Topics in

Cognitive Development
Volume I
Equilibration: Theory, Research,
and Application
 Topics in Cognitive Development
Marilyn H. Appel, Editor-in-chief
Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Volume 1 EQUILIBRATION: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATION

Edited by
Marilyn H. Appel, Medical College of Pennsylvania
Lois S. Goldberg, Glassboro State College

A Continuation Order Plan is available for tbis series. A continuation order will bring
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 A Publication of the Jean Piaget Society

Topics in
Cognitive Development
Volume 1
Equilibration: Theory, Research,
and Application
Edited by
Marilyn H. Appel
Medical College of Penngylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

and

Lois S. Goldberg
Glassboro State College
Glassboro, New Jersey

Plenum Press . New York and London

 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Equilibration.
(Topics in cognitive development; v. 1)
"A publication of the Jean Piaget Society."
The majority of the papers in this collection represent the combined proceedings of the
fust and second annual symposia of the Society, 1971 and 1972, with revisions and exten-
sions of some papers.
Includes index.
1. Cognition in children-Congresses. 2. Piaget, Jean, 1896- -Congresses. I. Appel,
Marilyn H. II. Goldberg, Lois S. III. Jean Piaget Society. IV. Series. [DNLM: 1. Child
psychology-Congresses. 2. Child development-Congresses. 3. Cognition-Congresses. 4.
Psychology, Educational-Congresses. W1 T0539LI v. 1 1971-72 [WS105 E66 1971-72]
BF723.C5E64 155.4'13 77-5010
ISBN-13:978-1-4613-4177-2 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4613-4175-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-4175-8

© 1977 Plenum Press, New York

SoftCover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977

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 Contributors

Marilyn H. Appel Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania
Hans Furth Catholic University, Washington, D. C.
Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Henry Gleitman University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania
Illa R. Gleitman University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania
J. McVicker Hunt University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
Barbel Inhelder University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Jonas Langer University of California, Berkeley, California
Celia Stendler Lavatelli Late of the University of Illinois, Urbana,
Dlinois
Lois P. Macomber Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jean Piaget University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Barbara Z. Presseisen Research for Better Schools, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
Elizabeth F. Shipley University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania
Beth Stephens University of Texas, Richardson, Texas
Ina C. Uzgiris Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts

v
 Preface

Professor Piaget, who at this writing is in his eightieth year, has dedicated his life
to the exploration and explanation of the genesis of knowledge. The Piagetian
model rests on both a philosophical and a biological foundation, with psychol-
ogy as the link between these two disciplines.
This volume, the first in a series that will record the official Symposium
Proceedings of the Jean Piaget Society, is unique in that it encompasses theoreti-
cal, empirical, and applied aspects of Piaget's epistemology. The majority of
papers in this collection represent the combined proceedings of the first and
second annual symposia of the society. Professor Piaget's address, presented at
the First Annual Symposium of the Jean Piaget Society in May, 1971, highlights
the papers within this volume. This paper is outstanding in the clarity with
which the concept of equilibration is explicated.
It is the intention of the society, through this volume and subsequent ones,
to extend the monumental body of knowledge provided by Piaget. The editors
hope to implement transmission of the concepts within these selected papers so
that they may serve as an impetus for future investigations. We are indebted to
those who provided us with the invaluable editorial and secretarial assistance
necessary for such an undertaking.
In addition to Professor Piaget's paper, those by Barbel Inhelder, Hans
Furth, and Jeanette Gallagher were presented at the First Annual Symposium of
the Society. These were subsequently edited by Calvin Nodine, Rhymes Hum-
phreys, and Jeanette Gallagher and published by the Society in 1972. Revisions
and extensions of the original papers are found in the present publication.

Lois S. Goldberg
Marilyn H. Appel

vii
 Contents

Introduction ................................................ xi

PART I: THEORY

1. Problems of Equilibration 3
Jean Piaget

2. Comments on the Problems of Equilibration .................... 1S

Hans Furth

3. Piaget's Concept of Equilibration:

Biological, Logical, and Cybernetic Roots ...................... 21
Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

4. Sequential Order and Plasticity in Early Psychological Development .. 33

J. Mc Vicker Hunt

PART II: RESEARCH

S. Information-Processing Tendencies in Recent Experiments

in Cognitive Learning ...................................... S3
BiirbelInhelder

6. Some Observations on Early Cognitive Development .............. 65

Ina C. Uzgiris
ix
x Contents

7. Cognitive Development During and After the Preconceptual Period ... 77

Jonas Langer

8. The Emergence of the Child as Grammarian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 91

Lila R. Gleitman, Henry Gleitman, and Elizabeth F. Shipley

9. Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 119

Celia Stendler Lavatelli

10. Application of Piagetian Theory to Remediation of Reasoning ...... 139

Beth Stephens

PART III: APPLICATION

11. Some Implications of Jean Piaget'sTheory for the Education

of Young Children ........................................ 151
Lois P. Macomber

12. Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies Curriculum ............ 165

Barbara Z. Presseisen

13. The Application of Piagetian Learning Theory to

a Science Curriculum Project ................................ 183
Marilyn H. Appel

Index ............................. , ........................ 199

 Introduction

The four papers that comprise the first section of this collection are devoted to
theoretical considerations within cognitive development. Sequentially, the first
three papers are intended to provide a logical structure within which an analysis
of the Piagetian concept of equilibration is undertaken. Piaget's own presenta-
tion, "Problems of Equilibration," is therefore followed by Hans Furth's com-
mentary, which was given immediately following Piaget's address. Gallagher's
explication of the concept of equilibration follows, exploring the biological,
logical, and cybernetic antecedents of this construct. The final paper within the
first section, by J. McVicker Hunt, considers the implications of Piaget's epi-
genetic view of intelligence as it relates to sensorimotor development.
In Piaget's paper, "Problems of Equilibration," the three classical factors
necessary for cognitive development are delineated. In essence, these factors are
the physical environment; innateness or hereditary programming; and social
influences. It is Piaget's thesis that in addition a fourth factor, equilibration,
must be considered in order to provide for coordination between and among the
three classical factors, as well as to suggest the notion of the self-regulations that
are necessary at all levels of cognition. Three types of equilibration are sug-
gested: the relationship between assimilation and accommodation; the coordina-
tion or conflict among subsystems; and the differentiation and integration of
part to whole knowledge.
Furth, in reacting to Piaget's discussion of equilibration, raises three ques-
tions. The first asks if, indeed, the concept of equilibration is not more closely
related to the classical factor of maturation and hereditary programming than it
is to physical or social experience. The second question involves Piaget's use of
the term equilibration. Furth asks for clarification, noting that equilibration
refers not only to a process but also to a state. The final question touches upon
the issue of whether or not there is an affective or humanistic aspect in
xi
xii Introduction

intelligence and, further, if this humanistic aspect carries with it some motiva-
tional qualities. A brief reply by Piaget then follows Furth's commentary.
Gallagher's paper, "Piaget's Concept of Equilibration: Biological, Logical and
Cybernetic Roots," presents an intensive examination of the concept of equili-
bration. Her paper suggests that Piaget's view of this concept is drawn largely
from three interrelated sources. One major source discussed is the influence of
the "neobiologists," such as Waddington. Piaget is said to draw analogies be-
tween biological and cognitive aspects of self-regulatory mechanisms and Wad-
dington's concepts of "competence," "induction," and "homeorhesis." A sec-
ond source explored is the influence of the concept of logical necessity, which is
said to be reached through a series of progressive equilibrations, explaining not
only the transitions from stage but also the transitions between substages. The
final source of influence, cybernetics, suggests that through mechanisms such as
feedback or precorrection, equilibration can be seen as a stable exchange system
that controls the relationship between the organism and his environment.
Finally, in "Sequential Order and Plasticity in Early Psychological Develop-
ment," J. McVicker Hunt explores some issues that he suggests are raised by
Piaget's epigenetic view of intelligence. The first issue concerns the selection of
criteria in the determining of levels, structures within stages, and the stages
themselves. The process for defming the Hunt-Uzgiris scales of sensorimotor
development that follows is illustrative of the concern for the determination of
levels or landmarks within stages. The second issue examines ordering within
stages, necessitating validation of the sequential organization of intellectual
development hypothesized by Piaget. The third issue raised is that of the nature
of transition or transformation within or between stages. Hunt suggests that
these transitions are implied by changes in behavioral organization based upon
coordination of systems, motivational qualities, and generalizations. The final
issue relates to the processes or causes that underly these transitions and is
investigated by means of the assessment of object construction in five samples
under varying learning conditions. The reported results suggest that environ-
mental circumstances substantially influence the rate of sensorimotor develop-
ment.
Piagetian-inspired research has proliferated both within the United States
and abroad. Outstanding among contributors to the extant body of research has
been Barbel Inhelder, Piaget's long-time collaborator. Her paper opens the
second section, which presents five research papers notable for their investiga-
tion of a wide variety of topics with varying populations, in diverse geographic
locations.
With "Information-Processing Tendencies in Recent Experiments in Cogni-
tive Learning," Inhelder summarizes research fmdings that attack the problem of
examining transitions between substages through conservation and class inclu-
sion experiments. Four successive steps are labeled: juxtaposition, opposition,
compromise, and integration. Inhelder suggests that these results demonstrate
Introduction xiii

that development cannot be considered as a branching process of refmed

differentiations, but rather as the interaction of different subsystems. These
interactions, as they lead to conflict situations, are said to require reciprocal
assimilation between varying subsystems in order to approach a higher order of
structuration.
Using the Hunt-Uzgiris scales, Uzgiris longitudinally examines infant devel-
opment within the sensorimotor period for consistency of structural organiza-
tion across various domains. General concepts extracted from these results are
reported in her paper, "Some Observations on Early Cognitive Development."
Three levels of organization within the sensorimotor stage are delineated: the
utilization of subcomponents in actions; the regulation or modification of
actions by outcomes; and the implicit or nonovert adaptation of actions equiva-
lent to thought. Uzgiris cautions that these fmdings are not meant to be
conclusive. It is therefore suggested that these structurations be examined in
future investigations under varying circumstances.
Jonas Langer has approached Piaget's equilibration thesis through a wide
variety of research hypotheses. In "Cognitive Development During and After the
Preconceptual Period," Langer describes ongoing research that investigates the
development of transductive preoperations during the representational stage,
from approximately 2-5 years, and its manifestations in physical, social, and
personal pre concepts. Children were questioned regarding a series of four family
portraits, spanning approximately 15 years, and were asked to make judgments
on the rehitions between pictures as well as between the individuals portrayed.
Langer also presents some considerations of developmental ftliations between
operative and figurative thought along with some comments on the question of
the interactive aspects of cognitive development.
In "The Emergence of the Child as Grammarian," Gleitman, Gleitman, and
Shipley present demonstrations of some young children's awareness of syntactic
and semantic properties of language. Rudiments of such "metalinguistic" func-
tioning are shown in 2-year-olds, who gave judgments of grammaticalness in a
role-modeling situation. The growth of these abilities is documented for a group
of 5- to 8-year-old children who were asked explicitly to give judgments of
deviant sentences. Adultlike behavior in these talented subjects was found to
emerge in the period from 5 to 8 years. Possible relations of metalinguistic
functioning to other "metacognitive" processes are suggested.
After a brief review of the structuralist position, Lavatelli reports in "Envi-
ronment, Experience, and Equilibration" her findings based on an examination
of logical development among the Houk-Lo boat people of Hong Kong. She
suggests that the rate of logical development is not a function of socioeconomic
status itself but of the opportunities within an environment that provide the
interactions necessary for logicomathematical thought. Teaching techniques and
specific activities that foster the transition to logical thinking are presented for
incorporation within the preschool curriculum.
xiv Introduction

Attempting to integrate Piagetian research into classroom practices, which is

essentially what Lavatelli has done in the previous paper, Stephens, in her paper
"Application of Piagetian Theory to Remediation of Reasoning," suggests three
guidelines: present activities that are motivating but not frustrating at the child's
level of development; emphasize experiences that are activity-oriented; and
provide a teacher with a knowledge of Piagetian theory and the ability to assess
reasoning as defmed by the Geneva school. With these guidelines, two remedia-
tion projects were undertaken, one with congenitally blind subjects and the
other with mentally retarded, socially maladjusted subjects. With factors deter-
mined in previous research, a modular approach that provides sequential activi-
ties based on a common factor or basic cognitive ability was developed. The
modules include systems and variables, reproductory imagery, and cooking. The
goal of this research was to utilize these modular systems as an intervention
technique for a period of at least 15 months in order to determine if a Significant
change in cognitive development was effected.
Implications derived from the Piagetian model and its related research are
applied to curricula within the three papers that comprise the fmal section. Both
Barbara Presseisen and Marilyn Appel present innovative Piagetian-based cur-
ricula in the areas of social studies and science, respectively. Lois Macomber's
paper, which opens this section, is not related to a particular curricular area but
instead offers a detailed description of the preoperational child's thought and its
implications for education.
Macomber's paper, entitled "Some Implications of Jean Piaget's Theory for
the Education of Young Children," delineates four modes of thinking that
characterize children in the preoperational stage. They are transductive thought.
egocentnc thought, magical thought, and animistic thought. She discusses the
inability to conserve, to use reversibility of thought, and to display perceptual
constancy during this prelogical stage of development. Changes in curriculum
and instruction consistent with an understanding of the preoperational child are
proposed. Suggestions for modification of the physical classroom and its equip-
ment are made, along with a redefmition of the teacher's role in such an
educational environment.
Presseisen's paper, entitled "Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies
Curriculum," suggests that the application of Piaget's theory to curriculum can
be seen through an examination of the changes in the development of curricu-
lum. Key elements in curriculum design are suggested: content, process,
instructional design, management plan, and evaluation. Presseisen suggests that
these elements must be taken into account if Piaget's theory is to be examined
more effectively as a basis for curriculum development in the social sciences. She
continues with a consideration of Piaget's thoughts on social education. Finally,
she describes an actual social studies program under development that applies
Piaget's theory to its curricular organization. Included is a description of how
Introduction xv

the application has been made, what constraints were placed upon the testing of
the program, and what were some tentative results of the testing.
In her paper, "The Application of Piagetian Learning Theory to a Science
Curriculum Project," Appel describes an individualized program that has evolved
from the process of curriculum development in science over the last SO years.
Three stages in science curriculum development are discussed: fact-centered
(Stage I); process-structure focus (Stage II); and individualized and inter-
disciplinary (Stage III). Appel goes on to describe and compare the three major
programs that have had the greatest impact on science teaching in the past 15
years. These include the Elementary Science Study (ESS), Science-A Process
Approach (SAPA), and the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS). A
program entitled "Personalized Approach to Science Education" (PASE) is
discussed in terms of a theoretical model of curriculum design and its relation-
ship to the Piagetian model of development and learning.
 PART!:

THEORY
 CHAPTER 1

Problems of Equilibration *
Jean Piaget
University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

