Cognitive Development Theories of Early Childhood: Piaget', Bruner and Vygotsky

 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORIES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

We will discuss three cognitive theories here which include: Piaget cognitive theory, Bruner Learning theory on cognitive development and Vygotsky socio-cultural theory on cognitive development. 

PIAGET' COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY 

His full name is Jean Piaget born in Switzerland in the late 1800, as precocious student, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of 11 years old. He started intellectual exposure of children development when he worked as an Assistant to Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon on the standardization of their famous Intelligence Quotient (IQ). 

Much of his interest in this cognitive development theory of children was persuaded by observations of his nephew and his daughter. These observations gave him reinforcement in building hypotheses that children’s minds were not only smaller versions of adult’s minds. Before this theory, children were treated as smaller versions of adults. Piaget' was the first to identify the way children think different from adults. 

Moreover, he proposed intelligence is something that grows, develops through series of stages. Children are not thinking as quickly as adults think, he suggested qualitative and quantitative differences between their thoughts. 

He concluded based on his observations that children were not less intelligent than adults, they think differently. When Albert Enstein saw and read Piaget’s article, he says: “So simple only a genius could have thought of it”. 

THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET' COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

To understand better about thinks happen in cognitive development, it is important to first examine a few important ideas and concepts introduced by Piaget'. These include: schema, assimilation, accommodation and four stages of cognitive development as stated by Piaget' (1952). 

Schema

The word ‘schema’ as introduced by the Piaget means knowledge or categories of knowledge that helps us to interpret and understand, and the World. 

In Piaget’s view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. It also defined as a cohesive repeatable action, sequence, possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning. 

In more simpler term, Piaget' called the ‘schema’ the basic building block of intelligent behaviour, a way of organizing knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the World, including objects, actions and abstract. For example, a person may have a schema of buying a meal in a restaurant. This schema (knowledge) is a stored form of the pattern of behaviour which includes looking at the restaurant menu, how to order food, eating and paying the bill. This kind of schema is called seript. Whenever he is in a restaurant, he retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the present situation. Another example, babies have seeking reflect which is triggered by something on the boy's lips. A baby sucks a nipple or mother’s finger because the baby has a sucking (knowledge) schema. As new situation begin to manifest, new information are added to modify or change the previously existing schema. 

Assimilation & Accommodation 

This is a process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is called assimilation. Piaget', (1952) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to wind. This happens through:-

Assimilation: Using an existing schema to deal with new object or situation. 

Accommodation: This happens when existing schema (knowledge) does not work and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation. 

Equilibration: This is the force which moves developments along. Piaget' believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate but rather in leaps and bounds. 

Equilibrium  - normally occurs when a child schemas can deals with new information through assimilation. The equilibrium is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation). When the new information acquired, the process of assimilation with new schema will continue until when next time need to make an adjustment. 

Cherry, (2020), has narrated that Piaget' theory of cognitive development suggests that childhood moves through four(4) stages of mental development. His theory focuses only on understanding how children acquire knowledge but also on understanding the nature of intelligence (Bedakar, et al, 2017). 

Cherry, (2020) list and explained the stages as stated by Piaget' as follows:-

Sensorimotor Stage: Birth to 2 years;

Preoperational Stage: Ages 2 to 7 years;

Concrete Operational State: Ages 7 to 11 years;

Formal Operational Stage: Ages 12 and up.

Piaget' however, believed that children take an active role in the learning process action like little scientists when performing laboratory experiments by making observations and drawing inferences. 

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth – 2 years)

The major characteristics and developmental changes of this stage are:-

The children know their world via movements and sensations. 

The children learn more about this world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking and listening. 

The children learn that things exist and continue to exist even though they cannot be seen. 

The children understand their actions can cause things to happens in the World around them. 

What teachers and children care centres should take note, during this earliest stage, in facts and toddlers get knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulation of objects, all this stages, child’s entire experience occurs through basic reflexes, senses and motor responses. At this period, children goes through a period of traumatic growth and learning interact with their environment by continue making discoveries about, but how World works. 

Pre-Operational Stage (2 – 7 years)

The major characteristics and developmental change at this stage:-

Children will start to think symbolically and begin to use words and pictures that represent objects; 

Children tend to be egocentric, straggle to see things from other people perspective. 

Children will be getting better with language, thinking and tend to think about things in concrete ways.  

At this stage, children learn through pretending to play but will be struggling with logic and taking the point view of others. Children will also struggle with understanding the idea of consistency. For example; twenty Naira might be given to the children to choose between only one-twenty Naira or twenty Naira in five – five Naira children will choose four(4) pieces of five Naira even though they will buy same when spending in the shop. 

