Jean piaget learning through play: Jean Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Play

How can we as adults help children to achieve their potential? How can we aid them to learn? Well first we need to understand how they learn, and the Swiss scientist and development psychologist, Jean Piaget, who died in 1980,  gave the world insights into the cognitive development of children identifying that what we as adults might just refer to as ‘play‘ is a systematic process of learning that has identifiable stages from birth to adulthood.

Theory of Play

Jean Piaget was quoted in his later years as saying “Our real problem is – what is the goal of education? Are we forming children that are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try developing creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life?” No doubt, Piaget would be at odds with those politicians who control formal education and prefer learning as a means of providing a skilled workforce.  He would definitely be in the side of the angels and see it as a lifelong process of discovery and joy.

His theory of play (also known as developmental stage theory) is based upon the idea that cognitive development and in particular the learning of language, requires appropriate environmental stimuli and experiences as the child matures. He suggested that there are two key processes, assimilation (of new knowledge and experience) and accommodation of those into the child’s existing internal organised patterns of thought and behaviour, known as schemas.

As child develops, it creates schemata for each of its experiences and the knowledge it has gained, which it stores for reference when it comes across the same or similar experiences. The new knowledge from these experiences are assimilated by the child and then accommodated into existing schemata often updating those schemata with the new experience.

It is the assembled schemas that people use when they interact with the world and people around them, and the richer a child’s learning (play) environment, Piaget theorised, the better the schemata and schemas will be.

Stages development

Piaget theorised four distinct stages of cognitive development and the establishment of schemas:

1. Sensorimotor, which lasts from a child’s birth until it is two. During this period children only have their five senses and movement through which to experience and learn about the world around them. Piaget sub-divided the sensorimotor stage into six sub-stages:
   1. Simple reflexes – lasting from birth to approximately one month and is illustrated by the baby showing the feeding reflex known as ‘rooting’ when its cheek is stroked, and sucking.
   2. First habits and primary circular reactions – these last until a baby is about four months old and consist of the child building patterns (schemata) for what they have experienced, which become habits, and trying to recreate what has already happened such as sucking a thumb which is an example of a primary circular reaction.
   3. Secondary circular reactions – last up until the child is approximately eight months old and often involve objects such as a bell.   If the child knocks the bell by accident and likes the ring it makes, the child will repeat knocking the bell to hear the noise which it discovered.
   4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions – lasting up to the child’s first birthday, where the child will do things by deliberately combining the schemata it has already learned to undertake tasks. In addition during this period, children learn ‘object permanence’, knowing that their toys etc are still around even if they are not in their direct field of view.
   5. Tertiary circular reactions – these last until about eighteen months of age, where the child will, of their own volition explore their world and the objects within, out of a developing curiosity.
   6. Internalisation of schemata – taking the last six months, where the knowledge and experience to date ‘takes residence’ in the child’s mind and can be readily drawn upon.

1. Preoperational stage, starting as the child starts to learn to speak from approximately two years up until they are about seven. The child will start to add pretend to their play, but such pretend is limited by the child’s experience and imagination. It is also limited by the egocentric nature of the child at this time. As with the first stage Piaget has sub-stages:
   1. Symbolic function sub-stage – from two to four years where children will, for example, use representations in drawings such as stick drawings of people, but still recognise the people they have drawn despite the lack of detail.
   2. Intuitive thought sub-stage – from four until seven years when as all parents know, the child will ask lots of questions. Not just ‘what is that?’, but particularly ‘why is that?’. Through this questioning the child is establishing reasoning and identifying that it already has significant levels of schema, which it needs to put in context with the world it is experiencing.

1. Concrete operational stage, which lasts until the child is eleven (pre-adolescence). During this period the child can logically assemble the schema and consciously save them for reference. They also normally cease to be as egocentric as they were when in the preoperational stage and they identify their own thoughts from those of others. They can classify objects and become more adept at dealing with mathematical problems.

