of coffee and sit somewhere comfortable.
These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the well-being of your clients, students, or employees.
Who Was Jean Piaget in Psychology?
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who contributed significantly to understanding children’s cognitive development (Papalia & Feldman, 2011; Waite-Stupiansky, 2017).
He was born in 1896 and trained initially as a biologist and philosopher. Although he is well known for his work as a psychologist, he also published research on sparrows and mollusks (Burman, 2012; Papalia & Feldman, 2011; Waite-Stupiansky, 2017).
Piaget’s contribution to psychology was mainly through his observations of children’s cognitive development (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Early in his career, Piaget scored the IQ tests Alfred Binet administered to children.
Piaget noticed that children of certain ages tended to give the same types of incorrect answers. From these observations and follow-up interviews with children about these mistakes, he developed a theory of how children’s cognitive processes are designed (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017).
One of the most critical implications of his work is that children are not born with the same cognitive processes as adults (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Instead, children’s cognitive processes:
- develop over time,
- develop in response to their environment, and
- are updated with exposure to new information.
Piaget also influenced psychology in other ways. For example, he emphasized other research methods, such as the clinical method (Papalia & Feldman, 2011; Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). He relied upon the following research methods:
- Naturalistic observation of play and conversation between children (including his own)
- Interviewing children
Additionally, he was the first psychologist to study children’s ‘theory of mind’ (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Theory of mind is the understanding or basic sense that each of us has our consciousness and thoughts.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
Piaget argued that children’s cognitive development occurs in stages (Papalia & Feldman, 2011).
Specifically, he posited that as children’s thinking develops from one stage to the next, their behavior also changes, reflecting these cognitive developments.
The stages in his theory follow a specific order, and each subsequent stage only occurs after the one before it.
These stages are:
- Sensorimotor stage (0–2 years old)
- Preoperational location (2–7 years old)
- Concrete operational stage (7–11 years old)
- Formal active setting (11 years old through adulthood)
1. The Sensorimotor Stage
The sensorimotor stage is the first phase of children’s cognitive development. Children primarily learn about their environment during this stage through their senses and motor activities.
The sensorimotor stage comprises six substages, where children’s behavior moves from reflex-driven to more abstract. Each substage is described briefly.
1. Use of reflexes (0–2 months)
During this stage, children typically use their reflexes. They cannot consolidate information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept.
2. Primary circular reactions (1–4 months)
Children start to consolidate information from different sensory organs. They begin to engage in behavior that satisfies the way their body feels or their needs. For example, they repeat pleasurable behaviors and adapt their behavior to feed from different objects. They turn to respond to sounds and sights in their environment.
3. Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months)
Children’s behaviors become more intentional, and the types of behaviors they repeat expand to include those that result in exciting responses external to their body. For example, they might push buttons on a toy. Children also start to take more interest in their environment. They repeat behaviors that generate exciting responses.
4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12 months)
Children’s behaviors become more goal-oriented at this point, and they can combine different behaviors to achieve goals.
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months)
Instead of performing the same actions, children try new behaviors and actions to achieve different results. These behaviors are not spontaneous or by accident but are purposeful. Unlike primary and secondary reactions, children can combine more complicated behaviors and even perform a behavior similarly but not the same to get the desired result.
6. Mental combinations (18–24 months)
Children start to rely on mental abstractions to solve problems, use gestures and words to communicate, and can pretend. Instead of depending on numerous attempts to solve problems/puzzles, children can deliberate and carefully choose their actions.
2. The Preoperational Stage
Children start using mental abstractions at the end of the sensorimotor stage.
Children enter the preoperational stage at two when their ability to use mental representations improves significantly rather than the physical appearance of objects or people.
Examples of abstract representations include engaging in pretend play and talking about events that happened in the past or people who are not currently in the room.
Other interesting cognitive advances occur during this phase. For example, children understand causality. Children also understand identities, where items and people remain the same even if they look different. For instance, at some point during this stage, a caregiver dressing up as Santa Claus might not be as convincing.
In this stage, children also learn more about categorization. They can classify items based on similarities or differences. They also start to understand numbers and quantity (e.g., concepts such as ‘more’ or ‘bigger’).
Although abstract thought advances quickly in the preoperational stage, other cognitive processes develop more slowly.
For example:
- Children tend to consider their viewpoints and perspective.
- Children fail to understand that two things can be the same, even if they appear different (more about this in the next section on Conservation).
- Children struggle to take someone else’s point of view.
3. The Concrete Operational Stage
The next phase is the concrete operational stage, which begins around seven. Children are more capable of solving problems during this stage because they can consider numerous outcomes and perspectives. All of their cognitive abilities are better developed in this stage.
- Categorization abilities improve so children can arrange items along a dimension, understand that categories have subcategories, and relate two objects to each other through a third object.