The title "Equilibration" refers to one factor that I think is essential in cognitive
development. In order to understand the role of this factor, we must relate it to
the classical factors that have always been understood to be pertinent in
cognitive development. There are three such classical factors: the influences of
the physical environment, the external experience of objects; innateness, the
hereditary program; and social transmission, the effects of social influences. It is
clear that all three are important in cognitive development. I will begin by
discussing them separately. But as we discuss them, I think we will see that no
one of the three is sufficient in itself. Each one of them implies a fundamental
factor of equilibration, upon which I shall place special emphasis.
I will start by discussing the role of physical experience. It is clear that this is
indispensable in cognitive development. There can be no development without
contact with phYSical objects, that is, contact with the physical environment. In
terms of classical empiricism, the role of acquired experience simply amounts to
perceptions that we draw from objects and associations among perceptions. As I
see it, there never can be pure association in the classical sense in which the
empiricists mean it. The manner of linkage that always intervenes in the
whirlpool of associations is in reality an assimilation in the biological sense of the
term, an integration of external data into the structures of the subject.
Any action on the part of a subject gives rise to schemes of assimilation.
That is, an object can be taken into certain schemes through the actions that are
carried out on it; each of these schemes of assimilation goes hand in hand and
with an aspect of accommodation of the schemes to the situation. Thus, when a
subject takes cognizance of or relates to an object, there is a pair of processes

*Translation by Eleanor Duckworth

3
4 Jean Piaget

going on. It is not just straight association. There is a bipolarity, in which the sub-
ject is assimilating the object into his schemes and at the same time accommodating
his schemes to the special characteristics of the object. And in this bipolarity and
sharing of processes, there is already a factor of equilibration between assimila-
tion and accommodation.
Assimilation is a form of integration. It presupposes an instrument by which
the data can be assimilated into the structures of the subject. An excellent
example of assimilation as integration is the notion of horizontality of the level
of water. Children see water in various forms every day. They see water in glasses
from which they drink; they see water in bottles that they tip. Moreover, they
see water running in bathtubs and lakes and rivers. In all cases, the water is
horizontal. So the notion that water is horizontal should be a basic permanent
notion. It even seems to assert itself in a more primitive manner as the child's
own body is bound to positions where horizontality or verticality intervene. He
can tell whether he is standing up or whether he is lying down; he is aware of the
sensoritonic attitudes. You would expect this postural awareness to give him the
understanding necessary to realize that water is always horizontal.
In some research we did many years ago, we asked the child to predict what
would happen to the water inside a bottle if we tipped it. The child was unable
to see the water inside the bottle becauseit was covered. He was asked to draw a
picture of the water inside the bottle when it was tipped. The average age at
which children could answer this correctly and draw a horizontal line was about
9 years of age. I say average age because, of course, some children advance more
rapidly than others. Moreover, the popUlations we studied were from an im-
poverished area of Geneva, and it is possible that in more highly civilized regions
the age is younger. However, in Geneva the average child is 9-10 years of age
before he can predict where the water will be in the covered container when it is
tipped. Before that, he always draws the line parallel to the bottom of the
bottle as it is when the bottle is upright. Then there are various intermediary
stages between drawing a parallel and drawing a horizontal line. This seems to be
quite strong evidence of the fact that seeing is not enough, because children have
been seeing this phenomenon all their lives. But within the experiment, we even
gave the children a chance to see by taking the cover off the bottle. If the child
had drawn the water parallel to the bottom of the bottle, when we uncovered
and tipped the bottle and the child compared the bottle with his drawing, he
would say, "Yes, that's just the way I drew it. Just like my drawing." He doesn't
even seem to be able to see that the line is horizontal.
Why is the child unable to see that the line of water is horizontal? The
reason for this is that he does not possess the necessary instruments of assimila-
tion. He hasn't yet developed the system of coordinates that will enable him to
put the water into a frame of reference with points outside the bottle, such as
the table top or the floor. As adults, we operate with a coordinate spatial system
of verticality and horizontality at all times. The child doesn't have the frame-
work that enables him to make the extrafigural comparison needed to go outside
Problems of Equilibration 5

the framework of the bottle. He reasons only by an intrafigural frame of

reference until about the age of 9, when these systems of coordinates are being
built. He remains inside the framework of the bottle; his only points of
reference are the base of the bottle, which results in his drawing the water
parallel to the base or sometimes to the corners of the bottle. He may draw a
line from one corner to another that is slightly tipped, but it is still not
considered horizontal. His frame of reference remains the bottle itself.
This seems to me a very striking example of the complexity of the act of
assimilation, which always supposes instruments of integration. A well-developed
structure within the subject is needed in order for him to take in the data that
are outside. Assimilation is clearly not a matter of passively registering what is
going on around us. This leads to the critical examination of the famous
stimulus-response scheme, the classical model of behaviorism.
It is true, of course, that stimuli give rise to responses. However, this only
raises much more basic, more preliminary questions. Why does a given stimulus
give rise to a certain response? When is an organism sensitive to a particular
stimulus? The very same organism may at one time not be sensitive to a
particular stimulus and not give any response to it and then later be sensitive to
the stimulus and respond to certain stimuli, whereas other organisms may not.
Therefore, the fundamental question is: What makes an organism respond to a
certain stimulus?
The organism is sensitive to a given stimulus only when it possesses a certain
competence. I am borrowing this word from embryology in the sense in which
Waddington has used it. He has referred to the influence of an inductor.
Waddington has shown that an inductor that modifies the structure of the
embryo does not act in the same way at all levels of development. If the
inductor is present before the embryo has the competence to respond to it, the
inductor has no effect at all; thus, it does not modify the structure. The embryo
must be at a point of being competent to respond to the inductor before the
inductor can have its effect.
The phenomenon is the same in cognition. Stimulus-response is not a
one-way road. a unilateral scheme. A subject is sensitive to a stimulus only when
he possesses a scheme that permits the capacity for response, and this capacity for
response supposes a scheme of assimilation. We again have to create an equi-
librium between assimilation, on the one hand, and accommodation to a given or
an external stimulus, on the other hand. The stimulus-response scheme must be
understood as reciprocal. The stimulus unleashes the response, and the possi-
bility of the response is necessary for the sensitivity to the stimulus. The
relationship can also be described as circular, which again poses the problem of
equilibrium, an equilibrium between external information serving as the stimulus
and the subject's schemes or the internal structure of his activities.
I would like to make two fmal points concerning the role of the physical
environment. I will first discuss the development of the notion of conservation.
As you know, if one transforms a ball of clay into a sausage shape, the young
6 JeanPiaget

child will tell you that there is more clay in the sausage than in the ball because
the sausage is longer. Second, even though no clay was added and no clay was
taken away, the child believes that the sausage shape and the ball will weigh
differently. The child will also say that one would displace more water in a vessel
than the other, indicating different volumes in the ball and the sausage shapes.
These notions of conservation are acquired in a certain order: first, the conserva-
tion of the substance, that is the quantity of material; next, with quite a notable
time-lag, the conservation of weight; fmally, the conservation of volume, in the
sense one can evaluate volume by the displacement of the level of water. What
strikes me as very interesting is that the conservation of the amount of clay-the
conservation of the substance-is the first concept of conservation that a child
attains. But it is clear that conservation of substance-that is, the amount of
clay-is not observable. The child can observe the size of the clay, perceive its
volume, and lift it to sense its weight, yet he believes they have changed. And
yet somehow he believes that the amount of clay has remained the same even
though it is not observable or clearly measurable.
It is, it seems to me, very important that conservation of substance can only
be the product of reasoning. It is not a product of perception. The child has
simply become aware that something must be conserved when things are trans-
fonned in order to make the process of rational thought at all possible. So the
scheme of the conservation of the amount of clay imposes itself on the child for
rational rather than for perceptual reasons.
Finally, I would like to distinguish between two kinds or experience in
connection with the factor of external experience. Classical empiricists assume
there is only physical experience. In physical experience, infonnation is drawn
from the objects themselves. For example, you can have various objects and see
that they differ in weight. But there is a different kind of experience that plays a
necessary role at the preoperational level. I will call this logicomathematical
experience. In logicomathematical experience, the information is drawn not
from the object but from the subject's actions and from the subject's coordina-
tion of his own actions, that is, the operations that the subject effects on the
objects.
There is a very banal example of logicomathematical experience that I have
often quoted. One of my friends who is a great mathematician described to me
an experience that he had as a child. While counting some pebbles, he arranged
them in a line, counted them from left to right, and found that there were ten.
He then decided to count them from right to left and found there were still ten.
He was surprised and delighted, so he changed the shape again. He put them in a
circle, counted around the circle, and found there were still ten. With mounting
enthusiasm, he counted around from the other direction and there were still ten.
It was a great intellectual experience for him. He had discovered that the sum
ten is independent of the order of counting. But unlike their weight, neither the
sum nor the order is a property of the pebbles. The sum and the order come
Problems of Equilibration 7

from the actions of the subject himself. It was he who introduced the order and
it was he who did the counting. So 10gicomathematical experience is experience
in which the information comes from the subject's own actions and from the
coordinations among his actions. This coordination of actions naturally poses a
problem of equilibrium much more than a problem of action from external
experience.
Finally, as for the role of experience, it is clear that there is an undeniable
role played by experience in cognitive development; however, the influence of
experience has not resulted in a conception of knowledge as a simple copy of
outside reality. In external experience, knowled,ge is always the product of the
interaction between assimilation and accommodation, that is, an equilibrium
between the subject and the objects on which the knowledge rests.
The second factor I would like to discuss is that of the innateness or
hereditary programming of development. It is, of course, obvious that the factor
of innateness plays as fundamental a role as the maturation of the nervous
system and is a condition of cognitive development. But it is a condition that
only opens up possibilities. The problem is how these possibilities are realized,
that is, how they are actualized. In sensorimotor development, it is easier to see
how hereditary transmissions playa central role. For instance, at the sensori-
motor level, the coordination between grasping and vision seems to be clearly
the result of the myelinization of certain new nerve paths in the pyramidal tract, as
physiologists have shown. This myelinization seems to be the result of
hereditary programming. However, in the domain of higher, representative, and
especially operational cognitive structures, these structures are not innate. Logi-
cal transitivity, for example, imposes a necessity on the subject with an obvious-
ness internal to the subject. Yet this necessity is not a proof of innateness.
We have conducted a very simple experiment to test the notion of transi-
tivity. We asked children first to compare the length of two pencils. Children see
that A is smaller than B. We then hide A and show B and C; C is very obviously
longer than B. We then ask the child, "Do you think that C is longer than the
first one you saw, smaller than the first one you saw, or about the same length?"
The little children will say, "I can't tell. I didn't see them together." The child
does not make the inference we would make from the information that allows
for transitivity. It seems to impose itself on us with a feeling of necessity that C
must be longer than A. But small children do not have that same feeling of
necessity. This feeling of necessity is tied to the operational structure I have
been calling seriation or serial ordering.
As you know, if children are asked to put ten sticks in order or length from
shortest to longest, their ability to do so develops through very varied stages, in
which they experience some laborious trial and error. Small children are likely to
make pairs of short and long sticks but fail to coordinate the pairs among
themselves. They have recognized that some sticks are short and some are long,
but not much more than that. Older children make trios-the repetition of a
8 Jean Piaget

pattern of short, medium, and long-but do not coordinate the trios among
themselves. Slightly older children are able to produce an incomplete empirical
series, that is, with errors, gropings, and corrections. Finally, at about 7 years of
age, children have developed a method, a method that I call operational. They
first look for the shortest of all the elements and place it on the table, then look
for the smallest of those remaining and place it next to the shortest, and then
look for the next shortest and place it. I refer to this method as operational
because it implies a certain reversibility. It implies the comprehension of the fact
that any element-say, element E-is at once bigger than all those preceding it
and smaller than those that remain. There is a coordination that permits a
construction of the seriation without errors. When this system is followed, once
you know that objects A, E, and C were the shortest on the table, it is not
necessary to compare object D with objects A, E, and C. You know that it must
be longer than them and that it must be shorter than the others.
The notion of transitivity is, thus, tied to the operational structuration of
the series. Transitivity feels necessary to us and imposes itself upon us because of
the nature of the closed operational structure; it is a result of the closing of this
structure. And this, of course, means equilibrium. The structure, until it is
closed, is not in a state of equilibrium. Once it is closed, we again fmd
equilibrium to be an important factor.
The notion of the influence of innate factors in development is gaining new
acceptance these days. Two of its leading proponents are Chomsky, the linguist,
and Lorenz, the ethologist. Chomsky, of course, has done very great work in his
development of the notion of transformational grammar, work that I admire
greatly. He has hypothesized that from the beginning of these transformations,
there is a fixed innate core that contains the most general forms of language, for
example, the relationship between subject and predicate. This innate core
contains both the possibility of construction of language and a rational struc-
ture, which consequently would be innate.
It seems to me that this hypothesis is not necessary. As we all know,
language develops during the second year of childhood and not from birth. As
we also know, it develops at the end of the period of sensorimotor develop-
ment, with all the numerous stages of construction involved in this form of
intelligence. It seems to me that sensorimotor intelligence, once achieved,
contains all that is necessary to furnish Chomsky's innate fixed core without
having need to appeal to a hereditary structure.
Konrad Lorenz, the great etholOgist. agrees with Kane the important forms
of our thinking, the important categories, are present in us before any experi-
ence; that is, they are innate. He goes as far as to say that the general ideas of the
mind are preformed in the embryo before the individual has the need for them,
just as the horses' hooves or fishes' fins are preformed in the embryo before they
are needed by the adult. However, Lorenz, as a biologist, recognizes the limita-
tions of such an explanation. Each animal species has its own heredity. Then, if
Problems of Equilibration 9

one brings the ideas of intelligence or reason back to innate' structures, that
means that heredity can vary from one species to another following the heredi-
tary patrimony of the species. Realizing this difficulty, Lorenz follows through
very logically by concluding that these innate notions are not necessary, as they
might be if the hereditary programs were constant across all species. Since
hereditary programs vary from species to species and there is nothing necessary
about them, these innate ideas must be only innate working hypotheses. Thus,
this means that innate ideas have lost their aspect of necessity. This does not
mean that essential categories are not a priori and cannot exist before any
experience, but it does mean that they cannot be accounted for by their intrinsic
necessity.
I would conclude in discussing the role of biology as a factor of development
that what is important for us to take from biology is not the notion of
hereditary programming, since it is variable and it cannot lead to the kind of
necessity that we feel. We should take the much more general notion of
self-regulating mechanisms. Self-regulating mechanisms are important through-
out every level of biological development. One fmds regulation at the level of the
genome, where self-regulatory mechanisms are an essential condition of func-
tioning. There are regulations in the course of embryological development that
Waddington calls homeorhesis. At the physiological level, homeostasis is a
self-regulating mechanism; similarly, in the nervous system, the reflex arc is a
homeostat. On the level of human conduct and even at the level of logical opera-
tional thinking, there are similar self-regulatory mechanisms. It seems to me that
this notion of self-regulation, which consequently is one of equilibration, is
much more fundamental and much more general than the more narrow notion of
variable hereditary programming. It is, then, self-regulation that is the important
idea for us to take from biology.
I now come to the third classical factor of development: the social factor,
the role of education and language in development. I will try to be very brief so
that I can get on to equilibration. The role of education and language is clearly
fundamental, but once again it is subordinated to assimilation. There can be no
effect of social or linguistic experience unless the child is ready to assimilate and
integrate this experience into his own structures.
The special problem of the relationship between language and logic is one
that I would like to discuss at some greater length. Many people are of the
opinion that an individual's grasp of logic is dependent upon the syntax and the
logical relationships embedded in the language in which people are speaking to
him. Logic develops out of the language. This is the position of the logical
positivists.
In Geneva, one of our colleagues, Hermine Sinclair, has done some work on
the problem of the relationship between logic and language. Sinclair was a
linguist before she came to Geneva to go into experimental psychology. In her
research, she first identified two groups of children. One group were noncon-
10 Jean Piaget