1. Formal operational stage, this continues from eleven years to adulthood at eighteen (or later) and is when the young person uses their experiences and schema to develop the logical thinking and abstract reasoning they will use for the rest of their life. They also develop metacognition, the ability to think about and monitor their own thought processes.

Play is fundamental to cognitive development

Piaget’s theory is that together the four stages and their respective sub-stages of ‘play’ help the child to develop their cognition, understanding what actions they can take in different situations, the effects of their actions are likely to have and whether those actions are right for the circumstance.

Of course, by the very basis of the theory of play, the ages a child moves between stages is dependent upon getting the appropriate stimuli and environment at the right time. Piaget’s thoughts on the stages can guide teachers and parents to create the most appropriate ‘play’ for children at each stage or sub-stage to help them to progress to the next. However, because assimilation and accommodation take time, the period a child remains in each stage is controlled by their own cognitive development, not that of a teacher or parent.

Piaget on Play | ChildCareExchange.com

In many preschool programs and kindergartens, young children are engaged in filling out worksheets, reading from flash cards, or reciting numbers in rote fashion. But just because young children can do those things, in a normative sense, is not sufficient justification for requiring them to do so.
-Lilian G. Katz

Steven Webb, writing in Education Week (“Educating Children in the New Millennium: Child’s Play;” October 10, 2007; www.edweek.org) adds his voice to the ever-growing movement in support of play as a cornerstone of education:

“Jean Piaget. ..theorized that a child’s mental models, or cognitive structures, are based on the child’s activities; engagement makes meaning. Free, unstructured play is healthy and, in fact, essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones. Piaget’s theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds cognitive structures known as mental maps or schemes for understanding and responding to physical experiences.

“What is known as constructivism postulates that by reflecting on our experiences, we develop our own understanding of the world. Each of us generates our own mental models to make sense of our experiences. Learning, therefore, is the process of adjusting our mental models to accommodate new experiences. Constructivist teaching focuses on creating experiential and engaging activities for students…. This kind of learning also involves an element of play.

“….Many children today are not benefiting from a balance of intellect and imagination. As an American Academy of Pediatrics report published last January notes, changes in the family structure, the highly competitive college admissions process, and federal education policies have led to reduced time for recess and physical education in many school systems, a fact that has reduced free play and unscheduled time for children.

“Even worse, some school systems have reduced or eliminated curricular art programs that look like play to some people. Increasingly research in neuroscience suggests that the arts (and play) have a significant impact on students’ cognitive, social, and emotional development. From a Piagetian perspective we know this is true in theory. But recent developments in neuroimaging (brain-based research) have added another important dimension to our knowledge, by allowing scientists to observe how various processing systems in the brain collaborate. Not only do play, the arts, and physical education have inherent value ” new technology demonstrates a significant link between artistic and cognitive development. “

Play, Arts, and Brain Research on Sale

Exchange‘s series of curriculum books, Beginnings Books, offer practical advice from the field’s best thinkers on topics including play, brain research, music and movement, child development, math, science, and literacy. When you purchase the complete set of 7 Beginnings Books, you get a 20% discount!

Three, four, five – I’m going to play!

They say that the first forty years of childhood are the most difficult in a boy’s life, and this phrase is only partly a joke. Without proper training, a child can get stuck at any of the stages of cognitive development, which, of course, will not lead to anything good. Therefore, you need to be sensitive to the learning process and understand that it is not limited to the school bench, and that the game is one of the most effective developmental tools.

Man, like any other living being, begins to explore the world around him from the moment of his birth. Mental processes that are responsible for rational cognition are called cognitive. They include the higher functions of the brain: psychomotor coordination, orientation in space, memory, thinking, speech, and control of higher mental activity.

The development of cognitive functions occurs gradually and is determined by how the child receives information about the outside world, and how he can react to this information. Jean Piaget, the creator of the theory of cognitive development, identified four main stages of child development.