- Their numerical abilities have improved significantly, and they can perform more complicated mathematical operations.
- Their spatial abilities are better. They are better at estimating time and distance. They can read maps and describe how to navigate from one location to another.
Conservation
During this stage, children better understand the concept of Conservation and, as a result, are better at solving conservation problems. Conservation refers to the idea that things can be the same, even if they look different.
An example would be a cup of water poured into two glasses. One glass is tall and thin, while the other is short and wide. Recognizing that both drinks contain the same amount of water shows an understanding of Conservation.
Children in the preoperational stage struggle with problems of Conservation. For example, they struggle with tasks where the following is conserved even if it appears different:
- Number of items (e.g., two sets of 10 items arranged differently)
- The volume of liquid (e.g., the same volume of fluid in two differently shaped glasses)
Children struggle with Conservation because they can only focus on one dimension at a time, known as centering. For example, with the volume of liquid, they can only consider the shape of the glass, but not the shape of the glass and the volume of water.
They also do not yet understand reversibility. Irreversibility refers to a child’s inability to reverse the action steps in their mind, returning an object to its previous state. For example, pouring the water out of the glass back into the original cup would demonstrate the volume of the water. Still, children in the preoperational stage cannot understand this.
In contrast, children in the concrete operational stage can solve conservation problems. This is because children now have the following cognitive abilities:
- They understand reversibility (i.e., items can be returned to their original states).
- They can decenter (i.e., concentrate on multiple dimensions of items, rather than just one).
- They better understand identity (i.e., an item remains the same even if it looks different).
4. The Formal Operational Stage
At the age of 11, children enter the formal operational stage.
Abstract thought characterizes this stage. Children can think about abstract concepts and are not limited to a current time, person, or situation.
They can think about hypothetical situations and various possibilities, like situations that don’t exist yet, may never exist or might be unrealistic and unbelievable.
During this stage, children are capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which allows them to test hypotheses and draw conclusions from the results. Unlike younger children who haphazardly approach problems, children in the formal operational stage can apply their reasoning skills to more complicated issues systematically and logically.
Piaget’s Theory vs. Erikson’s
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is one of several theories about how children develop. Other contrasting approaches include Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, and, importantly for this post, Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development.
Differences
Unlike Piaget, who focused on cognitive development, Erikson emphasized healthy ego development (Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Healthy egos are developed when people resolve specific personality issues at set periods in their lives.
Specifically, each developmental stage is characterized by two conflicting personality traits, one positive and one negative. Successful resolution occurs when the positive trait is more emphasized than the other, resulting in the development of a virtue, which aids healthy explanation of subsequent stages.
For example, children between 12 and 18 months experience two feelings: trust and mistrust. If they resolve this crisis by balancing a healthy level of trust with suspicion, they develop the virtue of ‘hope.’
Overall, Erikson proposed eight personality crises, five of which occur before the age of 18:
- Essential trust versus mistrust ( 0–12/18 months)
- Autonomy versus shame and doubt (12/18 months–3 years)
- Initiative versus guilt (3–6 years)
- Industry versus inferiority (6 years–puberty)
- Identity versus identity confusion (puberty–young adulthood)
Not all of the developmental stages in Erikson’s theory correspond to the cognitive locations proposed by Piaget. For example, in Erikson’s theories, Piaget’s preoperational stages overlap with the second and third stages.
Similarities
Like Piaget, Erikson also emphasized that children’s development occurs through interacting with the external environment, but Erikson’s stages focus more on societal influences. Both Piaget and Erikson noted that children are active participants in their world and that development occurs in stages.
5 Important Concepts in Piaget’s Work
Several concepts are pivotal to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
Schemas and constructivism
Piaget argued that children learn about the world by interacting with it. This notion of gaining knowledge about the world is known as constructivism (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017).
Children construct schemas – or cognitive patterns- through their interactions – with how the world works (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). These schemas come about through organization, which is how categories are formed, organizing items together based on common characteristics.
According to Piaget, schemas can then be repeated and tested. For example, an infant has a schema about a rattle: shake it, and it makes a noise.
Importantly, schemas are not static and can be improved and updated with new information. When children learn further information, they do not disregard their previous schemas but build upon them. As a result, children’s cognitive development happens in stages as schemas are continuously updated with new information.
Adaptation
Adaptation describes how children update their current cognitive organizations and schemas with new information. Transformation takes place in two ways: assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation
Assimilation describes how children incorporate new information into existing schemas. For example, a child refers to dogs as ‘woofs.’ When they see a cat for the first time, they also refer to it as a ‘woof.’
Accommodation
Accommodation describes how children adapt their cognitive structures to match new information in the world. Continuing with the previous example, the child realizes that dogs and cats are different. The child updates their cognitive schema of the world and now refers to cats as ‘cats’ and dogs as ‘woofs.’