servers, in the sense that they thought that a change in shape would entail a
change in the amount of substance. The other group were conservers, in that
they knew that the change of shape did not alter the amount of the substance.
Then, she looked at the language of these two groups of children in different
situations. For example, the children were asked to compare short, long, fat, and
thin pencils. She found that the children who were nonconservers did not use
comparative terms in describing the pencils and did not contrast two dimensions.
They would just say that one pencil is big and that one pencil is fat. The children
who were conservers, however, used comparisons. They talked in sentences that
contrasted variables, such as saying that one is fatter but shorter, the other
thinner but longer.
Sinclair then trained the nonconservers to learn the verbal expressions of the
other, more advanced group. This language training was not easy, but it was
possible. After the nonconservers had mastered the language expressions of the
conservers, she readministered the conservation experiment to see whether the
training increased their ability to conserve.
Progress was only minimal; nine-tenths of the children made no progress
toward conservation, although they had mastered the more sophisticated lan-
guage. One-tenth of the children made very slight progress. This would lead us to
believe they would have made this progress normally in that period of time. We
have been pursuing other research in Geneva since Sinclair's study; it all supports
the general conclusion that linguistic progress is not responsible for logical or
operational progress. It is rather the other way around. The logical or opera-
tionallevel is likely to be responsible for a more sophisticated language level.
I am now discussing the role of equilibration, that is, the fourth factor in
psychological and cognitive development. It seems to me that there are two
reasons for having to call in this fourth factor. The first is that since we already
have three other factors, there must be some coordination among them. This
coordination is a kind of equilibration. Secondly, in the construction of any
operational or preoperational structure, a subject goes through much trial and
error and many regulations that in a large part involve self-regulations. Self-
regulations are the very nature of equilibration. These self-regulations come into
play at all levels of cognition, including the very lowest level of perception.
I will begin with an example at the level of perception. We have studied a
number of optical illusions, by asking subjects to make perceptual judgments
of an optical illusion. For example, we have often used the Muller-Lyer illusion,
an illusion of the diagonal of the lozenge, which is always underestimated. One
can present the subject with a successive series of judgments to make between
the standard and the variable. The variable varies between presentation but the
standard is a constant. The subject has to judge whether the variable is shorter
than, longer than, or equal to the standard. I have always admired the patience
of children unde.r 7 years of age who will sit through 20 or 30 or 40 presenta-
tions at a time.
Problems of Equilibration 11

In children under 7 years of age, we find no notable transformations, that is,

at the end of 30 or 40 trials, they make the same errors that they did at the
beginning. With adults, on the contrary, the repetition of the judgment results in
a very clear diminishing of the illusion. Some are able to eliminate the effect of
the illusion altogether. Among children from 7 years (the beginning of cognitive
operations) to adulthood, one can observe a progressive diminishing of errors. It
is important to note that the subject does not know the results of his judgments.
There was no external reinforcement, yet the perceptual mechanism seems to
have its own regulations, so that after 20 or 30 or 40 trials, an adult subject can
eliminate the effect of the illusion altogether.
At the representational level, in both preoperational and operational struc-
tures, we can distinguish three kinds of equilibrium. The first one is the
relationship between assimilation and accommodation, of which I previously
spoke. There is an eqUilibrium between the structures of the subject and the
objects; its structures accommodate to the new object being presented and the
object is assimilated into the structures. It is this first fundamental form of
equilibration that was exemplified by the hOrizontality of water and the notion
of conservation. I will not repeat these examples here.
The second kind of eqUilibrium is an equilibrium among the subsystems of
the subject's schemes. In reality, the schemes of assimilation are coordinated
into partial systems, referred to as subsystems in relation to the totality of the
subject's knowledge. These subsystems can present conflicts themselves. In
general terms, I will say that, for example, it is possible to hav~ conflicts
between a subsystem dealing with logicomathematical operations (such as classi-
fications, seriation, and number construction) and another subsystem dealing with
spatial operations (such as length and area). For example, when a child is judging
the quantity of a number of sticks, there may be in one collection a small
number of long sticks laid out. In another collection, a larger number of shorter
sticks may be laid out. If he is basing his judgment on number, he would make
one judgment of quantity. If he is basing his judgment on length, he would make
a different judgment of quantity. These two systems can evolve at different
speeds. Of course, as they evolve, there is a constant need for coordination of
the two, that is, an equilibration of subsystems.
The third kind of equilibrium in cognitive development appears to be
fundamental. little by little, there has to be a constant equilibrium established
between the parts of the subject's knowledge and the totality of his knowledge
at any given moment. There is a constant differentiation of the totality of
knowledge into the parts and an integration of the parts back into the whole.
This equilibrium between differentiation and integration plays a fundamental
biological role.
At the level of cognitive functions, there is a fundamental form of equi-
librium because integration, as a function of differentiation, poses new prob-
lems. These new problems lead to the construction of new actions upon the
12 Jean Piaget

previous actions, or new operations upon the previous operations. The construc-
tion of operations upon operations is probably the secret of development and of
the transition from one stage to the next.
I would like to point out that the notion of operation itself involves
self-regulatory mechanisms. They are-in Ashby's sense, in his cybernetic termi-
nology-the perfect regulations in that the outcome is anticipated before the act is
actually carried out. The feedback, which at lower levels has incomplete reversi-
bility, now becomes a feedback with perfect reversibility in the sense of
inversion or reciprocity. This is an example of perfect compensation-otherwise
said, attained equilibrium.
I would like to explain the reasons for the role of equilibrium. All opera-
tional subject structures, on the one hand, and all causal structures in the
domain of physical experience, on the other hand, suppose a combination of
production and conservation. There is always some production-that is, some
kind of transformation-taking place. Similarly, there is always some conserva-
tion, something that remains unchanged throughout the transformation. These
two are absolutely inseparable. Without any transformation, we have only static
identity. The world becomes rigid and unchanging in the sense that Parmenides
(c. 539 B.C.) conceived it. Without any conservation, we have only constant
transformation. There is total change; the world is always new and it becomes
unintelligible. It becomes like the world of Heraclitis with its river in which one
was never able to bathe twice. In reality, there are always both conservation and
production.
Conservation demands compensations and, consequently, equilibration. If
something is changed, something else must change to compensate for it, so that a
conservation results. Even in physics, all the transformations that take place
involve compensations that lead to a conservation. These compensations are
organized in group structures, in the mathematical sense of the term. Further-
more, there is no conservation without production, and production with conser-
vation results in a constant demand for new construction.
Where I speak of eqUilibrium, it is not at all in the sense of a defmitive state
that cognitive functioning would be able to attain. Attained equilibrium is
limited and restrained, and there is a tendency to go beyond it to a better
equilibrium. I would speak of the law of optimalization, if this term did not
have technical meanings too precise for its psychological use. So, simply stated,
there is a continual search for a better equilibrium. In other words, equilibration
is the search for a better and better equilibrium in the sense of an extended field,
in the sense of an increase in the number of possible compositions, and in the
sense of a growth in coherence.
I would now like to point out the fundamental difference between biological
or cognitive equilibrium and physical equilibrium. In physics, equilibrium is a
question of a balance of forces. Take, for example, a balance with two weights,
one on each side. Between the two are the level and the fulcrum, which are only
Problems of Equilibration 13

organs of transmission. They are passive mediators permitting the action from
one side to the other.
In another example, the Le Chiitelier-Braun experiment, a piston presses
down on a container that is full of gas. The gas is compressed while the force of
the piston increases the pressure. The force of the piston heats the gas, making it
agitate. This makes the gas hit back with pressure on the sides of the container
and eventually back onto the piston. It compensates for the initial force that was
pressing down on the piston and presses the piston back up again. Le Chiitelier
referred to this as the moderation of the original cause. Here again, the container
plays the role of the transmitter, a passive mediator that receives and sends back
the shocks.
In biological or cognitive equilibrium, on the other hand, we have a system
in which all parts are interdependent. It is a system that should be represented in
the form of a cycle. A has its influence on B, which has its influence on C, which
has its influence on D, which again influences A. It is a cycle of interactions
among the different elements. It also has a special feature of being open to
influences from the outside. Each of the elements can interact with external
objects. For instance, the cycle can. take in A' and B'.
In the case of biological or cognitive equilibrium, the links are not passive;
they are the very sources of action. The totality presents a cohesive force that is
specific and that is precisely the source of the assimilation of new elements of
which we have been speaking since the beginning of this talk. The system forms
a totality in order to assimilate the outside elements. This eqUilibrium between
the integration and the differentiation of the parts in the whole has no equiva-
lent in physics. It is found only in biological and cognitive equilibrium.
In clOSing, I would just like to cite two references on the matter of the
cohesive force of the totality, the source of eqUilibrium in biological and
cognitive structures. The first is from Paul Weiss, the great biologist, who in his
work on cells pointed out that the structure of the totality of the cell is more
stable than the activity of its elements. Inside the cell the elements are in
constant activity, but the total structure of the cell itself has a much more
continuing stability.
My second reference is in the cognitive domain. I would like to speak of the
works of Presburger, cited by Tarski, which point out the existence of systems
that as totalities are closed on themselves and are completely coherent. All
aspects are decidable, in the logical sense of the term, within the total system,
while the subsystems are not so closed and every aspect is not entirely decidable.
This seems to me a very fme example of the kind of equilibrium about which I
am talking; the totality has its own cohesion and eqUilibrium by integrating and
differentiating the parts at the same time.
 CHAPTER 2

Comments on the Problems of Equilibration

Hans Furth
Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

Piaget has made a very succinct and convincing statement of the factor of
equilibration; if you are too willing to accept it, it may be that you do not sense
the revolutionary note contained in Piaget's theory, in particular his notion of an
internal equilibration. Summarized below are some of the main points discussed
as well as two or three questions that Piaget may wish to consider further to
clarify the notion of equilibration.
This notion is a difficult one for most students of Piaget, and at the moment
Piaget is very much concerned with elaborating this concept. He is fleshing in, as
it were, the concept of internal equilibration to make it more real and amenable
to psychological investigation. Perhaps an anecdote would help us here. Piaget
spent 2 or 3 days in Washington last year and we were driving over some bumpy
roads. I told Piaget to hold fast because a particular stretch of the road was very
bumpy indeed. To this he replied, "Well, as long as I can hold my pipe in
equilibration in front of me I feel safe that nothing will happen to me." So I
often wonder about the influence of this pipe on Piaget's theory.
In general, you must have noticed that Piaget's theory is full of what can be
called dialectical terms: assimilation versus accommodation, organism versus
environment, operative versus figurative, and so on. Because of this bipolarity,
the equilibration concept seems natural and almost necessary. Piaget's first
illustration is the concept of accommodation. Many people may misunderstand
accommodation as referring to a process that takes place only when something
new is acquired. Whereas if you were asked, for instance, the sum of 5 + 3, there
would merely be assimilation on your part with no corresponding accommoda-
tion, since the answer is quite familiar to you. Piaget has made it clear that this is
not the case-that accommodation is simply the counterpart of assimilation.
Wherever you have assimilation you also have accommodation. This state of
15
16 Hans Furth

affairs presents, therefore, an equilibration in itself: an equilibrating between the

taking in of data and the structuring and the adaptation of the subjective
structures to the given data.
Piaget's next point was that there is always a coordination and therefore the
need for equilibration between a figurative content and the operative framework
within which this content is being assimilated: Piaget gave the example of the
perception of horizontality. The third point that Piaget made seems to be the
most crucial and should perhaps have been the first point. It concerns the
organism and the environment. We have been accustomed, if not brainwashed, to
look at an organism as one entity and the environment as another, separate
entity, and then we ask how these two things get together. However, from a
biological viewpoint, these two things have never been separated at all. Quite the
opposite. An organism can exist only insofar as it is related to or corresponds to
the environment. Given this organism-environment matrix or polarity, the
notion of equilibration expresses that this polarity is being coordinated. In this
connection, Piaget first distinguishes two kinds of experiences of the person's
world, namely, an experience that he calls physical or simple and another type
of experience that is really an experience of our own action on the environment
and is called logical, or logicomathematical. Here again, there is a need to
coordinate these two kinds of experiences. These experiences do not happen
separately. In differing degrees, they are always present as mutual components in
any kind of experience, and it is important that these two components be
coordinated.
Piaget then went on to refer to innateness, and here is the first question. It
must be clear to everyone that Piaget is not an empiricist in the strict sense. For
him, the environment is not the total and chief determining factor of develop-
ment. On the other hand, the newness of Piaget's conception is precisely that he
refuses to posit the mental structures to be developed as innate, and therefore,
he uses the concept of equilibration to explain this development. Piaget men-
tions three traditional factors operating in development: (1) maturation or the
physiological growth of the hereditary organic structures; (2) physical experi-
ence; and (3) social experience. He says that there is a need for a fourth factor to
equilibrate or coordinate these three different factors. Piaget treats the three
factors as if they were on the same level, and then he adds internal equilibration
as a fourth factor dominating the three. It would seem that there must be a
much closer relationship between maturation of the hereditarily given and the
factor of equilibration than between equilibration and the other two factors,
namely, physical and social experience. Would Piaget agree?
Piaget then focused on the biological self-regulations that are present in any
organism. When people wonder how one can speak of internal self-regulations
and not cQnsider them innate, Piaget's answer would be that some biological
self-regulations are indeed innate. No organism can exist without some such
regulatory mechanisms. Indeed, these mechanisms constitute the organism as a
biological entity. Piaget would differentiate the innate self-regulations from the
Comments on the Problems of Equilibration 17

specific program and the qualitatively different specific structures into which
these self-regulations develop in the course of the individual's life.
A fmal point was made and perhaps was not stressed enough, namely, the
difference between learning, in the strict sense, and development. Piaget men-
tioned language and education; he pointed out that education can take place
only within the framework of structures to which a particular learning and a
particular language have been assimilated. And here again, we have two poles
within a common matrix, learning and development-two poles that are never
separate. Some development is always a part of learning and some learning is a
part of development. This, of course, explains the difficulty of understanding
the distinction between development and learning. These are not two things that
are neatly divided. Piaget pointed out that once these two aspects are postulated,
a concept of equilibration is required to coordinate them.
The second question deals with the use of the term equilibration. Equilibra-
tion, in addition to other external factors, explains development. Thus is it a
motivating, coordinating process. On the other hand, the structures themselves
can be called equilibria. The developmental products of equilibration also are
structures of equilibration. And so the word equilibration is sometimes taken in
one sense, as a process, and sometimes in the sense of a state. When a word is
used in two different perspectives, it is always difficult for one to be quite clear
about its precise use. Would Piaget like to comment on the use of the term
equilibration?
An additional comment is related to the foregoing. Piaget has not stressed it
much, but it is quite clear that the fact of equilibration constitutes the most
basic motivational factor of development. Piaget is working on this concept and
he is attempting to give it a firmer empirical and theoretical base. He discussed
competing or contradicting subschemes that have to be coordinated. This sounds
much more familiar than the equilibration of assimilation and accommodation
and other simiar conceptual distinctions. It makes sense to postulate that a child
develops because he finds contradiction in his experience. The child encounters
one viewpoint implied in one situation and a seemingly contrary viewpoint in
another situation; therefore, he has to coordinate these two views and, in so
doing, grows mentally. Piaget has always tried to differentiate between the
intellectual cognitive factor and the affect or motivating factor. There are many
occasions on which he has stated that he does not concern himself with affective
or motivating factors. Yet it is quite clear that the concept of equilibration
provides a motivating factor within intelligence. Development is not something
simply added to an infant's knowledge. Development and human intelligence are
correlative. Piaget has not explicitly mentioned this very important internal
motivating factor within the knowing intelligence, but it is obviously an integral
part of his theory.
In conclusion, it is interesting to note that there is concern for the subject of
epistemology and a theory of knowledge. Perhaps it has not occurred since the
time of Kant that so many students from all parts of the world have come to
18 Hans Furth

listen to a scholar whose chosen topic is both philosophical and difficult.

