Cognitive Development and Intelligence: Piaget’s Theory
Key Concepts in Piaget’s Theory
1. Schema
A schema is a succession of actions that has an organization and is likely to be replicated in similar situations. Schemas change, shifting from action schemes to representative schemes or operations, leading to the configuration of adult intelligence.
2. Adaptation
Intelligence is an adaptation to the environment. Individual schemas develop through the union of two processes:
- Assimilation: Living things tend to assimilate the environment into their organization and their scheme of thought and action.
- Equilibration: Self-regulation of behavior.
3. Accommodation
Accommodation refers to the change in patterns and operations that occur during adaptive learning.
4. Organization
Thinking acts as an organized whole, as it is adapting to organize things, and things organized structure.
5. Stage
Thought develops in stages. Learning can accelerate or retard the process, but it requires a time of maturation because the newly acquired structure is based on the previous one.
Stages of Cognitive Development
1. Sensorimotor Intelligence (0 to 2 years)
The child understands the physical environment and social development through the use of sensory and motor systems. Characteristics:
- The newborn has only reflex actions (innate responses to the environmental situation).
- Reflexes are organized into habits, and perception becomes discriminative.
- Sensorimotor intelligence appears, which allows the child to manipulate objects.
2. Preoperational Intelligence (2 to 6-7 years)
Representative thought emerges. Representation begins with imitation, play, and drawing. Language development helps the child. Language allows the child to reconstruct their actions into a story and anticipate the future through verbal representation and dialogue with themselves.
3. Concrete Operations (7-11 years)
The child can perform operations with objects they perceive and manipulate. They learn the concepts of change and permanence. The discovery of relationships between objects by shape and color allows them to build more complex schemas.
4. Formal Operations (12-16 years)
Teenagers are able to discard immediate objects and reason abstractly about possibilities. Hypothetical thought appears, along with conditional reasoning, and the adolescent is able to deduce the consequences resulting from it.
Definition of Intelligence
The word intelligence comes from Latin: inter = between, and legere = to choose or read. Therefore, being intelligent is knowing how to choose the best alternative among several. In a broad sense, we want the ability to understand the mysteries of the world and life. In a narrow sense, the formation of ideas, judgments, and reasoning are essential acts of intelligence, as well as solving problems or creating new products.
Genetic-Environmental Differences in Intelligence
Geneticists
According to genetic theory, each individual is born with a completely general skills legacy, fixed and stable. Their conclusions are:
- Intellectual capacity is stable for the life of a person and is hereditary in more than 40% and less than 80%.
- Intelligence is the most important factor determining socioeconomic success, and there is a 15-point difference in IQ between whites and blacks.
- The social environment cannot improve the IQ of a person. Programs for minorities achieve more blacks and Amerindians in schools but increase the number of failures.
Environmentalists
Environmentalists believe that intelligence is not inherited but is a product of the heredity-environment interaction. Conclusions:
- Thanks to genetics, we know that we are born preprogrammed to learn, but all newborns develop inherited capabilities within a culture.
- Intelligence has no color, gender, age, or social class.
- There is a risk of blaming social failures on genes.
Intelligence Development
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) developed the most coherent theory on intellectual development. He conceived his theory of cognitive processes as a result of the active and innovative interaction of individuals with their physical and social environment. During the process of development, children construct their own cognitive structure through maturation, learning, and experience.