Piaget’s Theory:
The mechanisms of cognitive development – * Piaget believed that cognitive development was a result of two influences: maturation and the environment * Maturation refers to the effects of ageing * As children get older, certain mental operations become possible and at the same time, through interactions with the environment, their understanding of the world becomes more complex * Schema: * Self-constructed mental structures that can be behavioural (grasping an object) or cognitive (classifying objects) * Rather like individual computer programmes, schema are programmes that people construct for dealing with the world * When a child is born, it has few schema, but these are developed over time as a consequence of the child’s interaction with its environment * Assimilation: * A child initially tries to understand any form of new information in terms of their existing knowledge about the world * A baby who is given a new toy car to play with may grasp or suck that toy in the same way that they grasp and suck a rattle * Assimilation occurs when an existing schema (sucking) is used on a new object (car toy) * Assimilation therefore, involves the incorporation of new information into an existing schema * Accommodation: * This occurs when a child adapts existing schema in order to understand new information that doesn’t appear to fit * Learning to drive a manual car involves developing a convenient schema for working the three pedals * If you were to drive an automatic car instead, assimilation into your existing schema would not work, so accommodation must occur * Equilibration: * According to Piaget, cognitive development is driven by the need for equilibrium in cognitive structures * When a child is aware of shortcomings in existing thinking, they