Further, to focus on the concept of equilibration is singling out the most
difficult aspect of this subject area. I would like to venture to speculate on the
reason for the interest in Piaget's theory. Kant was the philosopher who
explicitly affirmed, and in this sense liberated, the thinking subject. He was the
person who first made it clear that we, the subjects, are imposing structures on
the environment, that knowledge can never be a thing that is simply a copy of a
reality, ready made by nature or by God. And here is Piaget 180 years later.
Piaget considers himself a Kantian, but he wants to go beyond Kant. The way in
which he goes beyond Kant is very significant. Kant postulated an innate a priori
that ultimately determined man's intelligence. Piaget accepts the message of an
internal a priori, but he puts it at the end and not the beginning of human
development. Through his concept of equilibration he brings the a priori down
to earth and connects it with the internal self-regulations present in all biological
systems.
Kantian philosophy freed the way for the spread of physical science and its
concomitant technology, and we have inherited and enjoy the blessings-and we
can freely admit-suffer all the indirect curses of science and technology. What
we need now is not primarily more science and technology but to become full
human beings so that we can learn to live with what science and technology have
helped us to achieve. Piaget's conception of intelligence may be the kind of
theory that answers the need of our society more than any other theory of
intelligence proposed by today's scholars. I.et me conclude with three fmal
points on this humanistic aspect of intelligence.
First, Piaget's view of intelligence is biologically and humanly relevant.
Students all over the world are clamoring for relevancy. Many students of
psychology are unhappy about the methods and the content of current psychol-
ogy courses. They claim, not without justification, that they have never en-
countered a child who is learning paired associates except in the laboratories of
psychology departments. However, when Piaget talks about the child and his
way of learning, one feels that he is describing real-life situations and real
children. In this sense, his is a very humane and relevant psychology. Second,
even though Piaget stresses internal factors as being paramount, he does not
disregard the influence of the environment. The environment is the thing that
internal factors feed on. The internal factors cannot function without the
environment. Therefore, there is no need to go to the extreme of saying either
that intelligence is innately determined or that intelligence can be made to
function by means of clever programs of external situations. We can work full
time in improving the environment with the knowledge that providing a better
environment means healthier food on which intelligence can grow. The reader
may know that I am very much involved in education. My aim is not merely to
change the curriculum of elementary schools but to put a different philosophy
in the place of the traditional emphasis on reading and specific learning skills. In
Comments on the Problems of Equilibration 19

short, for this young age level, I want to see a school primarily for thinking and
not a school for reading. To teach it, the teacher must know what thinking is.
Piaget provides a practical and meaningful conception that can guide the teacher
in evaluating whether or not a school activity is conducive to thinking on the
part of the child.
Finally, Piaget's theory provides an internal motivation for intelligence, and
motivation is just about the most basic factor in the learning process. Any
teacher knows that successful learning is chiefly related to motivation. Intuitive-
ly, the popular concept of reinforcement behind a1llearning makes much sense.
However, Piaget appeals to an internal reinfqrcement, that is, to an intelligence
that carries within itself its own reinforcing motivation. This then is a very
positive theory, not in the sense of an empiricist-positivist philosophy, but in
the sense of an optimistic, humanistic, practical, and revolutionary theory of
intelligence.

Piaget's Reply

Piaget replied to Furth in the following way:

I will be very brief because the hour is rather late. I am very interested in
these questions that have been raised, at least insofar as I have understood the
general sense of the questions.
The first question is: Isn't the notion of equilibration as a general factor
really much closer to maturation and hereditary programming than it is to the
other two factors? Isn't it a mistake to consider maturation and experience-
physical experience and social experience-on the same plane because matura-
tion seems closer to equilibration?
Yes, of course equilibration is very closely related to biological equilibration.
There is a good deal that is programmed in the mechanism, but the important
thing is that content is not programmed. Equilibration does resemble biological
equilibration, but it goes much beyond it. For instance, if you take a leg off a
crab, the total organism reorganies itself to establish a new equilibrium that was
certainly not foreseen in the hereditary programming. This is the kind of
equilibration that takes place in content that is really distinct from what is
actually programmed hereditarily. So equilibration is similar to-is close to-
maturation at the point of departure, but it goes very much further.
The second question is my use of the term equilibration, which refers
sometimes to a process and sometimes to a state. I should have been clearer in
my use of this term. For me, it refers above all to a process. But, in some cases,
there can be states that are in equilibrium. However, the equilibrium is conserved
even when it becomes incorporated into a further search for better equilibria.
For instance, take the operational idea of the series of whole numbers. This
is quite firm and stable, stably equilibrated even when we go beyond it into
20 Hans Furth

fractional numbers negative numbers and unreal numbers-imaginary numbers.

Bur the original notion of a series of ordered whole numbers retains its equi-
librium. So one must keep in mind that even when there are certain stages of
equilibria, there is always the additional process of equilibration. There is always
virtual possible work. Development is the process of always adding to temporary
and limited states of equilibria. This is why I would like to insist on the
difference between the equilibration, which is the search for a better equi-
librium, and the state of equilibrium.
The third question is: Isn't there already an affective aspect in intelligence? I
am in total agreement with this; there certainly is an affective aspect. Each
scheme provides its own need to be fed and to act. The scheme seeks to
reproduce; to repeat itself and to incorporate all sorts of new things into itself.
So the very existence of a scheme has its motivational aspect, which is at one
with its structural aspect. I am in complete agreement with Dr. Furth on this.
I'd like to thank Dr. Furth for these questions, which I find very interesting.
I responded to them very schematically now because of the time and because I
understood them only schematically. I hope to have time to go into them in
more detail with him.
 CHAPTER 3

Piaget's Concept of Equilibration:

Biological, Logical, and Cybernetic Roots
Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

American scholars have expressed their dissatisfaction with the concept of

equilibration in various ways. Bruner (1959) labeled it "useless"; Almy (1966),
"frustrating." Mischel (1971) called the concept a "misleading metaphor," and
Flavell (l971), perhaps speaking for many of his colleagues, stated, "If you've
ever had the experience of trying to explain exactly what Piaget means by
'equilibration' to a class of students, you know that the concept is far from
clear" (p. 191).
Furth posed a vital question in response to Piaget's paper "Equilibration,,,l
when he requested a clarification of the concept as a process or as a state.
Undoubtedly, this is the issue responsible for the confusion surrounding the
total concept of equilibration.2 However, in Piaget's answer to Furth, equilibra-
tion clearly emerged as a process: the search for a better state of equilibrium.
Therefore, Piaget (l971a, pp. 36-37) can discuss at the same time "mobile
equilibrium" and "highly stabilized eqUilibrium forms," both produced by the
self-regulatory or equilibration process. It is important to clarify here that the
understanding of equilibration includes, but reaches beyond, that of equilibrium.
Further, to comprehend equilibration as the coordinating factor of cognitive
development, it is necessary to relate it to the following: experience of the
physical environment, maturation or hereditary programming, and the action of
1 In this essay, "Piaget's paper on equilibration" refers to his address on that topic delivered
to the first meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, printed in this book.
2 Crabtree (1969) attempted to outline the history of the concept of equilibration but failed

because he used a physical model for the framework. His explication of the inadequate
uses of the term equilibration is, however, helpful.
21
22 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

the social environment, including cultural and educational aspects. 3 As Piaget

explained each of these classical factors, he incorporated equilibration into the
comprehension of each. If equilibration is the coordinating factor of self-regula-
tion, it is impossible for it to act only as a complicating fourth factor. Equilibra-
tion is the core of Piaget's theory of cognitive development; to gloss over the
concept is to distort the theory.4
The purpose of this essay, therefore, is to guide scholars, especially new
students of Piaget, to some of the sources from which the concept of equilibra-
tion springs. Three themes emerge from Piaget's paper on equilibration:
1. The use of concepts from contemporary biologists, such as Waddington, to
clarify equilibration.
2. The importance of logical necessity or compensation systems to an under-
standing of progressive equilibration and the inherent connections to In-
helder's research.
3. The incorporation of a cybernetic model into cognitive functions as equili-
bration organs regulating behavior.
Although each of these themes is discussed separately, it becomes obvious that
many interrelationships exist.
The emphasis upon equilibration as self-regulation or autoregulation results
from Piaget's concentration on the analogy between biological and cognitive
adaptation, both of which require the two poles of assimilation and accommoda-
tion tending toward harmony through successive equilibrations (piaget, 1970b,
1971a; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). This search for biological analogies is not new
to Piaget. However, it seems as if Piaget turns frequently to modern biologists
such as Paul Weiss and C. H. Waddington to explain more fully the mechanisms
of self-regulation.
This neobiological influence is the core of one of Piaget's most important
books: Biologie et connaissance: Essai sur les relations entre les regulations
organiques et les processus cognitifs.5 Therein, Piaget posed this hypothesis:
"Cognitive processes seem, then, to be at one and the same time the outcome of
organic auto-regulation, reflecting its essential mechanisms, and the most highly
differentiated organs of this regulation at the core of interactions with the
environment" (1971a, p. 26). The importance of equilibration as the self-
regulator of interactions is highlighted throughout Piaget's book, and particu-
larly in this explication of the basic hypothesis: "knowledge is not a copy of the

3Por a more complete treatment, see Piaget (1970b) and Piaget and Inhelder (1963).
4 The depth of the discussion on equilibration in introductory texts and articles on Piagetian
theory provides instructors and students with a guide for evaluation.
S Available in translation as Biology and Knowledge: An Essay on the Relations Between

Organic Regulations and Cognitive Processes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
Some of the basic concepts in Biologie et connaissance are reiterated in Piaget's (1970b)
summary of his theory and also in Piaget (1967a).
Piaget's Concept of Equilibration 23

environment, but a system of real interactions reflecting the auto-regulatory

organization of life just as much as the things themselves do" (p. 27).
Piaget turned to Waddington, professor of genetics at the University of
Edinburgh, for a clarification of the interaction referred to in the foregoing
hypothesis. Piaget acknowledged the striking parallels between the organic
embryogenesis studied by Waddington and the kind of "mental embryology"
Piaget proposed in his theory of the development of intelligence.
The assimilation-accommodation interaction model also is more clearly
understood in the light of Waddington's concept of competence. In the embryo-
logical sense, competence is similar to a reactive-rather than a passive-"optimal
readiness-to-respond" notion (Waddington, 1961, p. 63). Piaget (1970b) utilized
this notion of competence to stress the inadequacy of the stimulus-response
theory: "It is obvious that a stimulus can elicit a response only if the organism is
first sensitized to this stimulus (or possesses the necessary reactive 'compe-
tence' as Waddington characterizes genetic sensitization to specific inducers)"
(p. 707).6 Waddington (1966) added the idea that embryonic induction is a
phenomenon that supposes that one part of the egg induces or influences
neighboring parts to develop in conformity with itself (p. 16). Such phenomena
as embryonic induction and competence are self-regulating features of interact-
ing embryonic cell populations (Goodwin, 1969): Piaget (1971a) clearly views
self-regulation or equilibration as a central problem ofcontemporary biology.
By analogy, the self-regulatory processes of biological functioning operate at
all levels of cognitive functioning:
1. Perceptual: trial-and-error learning processes (groping) "as when a man
learning to ride a bicycle takes evasive action against a probable fall, before it
happens, by holding himself steady while the wobbling diminishes" (Piaget,
1971a, p. 11).
2. Thought operations: especially logicomathematical thought such as conserva-
tion of substance and transitivity. (These examples were presented in Piaget's
paper on equilibration.)
The characteristic of logicomathematical thought most important to its func-
tioning as a "vast auto-regulatory system" is its ability to be reversible (piaget,
1971a, p. 12). We will revisit this concept.
For now, it is important that if cognitive functioning on any level is possible,
its regulation must be understood in terms of interactions. To know is not to
copy reality but to react to it. To react, it is necessary to have the competence
or capacity to do so. For both Piaget and Waddington, self-regulations or
progressive equilibrations exclude preformation in the sense of innate structures,
as well as responses caused entirely by the environment. Environmentally caused

6 See Piaget and Inhelder (1969) for a critique of stimulus-response theory; the critique is
based in part on several Waddington concepts.
24 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

responses disregard the competence of the subject (Piaget, 1971a; Waddington,

1966, 1969). Therefore, development can be understood only as an assimilation
-accommodation interaction that leads to stable equilibriums; the complete
process is equilibration.
In addition to competence and induction as regulatory mechanisms, Wad-
dington's concept of homeorhesis, a kinetic equilibration, is discussed by Piaget
(1971a). Waddington (1969) has compared homeostasis and homeorhesis:
homeostasis is used in connection with systems which keep some variable as a
stable value as time passes.... We use the word homeorhesis when what is
stabilized is not a constant value but is a particular course of change in time. If
something happens to alter a homeorhetic system the control mechanisms do
not bring it back to where it would normally have got to at some later time.
The "rhesis" part of the word is derived from the Greek word Rheo, to flow,
and one can think of a homeorhetic system as rather like a stream running
down the bottom of a valley, if a landslide occurs and pushes the stream off
the valley bottom, it does not come back to the stream bed at the place
where the diversion occurred, blit some way farther down the slope. (p. 366)

In this light, homeostasis becomes "stabilized parts" and homeorhesis, "stabil-

ized paths" (Waddington, 1969).
Piaget utilizes both of these concepts, homeostasis and homeorhesis. The
latter, however, as a regulatory mechanism, connotes a dynamic equilibrium in
contrast to the more static homeostasis. As Waddington's analogy of the stream
and the homeorhetic system suggests, such a system is like a force returning
development to its normal course; that is, it acts as a self-regulator. The
homeorhetic system and the necessary channels or "creodes" controlled by it
have been likened by Piaget (1971 c) to his theory of stages. 7
In conclusion, then, Waddington's concepts of competence, induction, and
homeorhesis are some of the regulatory mechanisms incorporated into Piaget's
exposition of equilibration. But because regulatory mechanisms are inherent in
the functioning of living organisms, these mechanisms are central to an under-
standing of the interactions with the environment at all levels of the knowing
subject. As Piaget (1971a) has stressed, all life is essentially self-regulatory
(p.26).
Next, the theme of logical necessity becomes clear in Piaget's discussion of
equilibration. When equilibrium is reached, the child realizes that a certain
amount of clay is conserved even when the shape of the clay is transformed.
Piaget stresses that a correct conservation judgment of the amount of clay
"imposes itself' on the child; that is, this judgment is an unavoidable, logical, or
intrinsic necessity. The child's logical conclusion is attained through progressive