The stage of sensorimotor intelligence , which lasts from the birth of a child to 2 years, is responsible for the development of coordination of movements and perception. At this time, the child actively tries everything that he can reach, honing his movements and collecting information about the outside world.

Stage of pre-operational thinking lasts from 2 to 7 years. During this period of his life, the child masters speech, learns to correlate the symbol with the meaning that is embedded in it, understands the connection between the object and its constituent parts. The child learns to manipulate not only real physical objects, but also his own idea of ​​them, establishes cause-and-effect relationships. And it is at this age that the child begins to control his attention, learning not to be distracted from the main task in favor of a bright and attractive external stimulus.

The next stage is called the specific operations stage . It lasts from 7 to 11 years (by the way, the beginning of schooling is precisely this is due to this) and is responsible for the formation of logic and abstract thinking. Unlike children in the pre-operational thinking stage, children at this stage can already focus on several aspects of a problem at once. In addition, at this time, the child begins to understand that other people may have a point of view that differs from their own, although they are not yet able to understand this difference.

The fourth stage of development of cognitive functions is called the stage of formal operations and lasts from 11 to 14–15 years of age. It is she who is responsible for the development of abstract thinking, logical operations and the ability to calculate the result of one’s own actions. The child does not just solve certain problems through trial and error, he learns to plan his actions and look for the best solutions.

One of the easiest and most natural ways to develop cognitive functions is to play. Therefore, do not underestimate the time spent shaking a rattle over a baby’s head – at this time you not only lay the foundations of social ties between humanity and the future person, but also stimulate the formation of cognitive mechanisms.

And with the development of the child, games must become more complex in order to constantly nourish the development of the intellect. In fact, until the age of seven, the child is generally unable to learn in any other form. He is not yet able to concentrate his attention for a long time, he has not yet formed the ability of long-term planning, and for each of his actions the child is waiting for encouragement, especially if he was not interested in doing it. And the game, which in itself is a reward, allows you to keep the child’s attention for a very long time, if it is not too monotonous. In addition to the fact that the child learns something new and enjoys it, he also learns things that are difficult to understand: responsibility, awareness of the consequences of his actions, reversibility and irreversibility of processes.

Many people think that if a child is limited in games and forced to do “business”, then this will only benefit him. Like, it will be better to understand what discipline is, learn to obey and become more responsible. But such an approach is destructive for the formation of the child’s psyche!

By preventing a child from playing and forcing him to perform tasks imposed by you, you not only deprive him of sources of information and opportunities for development, you also kill any independence and craving for creativity. In order to grow up as psychologically healthy and complete individuals, children need to play.

And this equally applies to both children of five years old and children of twenty-five years old. Numerous experiments show that, contrary to Piaget’s opinion, cognitive development does not end at the age of 15, it lasts a lifetime. And very often the routine rhythm of life slows down this development or stops it altogether. A person performs the same operations day after day, bringing them to automatism. At the same time, he not only does not learn anything new, he also begins to perform the old learned actions thoughtlessly.

Cognitive decline is dangerous for many reasons. In addition to psychological disorders, such as burnout, anxiety and depression, they are also fraught with various kinds of dementia. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly feed your mind.

If you do not have the opportunity to travel, make art or learn foreign languages, then games, especially computer games, will be a good alternative. Unlike role-playing and board games, computer games are much more accessible. After all, if you are reading this article, then you have either a computer or a mobile gadget. And the Internet, by the middle of 2015, the number of users of which reached 3.3 billion people, not only is it almost everywhere, but also makes it possible to interact with a much larger number of people than real life.

It is important to understand that different types of play stimulate different cognitive functions. Role-playing games, in which you are asked to get used to the role of a character and follow the story, completing various side tasks, help you learn to make decisions, develop social interaction and empathy skills, and increase your reaction speed in critical situations. Shooters that require you to quickly analyze the situation and react with lightning speed improve memory, processing speed, foresight and cognitive abilities. This opinion was reached by researchers from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, analyzing the relationship between video games and brain function.