The Concrete Operational Stage (7 – 11years) 

Some of the major characteristics and developmental changes of this stage are:-

Logical thinking about concrete events begin to manifest; 

Understanding the concept of conservation, for example: one hundred Naira  is the same even if it’s in twenty Naira (5 pieces) or ten Naira (10 pieces) or only one hundred Naira. They are all the same, buy same things in the market, the only difference is quantity of papers. 

They will have more logical, organized and concrete in thinking. 

Inductive logic or reasoning from specific information to general principal example, shorter “the pendula swing faster than longer pendula” this can be used to derive or discover the relationship about period of oscillation in physics. 

While children at this stage still very concrete literal in their thinking, they will become more adopt in using logic. At this stage also, children become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. 

The Formal Operational Stage (12 and above)

Some of the major characteristics and developmental changes at this stage are:-

Adolescent or young adult begins abstract thinking and make reasons about hypothetical problems; 

Abstraction begin to manifest; 

Teenagers begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethnical, social and political matters requiring theoretical abstract reasoning;

At this stage, children begin deductive reasoning from general principle to specific information. 

For example, design experiment to verify Boyle’s law, Charle’s law and Mendel’s laws, etc. 

This is the final stage of Piaget’s cognitive development theory, it is important to note that Piaget did not view children’s intellectual development as quantitative process instead a quantitative change on how children think as they gradually develop through these four stages.

Bruner Learning Theory (1966) on Cognitive Development

According to Bruner, (1966), in McLeod (2019) says, the theory was concerned with how knowledge is represented and organized through different modes of thinking (or representation). 

Bruner in his research on cognitive development proposed three modes of representation:-

Enactive representation (action based);

Iconic representation (image based);

Symbolic representation (language based). 

In his constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new materials to follow a progression from enactive to Iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. 

McLeod added that Bruner’s work also suggests that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately. In sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theories. 

Brunner’s Three Models of Representation

According to Bruner, (1966), these modes of representation are the ways in which information or knowledge are stored and encoded. Rather than neat ages – related stages (like Piaget), the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they translate into each other. 

Enactive (0 – 1year)

This is the first kind of memory used within the first year of life (this corresponding with Piaget’s Sensorimotor stage). Thinking is based entirely on physical actions and infant by doing, rather than by internal representation (or thinking). This involves encoding the physical action based information and storing it in our memory. A baby can remember the action of playing toys like shaking by the use of muscles and later in many physical activities such as learning how to use games, bicycle and drive vehicles. Most adults perform some motor tasks like using sewing machine, operating a computer and switch on computer, that they would find it difficult to explain in Iconic (picture) or symbolic (word) form. 

Iconic (1 – 6 years)

In this stage, the information is stored as sensory images (icons), usually visual ones inform of pictures in the mind, in some cases it’s conscious but others said they never experience it. This might explain when and why we are learning a new subject, it’s helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany the verbal information. Thinking a human does is also based on the use of other mental images (Icons), such as hearing, swelling or touching. 

Symbolic (7 years onwards)

This is the last stage of Bruner’s theory were information is stored in the form of a code or symbol such as language. 

This corresponded to Piaget’s concrete operational stage. In symbolic stage, knowledge is primarily stored as words, mathematical symbols or symbol systems such as music, recitations of holy books and poems. The flexibility of the symbol makes it easy at this stage to be manipulated, ordered, classified etc. the users are not constrained by action or images. Language is vital for the increase ability to deal and solve abstract concepts. But Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the difficulties of dealing only with appearances, to provide a complex flexible cognition or knowledge understanding. The use of words can help the development of concepts and remove the difficulty the use of concepts developed and viewed infant as an intelligent and can actively solves problem from birth with intellectual abilities same to those mature adult can solve. 

Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory of Cognitive Development

Lev Vygotsky, (1934), become foundation of researches in cognitive development theories over the past decades especially on his work on socio-cultural theory. 

McLeod, (2020), pointed that Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory views human development as a socially mediated process in which children acquire their cultural values, beliefs and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society. Mcleod added that Vygotsky’s theory is comprised of concepts such as cultural-specific tools, private speech and the zone of proximal development. 

Vygotsky’s theory emphasis the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), as believed that community interaction plays a central role in the process of making meaning unlike Piaget’s idea that children’s development must necessarily precede their learning but Vygotsky argued that notion that learning is a necessary and universal specifically human psychological function (Vygotsky, 1978). 

Vygotsky believed social learning tends to come first and later development proceeds to the end, Vygotsky developed this theory same at the age of 38 years, his theories were incomplete even though some of his writings are still being translated from Russian.