'The links between homeostasis and homeorhesis have not been forged fully, according to
Piaget (1971a). Piaget (1971b) noted that cross-cultural studies may modify his earlier use
of terms borrowed from embryological development (see especially pp. 46-62).
Piaget's Concept of Equilibration 2S

equilibrations: "Once one knows, one knows forever and ever" (child to In-
helder, cited by Piaget, 1971c, p. 5).
In an earlier essay on logic and equilibrium Piaget stressed progressive
equilibrium as a result of changes in probability or increasing sequential prob-
ability.s For example, to reach the final equilibrium point of conservation of an
amount of clay, a child progresses through four strategies (see Piaget, 1957, pp.
49-52):
1. Judgment of non conservation or centration on the length of the distended
ball rather than on its width or thinness (the most primitive strategy).
2. Centration on width ignored in strategy 1, but without coordination of
actions, that is, continued failure to reconcile the two dimensions.
3. Hesitation or oscillation because of incomplete coordination of action result-
ing from lack of complete reverSibility, that is, empirical reversibility or
renversabilite.
4. Acceptance of conservation as a necessity, a result of compensatory coordi-
nation of the opposing dimensions of distension and thinness.
In the fourth strategy, the child may argue: "You haven't added anything or
taken anything away." "You have changed the shape, but you could put it all
back the way it was." The child also might argue: "You gain here [pointing to
length] what you lose there [pointing to width] ." Each of the arguments is one
of logical necessity.
For the third strategy there are momentary forms of equilibrium, but these
are not stable. In terms of the game theory, the complete reversibility of the
fourth strategy leads to a more stable and productive, although more costly,
equilibrium. The logical necessity of the fourth strategy can be understood as an
intrinsic form of causality or lawfulness (Furth, 1969, p. 207). These strategies
or stages of progressive equilibration are regulated, however, by cyclic rather
than linear causality, because the model was borrowed from cybernetics with its
notions of circular or feedback systems (Ashby, 1956; Piaget, 1970c). The
eqUilibrium reached in the fourth strategy is fully reversible, allowing for
pre correction of errors or perfect regulation in the cybernetic sense (Piaget,
1970b, p. 274, and next section). Further, the actions of the previous strategies
become coordinated at the fourth strategy. The coordination of actions tends to
balance itself by self-regulation (Piaget, 1970c; 1972V
To understand equilibration, then, it is necessary to conceive it as a process,
that is, progressive equilibrations leading to greater and greater probability that

8Piaget was influenced by Ashby's (1956) scheme of self-organizing systems related to

interactions of the nervous system and the environment.
'The passage from action to operation (formation of thought) and the necessity of
reversibility are clarified in a new essay by Piaget, "The Role of Action in the Formation
of Thought," 1972.
26 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

equilibrium will be reached. In its fmal movement toward stability, the equilib-
rium is assured by logical necessity (piaget, 1957). Furth (1969) has summarized
logical necessity:

He [Piaget) related equilibration to implication as an intrinsic form of cau-

sality within a total organization and to the lawfulness peculiar to dynamic
systems as they are studied in cybernetics. Piaget likes to draw a parallel
between probability laws of equilibration and the transition from unpredict-
able or less predictable and ultimately logically necessary responses of strict
implication. In this light the development of intelligence appears to an ob-
server as a coordinated sequence of behavior such that a present stage of
development is most likely, considering the immediately previous one, even
though the intrinsic probability of its occurrence, considered from levels far
removed, appears only small. For Piaget, the concept of equilibration makes
comprehensible why, in retrospect, alternatives or degrees of freedom for
further evolution or development are progressively reduced with succeeding
stages. (pp. 207-208)

Piaget's theory of stages (1971c) is based on his previous notion of logical

necessity:
The transition from one stage to another is therefore an equilibration in the
most classical sense of the word. But since these displacements of the system
are activities of the subject, and since each of these activities consist of
correcting the one immediately preceding it, equilibration becomes a sequence
of self-regulations whose retroactive processes fmally result in operational
reversibility. The latter then goes beyond simple probability to attain logical
necessity. (Piaget, 1970b, p. 725) .

The structures or systems of operations of the stages become necessary; they are
not so in the beginning. For example, the formal structures become necessary
after the concrete operations are complete (Piaget, 1971c, p. 9).
Further, the concept of progressive equilibration elucidates the internal
development of transitions from one substage to another, as well as transitions
from one stage to another. Inhelder's unique experiments were designed to link
the concept of progressive equilibration to a dynamic model of transition
mechanisms. 10 Inhelder selected children who manifested, for example, conser-
vation of numerical quantity but riot conservation of length. Initially, the
children were in the fourth stage of logical necessity for conservation of length.
Those who profited most from the operational exercises were, in all probability,
at the third stage, or oscillation between dimensions in attaining conservation of
length. Inhelder's research probed for learning actitivies that reveal the under-
standing of the child's transition to more difficult conservation concepts once an

10 The dynamics of the effects of partial structures' conflicting with equilibrated structures
may be the fluid type of intellectual activity that Stephens's factor-analytic studies may
be tapping (Stephens, this volume; 1972).
Piaget's Concept of Equilibration 27

equilibrium has been reached in, for example, conservation of numerical quan-
tity (Inhelder, 1976).
Explication of conflict situations resulting from interactions of subsystems is
the most important facet of Inhelder's study. Because the child is unable to cope
with the number and length of the matches concurrently, he experiences a
disturbance of a previously attained equilibrium; equal numbers mean equal
lengths (Inhelder, Bovet, & Sinclair, 1967). (These conflict situations are analo-
gous to inducers or influencers in the Waddington sense.) The process of coping
with these conflicts, disturbances, or imbalances is the self-regulatory process of
equilibration (Furth, 1969; Gallagher, 1972).
When, however, through progressive equilibrations, the child functions by
means of reversible structures, he has attained mobile equilibration, charac-
terized by mobile compensations or active responses. Therefore, Inhelder found
that the child adds an extra number of his short matches to compensate for the
longer lengths of the experimenter's matches. This occurs when the child has
reached conservation of length. As soon as the correct judgment of conservation,
with operational reversibility as its source, imposes itself on the child, this
judgment becomes the result of a compensating transformation or regulation
(Piaget, 1959b, 1967b).
Inhelder's learning studies indicated that the child's possession of logico-
mathematical thinking in one area may lead, after a disturbance, to a recombina-
tion of already existing capacities, resulting in an advanced level of functioning
in another area. l l Inhelder's paper, therefore, complements Piaget's (1971a)
emphasis on progressive equilibration:
If equilibrium in action is defmed as an active compensation set up by the
subject against exterior disturbances whether experienced or anticipated, this
equilibration will explain, among other things, the more general character of
logico-mathematical operations-that is, their reversibility (to every direction
operation there corresponds an inverse one which cancels it out ... ). (pp.
11-12)12

To summarize, the logical necessity is tied to a 10gicomathematical structure

conSisting of a system of compensations assured by reversible operations. It then

II The notion of disturbance follows from its cybernetic meaning: "A disturbance is simply
that which displaces, that which moves a system from one state to another" (Ashby,
1956, p. 77).
12 The disturbance or conflict aspect of equilibration has been used in the noting of the

educational implications of Piagetian theory (Gallagher, 1972; Langer, 1969; Palmer,

1968; Presseisen, 1972). Unless this aspect is kept within a "reversibility compensation"
framework, however, the concept of logical necessity (cyclic causanty linked to an
organic model) becomes confused with an overstress on "need" and tension reduction
(linear causality linked to a physical model). Perhaps Mischel's (1971) analysis of
cognitive conflict overstressed the need apart from need for necessity (Piaget, 1969b,
1971a).
28 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

follows that operations of thought may be considered a vast self-regulatory or

equilibrated system.
Finally, Piaget chose to elaborate on the fundamental equilibrium estab-
lished between parts and the totality of the subject's knowledge at any given
moment. This part-whole equilibrium, a recurring theme in Piagetian writing, is
the focus of several sections of Biology and Knowledge (1971a). At the 1956
World Health Organization meeting, scholars struggled with the necessity for a
clearer exposition of the equilibration factor as a regulating mechanism ensuring
coherence of the new construction, that is, parts-whole equilibrium. Then Piaget
(1960) stated the problem:
In the field of the cognitive functions in particular, the problem is to
understand how new learning, discovery and creation may not only be recon-
ciled with but take place at the same time as control and verification in such a
way that the new remains in harmony with the acquired. This is once more a
problem of equilibration. (p. 77)

In other words, when we study knowledge acquisition, how can we assure

continuity of structures (systems of operations) and simultaneous integration of
new elements into these structures? Is it possible to have a synthesis of struc-
turalism and development within the totality of knowledge? Actually, this is the
same problem: the coexistence of change with continuity or stability.
Piaget has rejected structuralism without genesis or development (like Kant's
a priori synthesis forms) as a solution to the parts-whole equilibrium question.
On the other hand, the empiricist's genesis without structuralism is equally
inadequate because knowledge acquisition is viewed as accumulation, rather than
assimilation into structures (Piaget, 1969, 1971a).
If all development is a kind of organization, than as biolOgists like Paul Weiss
frequently have stressed, organisms are hierarchically ordered systems. Weiss's
(1963) formulation of the "many body" problem in physics weakens the
accumulation answer of empiricism:
If a is indispensable for both b and c; b for both a and c; and c for both a and
b, no pair of them could exist without the third member of the group, hence
any attempt to build up such a system by consecutive additions would break
down right at the first step. In other words, a system of this kind can exist
only as an entity or not at all. (p. 192; see also Weiss, 1968, 1969)

For both Weiss and Piaget, then, development is impossible without organization
or regulatory mechanisms.
CyberneticS, probably the most influential of all diSCiplines in affecting
interdiSCiplinary currents, provides Piaget with a model to clarify how the whole
is conserved throughout a series of regulated transformations. 13 This discipline
is a theory of guiding, communication, "and explanation of how one mechanism
13 Ashby's (1956) account of cybernetics written for workers in the biological sciences is
often cited by both Piaget and Waddington.
Piaget's Concept of Equilibration 29

can direct others, or itself, by means of transmissions and the retroactive or

anticipatory effects of information given" (Piaget, 1971a, p. 61). Cybernetic
models are important to an understanding of cognitive mechanisms because
knowledge acquisition is viewed in its dynamic aspects of organization regulation
(an assimilatory model rather than a copy model). It was stressed earlier that
equilibration is the self-regulating factor of the development of knowledge.
Because cybernetic models incorporate self-controlling systems directed toward
adaptation, such models help clarify the many possible analogies between
biological and cognitive functioning (Piaget, 1971a, see especially Chapters
3 and 4).
The final words of Piaget's address on equilibration are essentially a re-
emphasis of the necessity for regulatory mechanisms. Regulation, according to
Piaget (1971a), is a retroactive control maintaining the equilibrium of an
organized structure. Further, this equilibrium is reached on the cognitive level
when compensations are assured by reversible operations, that is, logical neces-
sity reached by progressive equilibration.
Therefore, equilibration, as a coordinating factor of cognitive developmellL,
is something more than the mere construct of equilibrium. It is not a cumber-
some fourth factor but the regulator or prime instrument without which knowl-
edge acquisition is impossible. Without self-regulation, such mechanisms as
organization, conservation, and adaptation (the interaction model of assimila-
tion-accommodation) would lose identity and continuity. Information accumu-
lation without regulation would lead to a confusion of changes without self-
conservation, and therefore without "life" (Piaget, 1971a, pp. 202-203; also see
Pinard & Laurendeau, 1969).
Living organisms are open systems in the cybernetic sense because they
exchange information with their environments. However, if an organism is too
open-if information accumulation exists without organization-the system dis-
integrates. The question becomes: How is it possible to combine the stability of
a closed system, one without exchanges, with that of an open system? We have
returned full circle to the original query: How is it possible to have both
continuity or stability and change?
The answer to this essential question lies in the positing of an equihorating
system as a cybernetic synthesis involving circuits or feedback loops of in-
creasing complexity between the organism and the environment (piaget, 1967a).
The essential aspect of such a cybernetic synthesis is progressive closure, which
simultaneously permits unlimited exchange or extension of the environment.
This is possible only when cognitive mechanisms function as specialized regu-
latory organs controlling exchanges with the environment (piaget, 1971a, p.
354).
In the evolution of knowledge, the 10gicomathematical structures and emerg-
ing operations allow both stability and exchange. The stability or closed-system
aspect is maintained by the achievement of equilibrium, which infers reversi-
30 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

bility and consequent conservation of the system. Operations, as self-regulatory

mechanisms, become perfect regulators. The achieved equilibrium includes com-
pensation and consequent precorrection or avoidance of error, that is, control.
In addition, logical stability is a perfect regulator. 14 It allows the equilibrated
system to act as an exchange or open system. Therefore, a previous structure can
be assimilated into a new one without the elimination of the old. Viewed in this
way, Piaget's equilibrated or exchange system incorporates Bertalanffy's concept
of equilibrium as a stable state in an open system. The equilibrium is charac-
terized by mobility and activity, with both a stable and an open form of a
continual flux of exchanges (Piaget, 1967a; see also discussions between Piaget
and Bertalanffy, 1960).
Cognitive functions, then, are specialized factors of self-regulation con-
trolling the exchanges underlying all behavior or the entire system of action
schemes. The relation between behavior and environment cannot be studied
without the incorporation of the concept of control through equilibraton.
Behavior, like all organization, involves regulations. Skinner's (1971) proposal
that we can neglect mediating states of mind betrays a lack of understanding of
modern biology, which, of necessity, emphasizes the role of self-regulation. It is
the factor of self-regulation, incorporating organization and function that dis-
tinguishes life from nonlife (Longuet-Higgins, 1969). Cognitive functions are
part of life. Therefore, equilibration, as the self-regulatory mechanism of cog-
nitive development, is central to Piaget's theory. .