However, there is a serious danger in playing video games too much. First, the constant repetition of the same actions leads to their automation, reducing brain activity. Secondly, dependence on a computer game can lead to serious deviations. And thirdly, if you neglect the rules of computer hygiene, you can ruin your health.

If you spend a lot of time at the computer, do not forget to take breaks for 10-15 minutes every 1-2 hours, periodically stretch your legs to prevent blood stasis in the pelvic organs, choose orthopedic chairs and a high-quality monitor. Remember that the distance between the eyes and the monitor should be at least 50 centimeters, and the monitor should be at eye level. Simple gymnastics for the eyes will also become indispensable. To release tension from the eye muscles, blink quickly for a couple of minutes. After that, alternately focus your eyes on 2-4 objects at different distances.

Play! And the world will never cease to amaze and delight you, no matter how old you are.

cognitive and mental development of the child

Piaget’s theory was created by a Swiss psychologist who dealt with the cognitive functions and intellectual development of children. Jean Piaget developed his own periodization of the formation of the child’s psyche, the main criterion of which was intelligence. He was also one of the first to talk about the close relationship between thinking and speech: the better one is developed, the better the other functions. The central direction of intellectual development is the formation of cognitive functions, which, according to the author, determine the overall development of the child.

Contents

• What Jean Piaget found out
• Piaget’s stages of development
  • Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
  • Preoperative stage (2-7 years)
  • Stage of concrete operations (7-11 years) 905 formal operations (after 12 years)
• Basic concepts of Piaget’s theory
• How children’s thinking is related to speech
• My recommendations for parents
• Conclusion

What Jean Piaget found out

In short, Jean Piaget developed his theory of personality development by processing intelligence tests of people of different ages. Once I noticed that some children make the same mistakes in them that are not characteristic of the older generation. This led him to believe that the cognitive processes and ways of thinking in children are different from those of adults. After some time, he developed a theory according to which people at the same stage of development have similar general forms of cognitive and cognitive abilities.

Piaget’s stages of development

Jean Piaget developed his theory of intellectual development, which includes 4 stages.

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)

At the first stage, according to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, two spheres develop to a greater extent: sensory and motor. At this age, babies begin to understand at a primitive level the relationship between their actions and their consequences. Children explore the world around them through motor skills and sensory organs, gradually expanding the range of ideas about objects and objects of existing reality.

The kid starts with simple actions, but gradually complicates them, by trial and error forming concepts about himself and objects around him. This stage involves only actions with specific objects, a child of this age is completely unable to perceive symbols. During this period, the baby gradually develops the organization of motor and perceptual interactions with objects and objects surrounding him. By the end of the stage, a coherent system of sensorimotor actions is formed in relation to the objective environment.

The sensorimotor stage of development in a child can be clearly seen, for example, when a child of 1-2 years old plays with a sorter. He assembles it entirely by trial and error, chaotically trying to insert the figure into different slots until he finds the right one.

Preoperative stage (2-7 years)

The child gradually begins to use symbols and speech. He has the opportunity to present and describe images and objects with the help of words. But, according to the cognitive theory of development, these should be visible, concrete objects with which you can actually perform any actions. The child is not yet fully aware of the reversibility and irreversibility of certain processes and phenomena. For example, in order to find out whether it is possible to connect a piece of chalk broken in half, he needs to do the operation itself: break and see, try to connect. Another example is the collection of the pyramid. If in the sensory-motor stage the baby tries to put the rings in order by trial and error, then in the preoperative period he applies them to each other to compare the size.

