IMPORTANT TERMS AND THEIR DEFINITION:
Schemes –this is an organized pattern of thought or action that one constructs to interpret some aspect of one’s experience; it is also known as cognitive structure. These are unobservable mental structures that underlie intelligence. It is a pattern of thought or action.
Two inborn intellectual processes:
1. Organization –the process by which children combine existing schemes into new and more complex intellectual schemes.
2. Adaptation –It is the process of adjusting to the demands of the environment.
Two Complimentary Activities of Adaptation:
1. Assimilation –the process by which children try to interpret experiences in terms of their existing models of the world, the schemes they already possess.
2. Accommodation –It is the process of modifying existing structures in order to account for new experiences.
Let me start to explain how we gain knowledge.
According to Piaget, cognition develops through the refinement and transformation of schemes. Given the definition of the scheme above, this is are anything that children think and do repeatedly. These thoughts and actions are the product of how they interpret their world. Schemes, in effect, are the representation of reality. This how children know the world.
Newborn infants were born with reflexes which they used to interpret their surroundings, and later as they grow those reflexes also develop and they can interpret things in a much deeper sense, which now develop their schemes.
Now, my question is, how do children construct and modify their intellectual schemes?
Piaget believes that all schemes, all forms of understanding, are created through the working of two inborn intellectual processes which are organization and adaptation.
I have posted the definition of those two above. But to further explain what are these two all about, let me give you a scenario about the organization, this is news from hellomagazine.com.
Following the Duke's death, Prince William and Kate also chose to share some previously-unseen photographs of their children with the royal couple, including one showing Prince George, then two, and Philip sat side-by-side on a carriage outside William and Kate's former home in Norfolk.
If we were to observe how Prince George was just staring at the crowd, smiling to the camera, sitting beside Prince Philip, having no idea that this could be their last time being caught of the camera together. But later in life, he will realize how important this photo will be.
An adaptation, on the other hand, is about adjusting to the demands of the environment, and according to Piaget, it occurs in two complementary activities. I have stated above what are those but for better understanding, I will be using my previous example the lizard thing.
So, the part where I thought when a lizard grows up it will become an alligator because I see so many similarities in them, regardless of their size, is assimilation. The only basis of my conclusion for that age was just my observation.
The time when I have been exposed to school and TV shows about animals and realize how ridiculous was my conclusion, that is accommodation.
REFERENCES: Shaffer, D.R. & Kipp, K. (2010). Developmental psychology: Child and Adolescence (8th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