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32 Jeanette McCarthy Gallagher

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 CHAPTER 4

Sequential Order and Plasticity

in Early Psychological Development*
J. McVicker Hunt
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

The philosophers of nature were exceedingly slow to recognize that organisms go

through a series of changes in anatomical substance and structure during their
embryonic development. The ancient aphorism that "hair cannot come from
not·hair," epitomizing the principle that no substance or structure can come
from a substance or structure of a different nature, dominated human thought
from the days of ancient Greece to nearly modern times. Over 2,000 years
passed from the time of Aristotle's first observations of some of the epigenetic
changes that occur in chick embryos until Casper Friedrich Wolff (1759, 1768)
detailed the transformations in the circulatory system and the intestine of chick
embryos so clearly that he convinced at least those informed of biological
matters, brought an end to the doctrine of preformationism, and established
recognition of the epigenetic nature of embryonic development.
Preformationism is no more than a historical relic in embryology, yet
vestiges of preformationism remain in various of our views of psychological
development. All too often we psychologists attribute even to very young
infants whatever psychological realities are symbolized by such chapter headings
as attention, emotion, perception, and even thOUght. Moreover, we tend to
assume language to be a set of response-produced cues that designate, emphasize,
and order things and actions in the world about. It has been the merit of Jean
Piaget, perhaps more than of anyone else, to recognize an analogue of epigenesis

*This paper was presented at the second annual symposium of the Jean Piaget Society in
1972. The work has had the support of grants (MH-K6-18567; MH-08468; MH-10226; and
MH-16074) from the National Institute of Mental Health.
33
34 J. McVicker Hunt

in the development of intelligence (Piaget, 1952a) and knowledge (Piaget,

1952b, 1954), and epigenesis should be recognized in the development of
motivation as well.
The potential impact of Piaget's observing and theOrizing is great, and the
actual impact is growing (Hunt, 1969). Piaget offers a conception of what comes
ready made in the human infant at birth that differs sharply from the notion of
a multiplicity of minute reflexes envisaged by Watson (1924) and later by
Carmichael (1954). In accommodation, assimilation, and equilibration, Piaget
offers a conceptual way for environmental encounters to participate inter-
actively in psychological development. His interactionistic view of the process of
psychological development differs markedly from both the nativism of Gestalt
theory and from the predeterminism of Gesell (1954), yet it avoids the extreme
plasticity implicit in the idea of a multiplicity of reflexes that can be evoked and
combined in an infmite variety of ways-the modem version of John Locke's
conception of experience writing on a tabula rasa (Hunt, 1969). Piaget's
(1952a,b; 1954) observations of development in infants and toddlers during
what he termed the "sensorimotor" and "pre conceptual" phases lend substantial
support to the conception of intelligence, knowledge, and motivation as hier-
archically organized through interaction with environmental circumstances in a
sequential order of transformations.
Despite the richness of Piaget's observations and theorizing, with their
potential impact upon both developmental and general psychological concep-
tions, his work has been more in the nature of an exploratory search than of a
validation of his own formulations. Although he is the 20th century's "Giant of
Developmental Psychology" (Hunt, 1969), the open-endedness of his epistomo-
logical views would make it ironic indeed if his writings were to become the basis
for yet another orthodoxy in psychology.
In extending the epigenetic view of development from body to behavior and
from anatomy to intellect and to epistemology, Piaget has raised, or at least put
a greatly increased emphasis upon, four large issues. The first concerns the
criteria by which the separate levels, or structures, or stages of psycholOgical
development are to be identified. A second concerns the principle by means of
which these configurations are to be ordered. A third concerns the nature of the
transitions taking place between developmental landmarks, states, or stages. A
fourth concerns the nature of the processes within the individual and between
the individual and his circumstances that account for the transformations from
one stage or state to another. These are large issues. They will keep investigators
of psychological development busy for a long time. The following discussion
touches in limited fashion upon the first three of these issues, but where the
fourth is concerned, new evidence shall be introduced concerning the plastic
nature of the processes within the individual and between the individual and his
circumstances that account for the transformations in object construction.
Inasmuch as UZgiris and the author have spent a good deal of time producing
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 35

a set of six ordinal scales of sensorimotor development (Uzgiris & Hunt, 1975),
it may be appropriate to consider briefly the criteria used to characterize the
various steps in psychological development to which the terms landmarks and
levels usually refer.
In the course of these investigations, we found ourselves limited by Piaget's
six stages of sensorimotor development. First of all, we found a sequence of
more than six behavioral "landmarks" on which observers could agree. It
occurred to us, moreover, that one could hardly investigate the validity of
Piaget's six configurational stages with a measuring tool that assumes their
existence. Thus, we ceased to make this assumption in the choice of behavioral
landmarks. Instead, as many as could be elicited with fair regularity and with
high observer agreement were accepted. Because certain behavioral landmarks
that could not be elicited with high regUlarity seemed to have a high level of
theoretical meaningfulness, however, they were retained. Thus, the criteria for
"landmarks" became ease of elicitation, observer agreement, and theoretical
meaningfulness. The landmarks found served to characterize what has been
termed level of development. These levels are presumed to persist between
transitions, whatever the nature of the transitional processes that serve to alter
the observable structure of the behavior. Rarely does an investigator have an
opportunity to observe the transitional processes; however, one is able to
observe the behavioral landmarks that characterize a level.
Having all the behavioral landmarks grouped together proved to be both
practically and theoretically clumsy. Therefore, the landmarks of sensorimotor
development were separated into six branches or series. Actually, Uzgiris as-
sumed the major responsibility for separating these developmental landmarks.
Such a separation raises the additional issue of the criteria for each branch. The
branches owe something to Piaget's schemes ready made at birth and also to his
distinction between the organizations of sensorimotor schemes and the construc-
tions and reality. Furthermore, they provided an intuitively meaningful organiza-
tion for our landmarks.
The six branches have led to seven scales. One is concerned with visual
following and the permanence of objects. It has fourteen steps, rather than
Piaget's six stages. The second, having thirteen steps, concerns the development
of means for obtaining desired environmental events. The third branch concerns
imitation and yields two scales: one for gestural imitation with nine steps and
one for vocal imitation with nine steps. The fourth branch concerns the episte-
mological construction of operational causality with seven steps. The fifth
branch concerns the construction of object relations in space with eleven steps.
And the sixth concerns the development of schemes for relating to objects, with
ten steps. Even though these scales appear to be very useful for investigation of a
variety of issues, including Piaget's theory of stages, no claim is made for having
uncovered the ultimate nature of sensorimotor development.
The principle by which the successive landmarks in each branch of sensori-
36 J. McVicker Hunt

motor development are ordered brings us to the first substantial term in the title.
It is sequential. It was the sequentiality of Piaget's stages that first suggested the
idea of ordinal scales of psychological development. On the other hand, the
hypothesis of sequential ordinality calls urgently for empirical validation of
hypothetical sequences of behavioral landmarks. The first empirical test came
with data derived from a cross-sectional study of infants differing in age. These
infants were examined but once. Here the criterion of sequential ordinality was a
matter of whether those who had passed a given landmark in a given branch
could also have passed all those landmarks below it. In a cross-sectional study,
some presuming was called for. The epigenetic nature of psychological develop-
ment makes it highly inappropriate for an older infant-say, of 15 months-to be
expected to give critical reactions typical of infants of 4 or 5 months to some of
the eliciting situations. If an infant gave the critical reactions characterizing two
or three of the steps below the fmal one passed before failure on a couple of
more advanced steps, it was presumed that had the infant been examined at an
earlier age, he would have shown the critical reactions skipped. For the seven
scales, Green's (1956) index of consistency (I) ranges between a high of .991 for
the scale concerning the construction of operational causality to a low of .802
for the scale on the development for relating to objects. Except for this latter
scale and that concerning the development of means for achieving desired
environmental events (J = .812), the remainder of these coefficients are .89 (for
vocal imitation) or above. The ultimate test of sequential organization must
come, however, from longitudinal studies of infants examined repeatedly during
their development. Uzgiris has completed the first of such studies, and others are
under way. Evidence of inevitable sequentiality, moreover, calls for longitudinal
studies of infants developing under as wide a variety of cultures and conditions
as feasible. Such studies are now under way in parent and child centers in this
country and in an orphanage in Tehran.
This principle of sequential behavioral landmarks is far from new. Something
resembling sequential organization was recognized by Binet and Simon (1905) in
their use of complex psychological functions in order "to assess the intel-
ligence." In starting their investigations with schoolchildren, they were dis-
tracted by various aspects of complexity and difficulty. In adopting the concep-
tion of mental age, they unfortunately confounded sequential organization with
age. Apparently influenced by Galton's (1869) notions on mental inheritance,
Wilhelm Stern (1912) suggested the intelligence quotient (IQ) and considered it
to be a basic biological dimension of individual differences. In fOCUSing upon
rate of development, Stern, moreover, made time (or age) the major independent
variable in development. Ever since, the confused arguments over the constancy
of this developmental rate have obscured the investigation of the principles by
means of which levels or stages of development are ordered.
In the ensuing debates over heredity and environment, maturation was
conceived to be genetically preprogrammed, while learning was considered to be
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 37

under the cnntrol of the environment. Thus, when Shirley (1931) uncovered a
sequential organization in motor development, she saw it as evidence faVOring
"the maturation theory." Certainly genetic preprogramming is one factor in the
sequential ordering of behavior, but it cannot be the only factor.
In certain instances, sequential order is logically built into behavioral devel-
opment. Thus, for instance, following an object through 180 0 of visual arc
clearly implies ability to follow an object under lesser degrees of arc. Measures of
strength, speed, time of reaction, etc., all follow this principle. Such is the case
generally when the assessment of the landmarks is based on the fmding of points
on continuous variables. In such cases, the matter of sequential organization is
trivial.
In certain other instances, the sequential order appears to depend upon the
persistence of representative central processes. This appears to be the case for
the branch of object construction, which would appear to be basic in the infant's
development of knowledge of the world about him.
Sequential organization is far from trivial and far from preprogrammed, not
only for object construction but in whatever branch of development the behav-
ioral1andmarks imply any of several forms of transformation. It is these forms
of transition or transformation that provide the basis within the developmental
domain for the hierarchical conception of the organization of behavior and
thought. One can hardly discuss the matter, however, without taking into
account what appears to be the nature of some of these transformations between
successive levels of behavioral organization.
Certain essential features of some of these forms of transformation are
implicit in the difference between the characteristics of the observable behav-
ioral landmarks of successive levels of development. This is true for successive
levels of object construction. In an early examination, for instance, an infant's
eyes may immediately leave the point where an object he has followed with
apparent interest disappears. Then, in a later examination, his eyes linger where
such an object has disappeared. It would appear that the object, which was
without permanence in the first examination, had acquired at least a minimal
degree of permanence by the second examination. Let us take another instance.
In one examination, an infant will retrieve a desired object that has been
completely covered by a single cloth, but when the object is covered by three
superimposed cloths, it appears to be lost and the child gives up. At a later
examination, however, the child persists in pulling one cloth after another off
the object of his desire until he retrieves it. Again, the change in behavior implies
that the permanence of the object has increased. Such increases can go on until
the child can follow a desired object that has been hidden in a container through
a series of disappearances by going first to the place where the container
disappeared last and pursuing the places where the container disappeared in
reverse order. This reversal between the order of search and the order in which
the container disappeared implies that the infant can review his representative
38 1. McVicker Hunt'

central processes backward as well as forward. Such a performance is the top of

the scale of object permanence.
Such changes as occur in the behavior of infants seeking objects that have
disappeared from sight strongly suggest that the central processes that represent
the desired object must have increasing permanence and, at the end, a new level
of mobility. Whether this increasing permanence is a matter of preprogrammed
neuroanatomical maturation or whether it is a matter of the number and variety
of perceptual encounters with objects and events is simply an issue for investiga-
tion.
In other instances, the behavioral transition implies a form of transfor-
mation consisting of coordination of sensorimotor systems or schemes that were
previously relatively separate. Thus, at one point in his development, an infant
can follow objects with his eyes, and he can move his hands about, yet, when he
is presented with a colorful object, his eyes ftxate on it, and his hands are
extended generally toward it. He may show evidences of excitement in his
breathing and expression, but only accidentally do his ftsted hands actually
touch the object in the course of crude swipes. White (1967) has termed this
"ftsted-swiping." Later, when the same infant is presented with the same object,
he looks at it, he extends his arms directly toward it, and on the way he shapes
his hand or hands for grasping it. Eyes and hands have been coordinated in what
White has called "top-level reaching." Similarly, as Piaget (1952a) has pointed
out, "sounds heard become something to look at," "things grasped become
something to suck," in a series of coordinations of the sensorimotor systems
present at birth in what Piaget has called the "primary circular reactions." There
is evidence of considerable variation in the age at which such coordinations are
achieved (Piaget, 1952a, p. 115). It may be worth noting that the hospital-
reared infants in White's (1967) studies of eye-hand coordination achieved
top-level reaching considerably earlier than did the home-reared babies who
served as subjects in the investigations that led to our ordinal scales. However,
our home-reared infants achieved vocal pseudo-imitations much earlier than did
White's institutional babies.
Transitions based upon coordination of previously separate systems are not
limited to the sensorimotor phase, for symbolic communication through lan-
guage appears to derive in the course of psychological development from a
coordination of object construction with vocal imitation. Object construction
provides the perceptual knowledge of what is symbolized, and the acquisition of
vocal symbols is apparently motivated by the child's interest in imitating what
are to him novel vocal patterns. Such coordinations supply what is perhaps the
clearest evidence for the hierarchical organization of behavior, intelligence,
knowledge, and thought. From the limited evidence available, we suspect that
even these early pseudowords are impossible until an infant has developed object
construction to the point where he can follow an object through at least one
hidden displacement and has become interested in imitating vocal patterns after
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 39

hearing them only a few times. It may be worth noting here that, at least
hypothetically, both branches of development must have achieved, at minimum,
a fairly high sensorimotor level before the transformation comprised of their
coordination can occur.
Another form of the implicit nature of the transition between successive
behavioral landmarks appears to be motivational in character. The landmarks
consist of behavioral evidences that indicate interest in various kinds of environ-
mental circumstances such as prolonged looking, efforts to retain or to regain
perceptual contact, and preoccupation with an activity, an object, or a subject.
Because the transition appears to be based upon a limited number of perceptual
encounters, we have been inclined to think of it as the attractiveness of emerging
recognitive familiarity (Hunt, 1963, 1965, 1970). This attractiveness appears to
account for the infant's looking longer at familiar patterns before looking longer
at n<wel patterns (Uzgiris & Hunt, 1970, Greenberg, Uzgiris, & Hunt, 1970,
Weizmann, Cohen, & Pratt, 1971, Wetherford & Cohen, 1973). It is suspected
that this attractiveness may also be the motivation for such repetitive autogenic
behaviors as hand-watching and nondistressful vocalization (Hunt, 1965, 1971).
Repeated encounters ultimately lead, however, to interest in what is novel, and
this interest may well be the intrinsic motivation for exploratory behavior and
the imitation of novel gestures and vocal patterns. Such attraction appears to be
based, however, on an optimum of novelty, complexity, and challenge. Although
the precise nature of what it is in the organism-environment relationship that
must be optimal to be attractive is still a matter of debate (Berlyne, 1971; Hunt,
1971), it must be close to the kind of relationship that Hebb (1949, pp.
227-234) considered in his theory of pleasure. Such phenomena will require
further investigation before they are completely understood.
Yet another form of the implicit nature of the transition between the
landmarks for successive levels of behavioral organization brings to mind what is
commonly called acquired generalization, what Harlow (1949) called the
"learning set." The transition from interest in the familiar to interest in the
novel may not be entirely a matter of the hedonic value of recognitive famil-
iarity. Whereas infants appear to be relaxed and pleased when looking at objects
that have become recognitively familiar through repeated encounters, they
typically wear an intent and concerned expression when they are focusing on
unfamiliar patterns. This seems to be true even late in the first half year of life.
Perhaps the expression of critical scrutiny reflects the achievement of the first
learning set: "things should be recognizable." This is what Woodworth (1947)
called the "goal of perceptual activity."
Similarly, a few encounters with an action that leads to an interesting effect
produce behavior that implies that the child anticipates the effect. It is this
implied anticipation that led Piaget (1952a) to speak of "intentions." In the
language of Skinner (1953), these intentional actions would be called "operant
responses." Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that the acquisition of a
40 J. McVicker Hunt