According to the constructivist theory of Jean Piaget, this period is also characterized by egocentrism, a phenomenon in which a child cannot mentally imagine an object from the point of view of another person. For example, when playing hide and seek, the baby simply tightly closes his face with his hands or hides only his head under the table. He does this not because he wants to amuse adults, but because his thinking is arranged differently: he is really sure that if he does not see anything, then the same thing happens to others at that moment.

At this age, children are able to classify objects according to certain characteristics and solve specific problems related to actual relationships between people. But it is difficult for them to express their thoughts in the form of words.

Stage of specific operations (7-11 years old)

A certain logic and consistency appears in the child’s thinking. At the same time, it remains quite rigid, that is, not flexible enough. The child still cannot think of several ways to solve the problem at once, does not understand abstract concepts and hypothetical assumptions. The kid can already mentally imagine some simple processes. For example, he does not need to break the chalk in order to understand that it will no longer be possible to connect the two halves back: he can imagine it in his mind. Another example is a pyramid, the size of the rings of which the child already compares mentally, without resorting to actually putting them together.

Formal operations stage (after 12 years)

This is a form of thinking that remains with a person until the end of life. From the age of 12, the child gradually acquires the flexibility of thinking, gets less and less confused in the causes and consequences of occurring phenomena, begins to think logically, coherently and consistently. There is an ability to think abstractly and hypothetically, considering the existing reality as just one of the options for what could be in theory. A person thinks in sentences, establishes formal relations between them. Learns to systematically identify the variables that are essential to solving the problem, and sequentially sort through all possible combinations of them.

The age limits of the stages, according to the theory of mental development of J. Piaget, may slightly shift depending on the individual psychological characteristics of the child, but for the formation of an adult type of thinking, it is necessary to go through all the stages of his development.

Basic concepts of Piaget’s theory

• Scheme of action or thinking. According to the psychological theory of intelligence by J. Piaget, these are the categories of knowledge that determine the understanding and interpretation of the world by a person. The scheme includes knowledge and the process of obtaining it. When receiving a new experience, the child either acts and thinks according to the scheme already existing in his mind, or modifies it, or replaces it with a qualitatively different one.
• Assimilation. It is the process of incorporating new knowledge into existing schemas. For example, a child knows that there is a dragonfly: an elongated body, fast wings, it can fly. When he sees a helicopter for the first time, he will exclaim: “Mom, look, a dragonfly!”. Because a helicopter, by all indications for a child, fits into this category: long, fast, flies. That is, he built a new concept into his already existing scheme of thinking.
• Accommodation. This is the process of changing or replacing an existing scheme to fit new conditions. For example, a child can hold a spoon, but in a fist. Adults begin to demand and teach him to do it correctly, putting cutlery between his fingers. The kid gradually has to completely change his scheme of actions: the involved muscles and hand movements change, only the goal remains stable – to bring the spoon to his mouth.
• Balancing. Jean Piaget focused on the fact that a healthy balance between the processes of assimilation and accommodation should be maintained in the child’s psyche, since with the predominance of the first, the child’s behavior and thinking becomes rigid, and the second becomes inconsistent and disorganized. The successful intellectual development of the child at all stages of the formation of thinking depends on the balance of assimilation and accommodation.

How children’s thinking is related to speech

There is a direct relationship between the child’s thinking and speech. In order to learn how to operate with words, sentences and abstract concepts, it is necessary to master speech. The faster and more actively speech develops, the better thinking develops. Feedback also takes place: the better developed thinking, the more coherent, logically built and correct speech.

My recommendations for parents

1. When building a child development plan, pay attention to his age and work in accordance with it. For example, there is no point in teaching a two-year-old to read: he is not able to perceive symbols, but is ready to work only with specific examples.
2. At each stage of development, it is worth presenting to the child as much as possible a range of activities appropriate for their age. The kid – different sorters, pyramids, large puzzle inserts, so that he can fully work out his trial and error methodology. A preschooler can choose more complex toys of this type, as well as help him overcome egocentrism by demonstrating different points of view.