Equilibrium
Piaget’s background as a biologist influenced some of his work, notably the concept of ‘equilibrium,’ which resembles homeostasis (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). He posited that children’s cognitive processes are aimed toward equilibrium. When children learn new information at odds with their current schemas, they are in an undesirable state of disequilibrium.
To achieve equilibrium, children adapt their mental instructions by:
- Assimilating new information
- Accommodating new information by updating their cognitive schemas
By achieving stability, children learn further information.
Applications in Education (+3 Classroom Games)
One premise of constructivism is that knowledge about the world is gained and made sense through active participation. In other words, children are not passive recipients of knowledge. They’re not empty vessels waiting to be filled with wisdom. Instead, children’s learning is generated when they interact with the world (Yilmaz, 2008).
Some of the educational implications of this concept are that children cannot be expected to ‘just sit down and learn’ and those teaching methods that emphasize passive learning are discouraged.
An example of passive learning is reading a text without engaging, debating, or trying to connect it to real life. Instead, teaching rooted in Piaget’s theories emphasizes that children learn by interacting. Here are some examples:
- Physical interaction (e.g., seeing and touching insects when learning about them)
- Verbal exchange (e.g., talking about how new learning material connects to everyday experiences)
- Abstract interaction (e.g., thinking about new ideas, wrestling with challenging topics, imitating or acting out concepts/ideas/people)
Play Theory
Piaget (1951) argued that play is vital for children’s learning. Play is an example of assimilation, and imitation is an example of the accommodation.
He argued that there are three types of games that children can play based on their cognitive development:
- Practice games
- Symbolic games
- Games with rules
Practice games include repeating a particular set of actions for pure enjoyment. Although it might not seem like much, these practice games are significant for cognitive development.
Symbolic games involve make-believe scenarios and characters and appear during the preoperational stage.
Rule-based games appear later during the concrete operational stage. As well as abstract elements, these games also include rules and consequences for violating them.
Classroom games
It’s essential to tailor classroom games to match the overall development stage of the children.
For very young children in the sensorimotor stage, classroom games that rely on repetition and exciting results are best. In these games, the child repeatedly demonstrates a new skill or behavior that they have learned, reinforcing the behavior. Examples include splashing water, kicking leaves, shaking a rattle or toys, and playing with musical instruments.
For children in the preoperational stage, classroom games that involve imitation are helpful ways to teach new concepts. For example, children can learn about animals by pretending to be different animals (e.g., ‘roar like a lion,’ ‘jump like a frog’).
Children can also learn about social skills and interactions by acting out certain social situations, like pretending to be shopkeepers. Symbolic games are also used when children pretend one item is something else; for example, pretending that a stick is a lightsaber.
Rule-based games are more suitable for older children. These games can teach concepts like theory of mind because they encourage decentering (DeVries & Kamii, 1975).
For example, in ‘Simon Says,’ children learn to watch the teacher and know that they are out if they don’t follow the teacher. Typically, young children don’t understand rule-based games and are not good at counting or numbers.
This is why, for example, young children don’t understand that there is a penalty for one child in ‘Musical Chairs’ (DeVries & Kamii, 1975). Young children will enjoy the game if the sentence is removed and the chairs stay the same.
Another way that games can facilitate learning is by allowing children to make up the rules (DeVries & Kamii, 1975). New toys related to the concepts they’re learning about should be available when children engage in unstructured play without the teacher’s assistance.
Relevant Resources
At PositivePsychology.com, you’ll find many exercises, tasks, and activities you can use in the classroom. We’ve highlighted these two as examples.
The Nice Things tool helps teach children compassion. Children are encouraged to recall something’ nice.’ It could be something nice that happened to them or something nice that they did. Children are also encouraged to share these lovely things and the class.
Since this task requires that children have mental/abstract representations of other people and things, it is more applicable in the preoperational and concrete operational stages.
In the Shuffle game, children learn how to resolve conflict. In this game, the play area is marked out with a set of items. Each child starts at one thing, and an extra player is in the middle. At the start of the game, children have to move to another item.
However, if two children reach the same item simultaneously, they resolve this by playing Rock–Paper–Scissors. Since this is a rule-based game, it is best suited to children in the concrete operational stage; younger children will not understand the consequences of losing Rock–Paper–Scissors.
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A Take-Home Message
Knowing that their cognitive development limits children’s learning and understanding, what can you do the next time you explain something?
- Use simple, age-appropriate examples.
- Explain concepts simply, considering the limitations of each cognitive stage.
- Encourage discussion and creativity so that they create meaningful interactions and memories.
Most importantly, remember that children are not born as ‘mini-adults.’ They do not have adult cognitive abilities, and they do not have a lifetime of experiences for these abilities to develop.
Instead, they need to participate actively in their world and the people in it to learn. They must be exposed to new experiences and information for learning, and importantly, they must have the opportunities to make mistakes.