series of such intentional actions, when the infant can obtain-probably with
effort-the expected outcome, leads to a "generalized confidence" that Erikson
(1950) has termed "trust." The child acts as if he had come to believe, "If I do
something, I can make interesting things happen."
The motivational learning sets represent highly tentative formulations, but
there is one that is fairly well established in the domain of language develop-
ment. This formulation's historical origins can be derived from the change in
Helen Keller's behavior in the well-known incident at the pump, when
"Teacher's" differing manipulations of Helen's hands for water and for cup led
to a sudden change in Helen's behavior. Helen turned to manipulate "Teacher's"
hand in such a fashion as to spell the word water several times, and then the
word cup. Then, excitedly, after touching various objects nearby, Helen ex-
tended her hand to Teacher to have her spell the names of these objects. Within
a few hours, Helen added 30 new words to her vocabulary. A similar chaqge has
been observed very commonly in children. Mter gradually acquiring a number of
words, or pseudowords, the referents of which can be recognized by at least
those who know the child well, the child begins to ask, in one way or another,
the names of objects. It is as if the child had generalized the proposition that
"things have names." Such a change in behavior has been repeatedly associated
with sharp upward shifts in the rate of vocabulary building (McCarthy, 1954).
Such learning sets, or generalizations, may constitute the nature of a good many
of the transitions between the behavior characteristics of successive levels of
psychological development.
The main point, however, is that the persistence of the central process
representative of objects, and the coordinations of previously separate systems,
and the generalizations that have been described, are not necessarily prepro-
grammed. It seems more likely that they derive from the infant's ongoing
interactions with his environmental circumstances.
The existence of dependable sequences in several branches of sensorimotor
development provides us with a basis for several fortunate modifications in the
strategy for assessing development and for studying its structure. First, depend-
able sequences permit the construction of ordinal scales. Such scales make no
assumption of automatic progress in a unitary power without consideration of
the interrelationships among the various kinds of behavioral achievements.
Second, inasmuch as ordinal scales are based on a series of hierarchically
arranged behavioral landmarks for each branch, they provide a method for
investigating organizational structures and of testing the validity of those stages
described by Piaget (1952a, 1954). Third, ordinal scales disentangle psychologi-
cal development from age, thereby making it readily feasible to use age as the
dependent variable with which to assess the impact of various independent
environmental variables on development. Fourth, ordinal scales permit one to
get psychological meaning directly from a child's performance. In traditional
scales of development, the meaning derives from the interpersonal comparisons
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 41

of performance implicit in such statistics as percentile ranks, standard scores,

IQs, and even mental age.s. Although one can readily compare children on ordinal
scales, it is unnecessary to make such comparisons in order to obtain the
psychological Significance of a child's performance. Several of these modifica-
tions of strategy in assessment become evident in the data reported on the
plasticity of object construction.
Readers of Piaget's works disagree about the underlying implications of what
has been listed as the fourth issue, namely, the issue concerning the nature of the
causes and the processes underlying the transitions between levels or stages.
Although this issue can be refmed indefmitely, the broadest division is that
between the time-honored poles of maturation and learning. Here, however,
learning must be extended to include all of the adaptive effects of informational
interaction with the environment. On this issue, the impact of Piaget's work is
ambiguous. On the one hand, his theory-with his constructs of
accommodations, assimilation, and equilibration and with such aphorisms as
"use is the aliment of a schema"-clearly gives a major role in the fostering of
development to the ongoing interaction, both social and inanimate, between the
infant and his environment. On the other hand, Piaget's empirical method
associates each successive stage with an approximate age, and his evidence
consists of behavioral landmarks that come at about the same age for all the
children within each of his various small samples. So far as sensorimotor
development is concerned, the number of sUbjects in his sample is only three:
his own three children. The children in his other samples are presumably from
middle-class families of Geneva.
If one takes Piaget's theory more seriously than his evidence, one would
expect to find considerable variation in the ages at which infants achieve the
successive stages of sensorimotor development. In fact, where visually directed
reaching is the behavioral landmark, Piaget (19520, p. 115) made an explicit
point of the role of experience in the fact that his own three children achieved
this landmark at ages 3 months, 4 months, and 6 months. He attributed the
relatively retarded development of this landmark in Jacqueline to the restraints
of clothing dictated by birth in winter.
On the other hand, if one takes the bulk of the evidence that Piaget has
presented in his many books more seriously than his theory, one would expect
little variation in his successive stages and the ages at which infants achieve the
various behavioral landmarks. The matter did not interest Piaget much, but it is
clearly one for empirical investigation and calls for the use of ordinal scales of
sensorimotor development on children developing under conditions of rearing
that vary as much as possible.
It was partly such a consideration that prompted the plan of cross-sectional
investigations of sensorimotor develo.Qment in orphanaBes with differing regimes.
This plan led ultimately to the study done in Athens (paraskevopoulos & Hunt,
1971) and to the studies under way in Iran and in the kibbutzim of Israel.
42 J. McVicker Hunt

Because of an interest in the development of the symbolic processes and

symbolic communication, only the Uzgiris-Hunt scales of object permanence
and imitation, with emphasis on vocal rather than gestural imitation, have been
used in these investigations.
The cross-sectional data reported here derive from the Greek study (see
Figure 1). The data were obtained from children developing under three differ-
ing sets of rearing conditions. One set consisted of those rearing conditions in
the Municipal Orphanage of Athens, where the infant-caretaker ratio was about
10 to 1. The second set consisted of the rearing conditions in Metera, the
Queen's orphanage, which aimed to be a model baby center, where the infant-
caretaker ratio was 3 to 1 during the time of waking-play. The third set
consisted of that variety of rearing conditions to be found in a sample of
working-class homes in which most of the babies were examined while they were
in a day-care center for working mothers.
The other data presented in Figure 1 derive from two unpublished longi-
tudinal studies, one of which was conducted by Uzgiris. Her sample consisted of
a dozen home-reared babies from middle-class families in Worcester, Massa-
chusetts. The babies were examined every other week during their ftrst year, and
every fourth week during their second year. The central purpose of this investi-
gation was to get evidence concerning the sequential order of the landmarks in
our presumably ordinal scales. The other set of longitudinal data derive from a
similar series of repeated examinations, using the UZgiris-Hunt scales, on eight
children from families of poverty where the mother-caretakers participated in a
training program for mothers at the parent and child center at Mt. Carmel,
illinois. 1
Here I present only the evidence concerning object construction from the
scale on object permanence (1) because I fmd that psychologists and educators
typically fmd plasticity in the development of object construction more surpris-
ing than they fmd plasticity in vocal imitation; and (2) because the data on vocal
imitation from the longitudinal studies were incomplete when this was written.
In Figure 1, the abscissa represents a selection of 5 of the 14 behavioral
landmarks representing the 14 successive levels of development in the scale of
visual following and object permanence. For levels below that on the extreme
left, the examiner had already determined that the infant subject desired the
object being used. The infant demonstrated that desire by reaching for the
object: ftrst, when it was completely uncovered and then when it was partially
covered. Therefore, we start here with the level at which the infant recovered a
desired object that had been completely covered. There are ftve columns ascend-
ing from the abscissa for this level. Under each column is the number of subjects
participating in the mean and standard deviation of age for the condition of

1 Thesedata were gathered in collaboration with David Schickedanz and with the assistance
of Earladeen Badger and Melvin Noe, Director.
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 43

- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - J - - -- - 4 Yeo..
200

110

160
----------~~-----I

140

120

100

iJ 110
. !i;

§
60

40

~o

- .'
o
10 III 7 12 2 II III 17 12 7 55161211 137261211 77 .. 127
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~
~ :."."..
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Or* til ctJtrllllfw
II• ." .~. tII~
til• .,. • MCIIO

CI1Id MCII'cheI for one! obIains dttirtd object when ~ II ;

AIhInI Ot~ - krIrItrI / ~ ,.110' tIiitwI 10 , I

A....... Otp/lanaQe - """", / ctInIrtk. fYIIIo: .Mll ~ : I
AI"--
Wore.".,. Motl.- ,."". r-.d. MItIdM cltt.. fomllH
MI. CGnneI. '1. - ".,.", tIIId dIN - * '

FIGURE 1. Object construction under differing conditions of rearing.

rearing represented by that column. At the next level represented along the
abscissa to the right, the infants recovered an object covered by three screens. At
the third level to the right, they retrieved an object that was hidden in a box
after that box had disappeared under a cover and had been returned empty. At
the fourth level, the infants retrieved the desired object after it had been hidden
44 J. McVicker Hunt

in a box and the box, in turn, had disappeared under a series of three different
covers and had been returned empty. Here, the infant proceeded to look under
the covers under which the box that hid the object had first disappeared and
proceeded to the other screens in the same order in which the box had
disappeared. At the level represented at the extreme right of this figure, the
infants retrieved a desired object after such a series of hidden displacements, but
each looked first where the box disappeared last, then explored the covers that
hid the box in the reverse order in which the box disappeared. Such a per-
formance implies that the infant at this level can replay the central processes
representing the events of the eliciting situation in an order opposite to that in
which the disappearances occur.
The dependent variable here, represented on the ordinate, is age. The top of
each column represents the mean, and the line extending above and below
represents the standard deviation of the ages of the children in the sample at that
level. The independent variable consists of the rearing conditions for each of the
five samples represented by the columns over each level of development.
The first three columns over each level of object construction derive from
the Athens study, and the data are cross-sectional in character. The column at
the left of each group of five represents a sample of children who had developed
from a week or 10 days after birth in the Municipal Orphanage, where the
baby-caretaker ratio was 10 to 1. The second column represents babies who
developed from birth, or within 10 days after birth, at Metera Baby Centre,
where the infant-caretaker ratio was of the order of 3 to 1. The third column,
central in each successive group of five, represents home-reared babies from
families of working-class status in Athens.
These variations in rearing conditions constitute the independent variable for
the means of the ages of the children at each level of development assessed. It
should be noted that the Athens study was cross-sectional. Every baby between
5 months and 5 years was examined with the scales of object construction and
imitation. A similar sample of home-reared youngsters was examined in day-care
centers for children of mothers who worked. Thus, each of these first three
columns over the successive levels of object construction represents a different
group of children.
The fourth column in each group of five in Figure 1 derives from the
longitudinal study of infants from middle-class families in Worcester by Uzgiris.
Since this is a longitudinal study, the 12 babies represented in each of the
successive four columns are the same children.
The fifth column also represents a longitudinal study. The subjects were the
babies from the families participating in the program of the parent and child
center at Mt. Carmel, lllinois. Not all of the babies entered the program at the
same time. The two represented in the fifth column at the extreme right of the
first group of five columns at the left of Figure 1 were children of mothers from
the poverty sector who had the status of paraprofessional workers in the Mt.
Carmel center. These two infants participated in the day-care program of the Mt.
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 4S

Carmel center from about a week following their birth and for a time were its
only participants. There were ultimately eight children recruited into this pro-
gram, but the examiner failed to examine one of them at the proper time;
therefore, this child has been omitted from the sample represented at the extreme
right.
What do the results show? First of all, there was an obvious tendency for
mean ages to increase with each successive level of object construction. It is
equally clear that the babies of the Municipal Orphanage, where the infant-care-
taker ratio was of the order of 10 to 1, were the oldest of those at each
successive level. Although the slope for their mean ages appears from inspection
to rise more steeply than do the slopes for the mean ages of either the babies
from Metera or those home-reared, this apparent interaction between conditions
of rearing and rate of development is not statistically significant. On the other
hand, these infants of the Municipal Orphanage of Athens were significantly
older than the children growing up either at Metera or in their own homes.
Although the children of Metera averaged older than those of home-reared
children, these differences are not statistically significant.
Note the lines representing the standard deviations for the ages of the Greek
children at the three levels at the right of the graph: one hidden displacement, a
series of hidden displacements, and a series of hidden displacements with reversal
of order. Note how much smaller the standard deviations are for the children of
Metera at these levels than for the children of either the Municipal Orphanage or
home rearing. This is an interesting finding that was not anticipated. At Metera,
where the infant-caretaker ratio was approximately 3 to 1, the caretakers were
student nurse-teachers who were carefully supervised. The conditions of rearing
among children at Metera differed little. The standard deviations of age reflect
this. At the Municipal Orphanage, where the infant-caretaker ratio was 10 to 1,
it was extremely hard for a caretaker to be responsive to all 10 or her charges.
Inevitably, each caretaker developed favorites, and consequently others were
neglected. This is reflected in the standard deviations of age at which the
children achieved these upper levels of object construction.
Note that the standard deviations for the ages at which the home-reared
children reached the upper levels of object construction are even larger than the
standard deviations for those in the Municipal Orphanage and much larger than
those for the children at Metera. This fmding was unexpected. What this fmding
suggests is that whatever genotypic variance there may be summates with the
development-fostering, or development-hampering, impact of the variations in
child rearing within these families. Clearly, the evidence from the differences
between the means and these standard deviations indicates that the environ-
mental circumstances encountered have a very substantial influence on the mean
ages at which children achieve these higher levels of object construction.
The data from the cross-sectional study are not comparable with those from
the two longitudinal studies for two reasons. Cross-sectional studies test children
more or less randomly across the ages during which they remain at the given
46 J. McVicker Hunt

level of development indicated by the behavioral landmark used. Because longi-

tudinal studies measure repeatedly every 2 weeks during the first year and every
fourth week during the second year, they detect infants very soon after they
have achieved the behavioral landmark indicating any given level of develop-
ment. Second, the repeated examining inherent in the longitudinal method
undoubtedly helps to foster development and make the ages at which samples of
children achieve the successive stages younger than those for children in cross-
sectional studies. It cannot be determined how much the advantages depicted
here for the two samples of children in the longitudinal studies is a matter of
such spurious methodological factors and how much is a matter of the develop-
ment-fostering characteristics of their rearing.
On the other hand, the finding of the means at which the Mt. Carmel sample
achieved the following of a desired object through one hidden displacement and
then through a series of hidden displacements with reversal of the order in which
the container disappeared is of interesting significance. Even though these
children of the Mt. Carmel sample came from families of the lowest socioeco-
nomic status in a small Illinois town, the average age at which they followed an
object through one hidden displacement was 10 weeks younger than the average
age for the Worcester sample of babies from middle-class background. Even more
impressively, the age at which these Mt. Carmel babies achieved following an
object through a series of hidden displacements with reversal of order averaged
19 weeks younger than the mean of the babies in the Worcester sample. This is a
difference of nearly 5 months. This difference is of theoretical importance, for it
calls into question the proposition that environmental interaction operates in
threshold fashion. It also calls into question the fairly commonly held view that
the child-rearing practices of the middle class approximate the optimum.
These bits of evidence clearly imply that the infant's interaction with his
circumstances makes a substantial difference in his rate of sensorimotor develop-
ment. While such investigations yield evidence of the importance of informa-
tional interaction with environmental circumstances in development, they have
limited value. They do not indicate, for instance, what in the infant-environ-
ment interaction is important in fostering object construction. In order to get
some inkling of what the infant-caretaker ratio means with respect to the
characteristics of the infant-environment interaction, studies are being con-
ducted with Paraskevopoulos regarding that interaction in the Greek orphanages.
One can get some inkling of what in an infant's experience is important from
the nature of the program instituted at the Parent and Child Center at Mt.
Carmel. This was the training program for mothers developed by Badger
(1971a,b,c, 1972). It is an extension and improvement of the one originally
employed and tested in the investigative program of Karnes (Karnes, Teska,
Hodgins, & Badger, 1970). Conceptually, it is quite simple. First, the mothers
and caretakers are encouraged strongly to believe that how they interact with
and arrange the situations for their babies will make an important difference in
Order and Plasticity in Psychological Development 47

the infants' development and in their future. Second, while their babies are very
young, mothers and caretakers are encouraged to be responsive to any behavioral
indicators of distress, and to remove the sources of that distress. Third, mothers
and caretakers are taught that infants need time for interaction with play
materials and with models, and they are taught to observe their infants for
behavioral indications of interest, surprise, and boredom and of that distressful
frustration which results from an infant's inability to cope with a situation.
Fourth, and in close connection with the third aspect, mothers and caretakers
are encouraged to provide their infants with materials and models that bring
forth the behavioral signs of interest and to remove those that elicit behavioral
signs of either boredom or distressful frustration. Fifth, mothers and caretakers
are shown something of the sequence to be found in the developing of abilities
and interest. From such information, observations of the nature of the materials
and models in which an infant is currently interested provide mothers and
caretakers with a basis for choosing materials that will shortly become interest-
ing. In this fashion, Badger has attempted to solve what we like to call the
"problem of the match." Finally, this approach emphasizes the importance of
talking to the infants about the materials with which they are occupied, talking
about what they are doing, and utilizing pseudo-imitation-and later, genuine
imitation-to encourage vocal interaction. Such evidence as we have presented
suggests that this training program for mothers is promising.
In the foregoing:
1. The criteria of levels of development have been outlined; criteria which
might also serve for stages or states. We have also noted that our ordinal
scales do not assume Piaget's six stages of sensorimotor development.
2. It has been indicated that sequential organization is far from pre-pro-
grammed, that it is far from theoretically trivial when there are transforma-
tions between successive levels or states.
3. The characteristics of the transformations between successive levels or states
have been suggested as implicit in the nature of the differences between the
characteristics of the observable behavioral landmarks of successive levels.
4. Evidence has been introduced indicating great variations in the ages at which
infants and young children achieve the various levels of object construction.
These are correlated with their environmental circumstances.
We hope that the hierarchical hypothesis about the nature of psychological
development will be taken seriously. This hypothesis offers at least a fair tool for
investigating sensorimotor development in the ordinal scales that Uzgiris and I
have developed. We are very much in need of such scales for the pre conceptual
phase also. If we take the hierarchical conception of development seriously,
what Piaget has termed the "pre conceptual phase" is a portion of human
psychological development about which we are abysmally ignorant. If we are to
become more effective in early childhood education, we need instruments for
48 J. McVicker Hunt

assessment based upon this principle of sequential, hierarchical organization. We

need them as tools to learn what kinds of experiences are required to foster
psychological development. Moreover, only by taking this hypothesis of an
epigenetic hierarchy in psychological development seriously and by determining
where investigations based on it will lead can we make relics of history of the
vestiges of preformation that still lurk in our theories of psychological develop-
ment.

References

Badger, E. D. A mother's training program-The road to a purposeful existence. Children,

September 1971,18,168-173. (a)
Badger, E. D. Teaching guide: Infant learning program. Paoli, P.: The Instructo Corporation,
A subsidiary of McGraw-Hill, 1971. (b)
Badger, E. D. Teaching guide: Toddler learning program. Paoli, Pa.: The Instructo Corpora-
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Badger, E. D. A mothers' training program-A sequel article. Children Today, May 1972,1,
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Berlyne, D. E. What next? Concluding summary. In H. I. Day, D. E. Berlyne, & D. E. Hunt
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Binet, A., & Simon, T. Methodes nouvelles pour Ie diagnostic du niveau intellectuel des
anormaux. L'anm!e Psychologique, 1905,11, 191-244.
Carmichael, L. The onset and early development of behavior. In L. Carmichael (Ed.),
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Galton, F. Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. London: Macmil-
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Hebb, D. O. The organization of behavior. New York: Wiley, 1949.
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Psychology, 1970,117,99-107.
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Suedfeld (Eds.), Personality theory and information processing. New York: Ronald
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Karnes, M. B., Teska, J. A., Hodgins, A. A., & Badger, E. D. Educational intervention at
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McCarthy, D. Language development in children. In L. Carmich!lel (Ed.), Manual of child
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Paraskevopoulos, J., & Hunt, J. McV. Object construction and imitation under differing
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longitudinal study of the effect of visual familiarity and responsiveness. Journal of
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Uzgiris, I. C., & Hunt, J. McV. Assessment in infancy: Ordinal scales of psychological
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119-124.
 PART II:

RESEARCH
 CHAPTERS

Information-Processing
Tendencies in Recent Experiments
in Cognitive Learning
Barbel Inhelder

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Piaget's theory concerns cognitive development and developmental epistemol-

ogy. It is therefore not surprising that such a theory is itself constantly develop-
ing. New problems are being raised, new methods are applied to deal with these
problems, and explanatory models are refmed and readjusted to account for new
findings. Piaget has shown that cognitive development has a direction and
proceeds toward better and better adaptation of the knowing subject to the
reality that is the object of his knowledge. Through intensive and detailed study
of the acquisition of various concepts (number, weight, volume, space, time,
causality, probability, and others), it was possible to determine the underlying
structures of thought that allow the attainment of these concepts. Subsequently,
it was possible to establish a hierarchy within these structures and to hypothe-
size their possible derivation. These structures have been formalized in algebraic
form as grouplike structures and semilattices for the pre formal stages of thought
and as lattices and groups for the formal stage. The structures are atemporal and
reflect the possibilities of a total system but to apprehend the formative
mechanisms that can explain the transition from one stage to another, we have
to go beyond such structural models. Piaget and his collaborators have become
increasingly interested in dynamic models, more specifically in self-regulatory
mechanisms.
From a biological point of view, all regulations during development go
beyond a mere maintenance of equilibrium. They originate through compensa-
S3
S4 Barbel Inhelder

tion of perturbations arising either in the organism or in its environment and

result in new constructions. Similarly, in psychological development, incomplete
systems or partial systems that conflict with one another are enlarged or
integrated through regulatory mechanisms. An important aspect of such mecha-
nisms resides in post hoc corrections that modify action schemes.
Piaget calls his developmental epistemology "naturalist but not positivist."
Cognitive behavior is an outward sign of the aSSimilatory and accommodatory
capacities of a living organism. The biological aspect of Piaget's theory is often
difficult to grasp for those psychologists who believe that mental development is
infmitely malleable under favorable conditions and with adequate teaching
methods, and who are convinced that what they think of as errors of growth can
easily be corrected.
A biologically inspired theory that uses concepts such as assimilation, accom-
modation, and action schemes is very different from a learning theory that tries
to account for cognitive development in terms of associations, connections, and
conditioning. These latter types of mechanisms always suppose that two events
are linked in the subject's mind because he has passively submitted to an outside
pressure connecting. the two. The concept of assimilation, by contrast, supposes
that the subject actively assimilates a new event to already-existing structures. It
is not a question of outside events molding the subject's mind but of his own
activity on the outside world, plus the feedback from this action, which allows
him to construct new concepts and action schemes.
There is thus an interaction between the knowing subject and the objects
that are to be known. It is true that Piaget has until recently emphasized the
constructive role of the subject and that comparatively little attention has been
given to features of the objects favoring the attainment of knowledge. Objects
can only be known, in closer and closer approximation, through the activity of
the subject himself. The subject never attains complete knowledge of these
objects; objectivity is the limit of these convergent processes. As knowledge of
objects proceeds, the subject's activity becomes better and better organized. In a
sense, this justifies Piaget's theoretical distinction between two types of knowl-
edge: logicomathematical knowledge and the knowledge of the physical world.
From the Piagetian point of view, these types of knowledge are the result, on the
one hand, of the organization of the subject's activities (logicomathematical
knowledge resulting from reflective abstraction) and, on the other hand, of the
knowledge the subject gains about the object's properties (knowledge of the
'>
physical world resulting from physical abstraction).
From the point of view of developmental psychology, the relations between
the two abstraction processes and their reciprocal influence have not yet been
sufficiently studied. One of our ambitions is to explore these relations through
learning experiments. We suppose that what the child learns about objects
influences the way he organizes his own activity and vice versa and that in this
Information-Processing Tendencies ss

link resides one of the dynamic factors of development. Learning experiments

seem particularly apt to help us observe transition mechanisms at work. By
accelerating the attainment of a concept and by working with the child in several
sessions-sometimes as many as six during 2 or 3 weeks-we may observe, or
even induce, some of the crucial moments in which "something happens."
Evidently, we can never observe the mechanisms but only the behavior that is
their result.
We hope that with new facts obtained from the learning experiments, we will
be able to get some ideas as to the possible form of a dynamic model of
transition mechanisms. In order to study as closely as possible the mechanisms at
work in the transition of one substage to another, we chose to conduct learning
experiments on the well-explored problems in conservation and class inclusion.
As I have already stated, developmental psychology aimed first of all at estab-
lishing a hierarchy of underlying structures. Conservation principles and class
inclusion operations are important indicators of the existence of a grouplike
structure. Logically speaking, an operation transforms a state A into a state B,
while its inverse transforms B back into A. Through these transformations, some
quantitative property is kept constant, and this invariance can exist only in a
coherent system of operations. It is for this reason that when a child understands
that, for instance, the weight of a ball of plasticine does not change when the
ball is transformed into a sausage or a pancake, we can interpret his understand-
ing as an indicator of the existence of a coherent system of operations. Though
the underlying structure of operations may be the same in many concepts of
conservation, it is well known that in development they do not all appear at the
same time but become established successively over a number of years. One of
the very first concepts of conservation, attained by most children around the age
of 6, is that of numerical quantity. At that age, children know that a change in
the disposition of a set of discontinuous elements does not change its number.
When presented with two linear arrangements of discontinuous elements in
optical one-to-one correspondence, of which one is then spread out, younger
children think that the spread-out elements, because they go "further" than the
other elements, are "more" in number.
One of the questions we hoped to elucidate by learning experiments was
how children construct more difficult conservation concepts once the conserva-
tion of numerical quantity is attained. Since the different conservation concepts
had been extensively studied, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, they
appeared to constitute a privileged case in which we might be able to observe
supposedly general transition-mechanisms in action.
In one of our experiments designed by Bovet (Inhelder, Bovet, & Sinclair,
1967), we tried to lead children, who in pretests showed an incipient notion of
numerical conservation, to a grasp of the conservation of continuous quantities,
normally acquired some 3 years later. In the given pretest, the children had to
56 Barbellnhelder

succeed in a test of numerical conservation, consisting of the following items.

Two identical glasses, A and B, are filled with large beads. The experimenter and
the child simultaneously drop beads, one or two at a time, into the glasses. Glass
B then is emptied into a narrower glass (N) or into a larger glass (L). The
conservation question is asked. The beads in glass N (or L) are then poured back
into B. The beads in glass A are poured into L, and those in B are poured into N
at the same time. The conservation question is asked again.
Children who passed the pretest then participated in the experiment. The
following types of situations were used (the details of the procedure are not
included here). In a preliminary situation, toy houses glued onto matchsticks are
first set out in two rows in one-to-one correspondence (Figure 1). Then houses
in the second row are displaced.
Questions are asked, first on conservation of the number of houses: "Are
there as many black houses as white houses? Or more? Or less? How do you
know?" Then on the length of the roads: "Is one of the roads just as long as the
other road? Would you be just as tired walking on one road as on the other
road? Or more? Or less?"
In other situations, the child himself has to construct paths with match-
sticks. Both experimenter and subject have a number of matches at their
disposal, but the subject's matches are shorter than those of the experimenter
and of a different color. In this situation, seven of the subject's red matches add
up to the same length as five of the experimenter's black matches. The experi-
menter constructs either a straight or a broken line, a "road," and asks the
subject to construct a line of the same length, "just as long a road, just as far to
walk." Three such problems are presented.
The first problem situation is the most complex: the experimenter con-
structs a sort of zigzag line and the subject has to construct a straight line of the
same length directly underneath (Figure 2).
In the second situation, the subject again has to construct a straight line of

C=====~.~=====-.C=====~.C=====-·

FIGURE 1.
lnformation·Processing Tendencies 57

- -_ .. ---- ._--- _..._.._-_.

FIGURE 2.

the same length as the experimenter's zigzag line, but no longer directly under·
neath (Figure 3).
The third situation is the easiest, since the experimenter's line is straight and
the subject is asked to construct a straight line directly underneath it (Figure 4).
The experimenter uses the same number of matches (five) as in the first and
second problem situations, so that in this third situation, when seven of the
subject's matches are needed to make a straight line of the same length, a correct
solution to the first and second situations is suggested by transitivity.
The three problem situations remain in front of the subject. Mter he has
given his fust three solutions, he is asked to give explanations and eventually to
reconsider his constructions, while the experimenter draws his attention to one
situation after another.
In this experiment, we interviewed a group of children with a mean age of 6
years who had to succeed in a test of numerical conservation without having the
concept of conservation of lengths (Piaget & Szeminska, 1952). Not only do the
subjects have to give consistent numerical conservation answers, but they also
have to be able to justify their answers. Some typical examples of solutions to
the three problems follow.
In the first problem situation, the most eleme!ltary solution is to construct a
straight line whose extremities coincide with those of the experimenter's zigzag
line. The child is convinced that the two lines are the same length, although his

- ..............-
FIGURE 3.
S8 Biirbellnhelder

- •
........ .... .. .... .... .
FIGURE 4.
•

line is made up of four short matches and the experimenter's line, of five long
matches.
In the second situation, the child fmds no ordinal point of reference because
he has to construct his line at some distance from the experimenter's line, and so
he uses the numerical reference: he constructs his line with the same number of
matches the experimenter has used, regardless of the fact that his matches are
shorter. When the experimenter now goes back to the first problem situation,
the child notices, with some embarrassment, that he has constructed a line that
he judged to be of equal length but that does not have the same number of
elements as the model line. At this point, we often see amusing and original
compromise solutions. For instance, in the first situation, the child may break
one of his matches in two, thus creating a line with the same number of elements
without destroying the ordinal correspondence (Figure 5). Another solution,
again clearly indicating the conflict between ordinal and numerical references,
consists of adding one match but placing it vertically instead of horizontally
(Figure 6).
When the child is then asked to construct his line in the third situation, he
starts by using the same number of matches (five) as the experimenter has used
for his line. Since this time both lines are straight and the child's line is directly
under the model line, he sees immediately that this does not give the right
solution. Because his matches are shorter, his line is not as long as the model
(Figure 7).
It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss in detail the purely psychologi·
cal results of these learning sessions. We intend to use this experiment as one of
the many examples of the intricate coordinations and differentiations that take
place when a new concept is formed and of the nature of the processes that
make this progress possible. In fact, in many other experiments, we observed the

---- FIGURE 5.
Information-Processing Tendencies S9

FIGURE 6.

same type of progress, and we feel justified in generalizing from this particularly
clear instance.
We were able to observe that our subjects not only made considerable
progress but that there were qualitative differences in this progress dependent on
the developmental level of the subjects at the beginning of the learning sessions.
A good proportion had clearly mastered conservation of length at the end of the
sessions. Another group went only part of the way. Some subjects progressed
little or not at all, thereby making explicit a number of obstacles that the more
advanced or brighter children overcame so quickly that we might have missed
their significance.
At the outset of the experiment, as was mentioned above, all of our subjects
were capable of conserving simple numerical quantity, which implies that they
had already coordinated the initial way of judging quantity by an ordinal
relation-"going beyond" or "starting and fmishing at the same point"-with a
way of judging based on a one-to-one correspondence. It could therefore be
supposed that the attainment of conservation of continuous length is a simple
result of what in associationist theories is called generalization. Nonconservation
of length shows that the obstacle is, again, an ordinal or topological way of
judging by "going just as far" or "going further than." If lengths constructed
from separate but contiguous elements had been presented, a "transfer" would
have taken place, and the problem of transition mechanisms would have been
solved in a simple but, for our purpose, uninteresting way. A first result of our
analysis of the subjects' behavior showed clearly that this was not the way in
which the transition took place.
Essentially, it was possible to distinguish four successive steps in the con-
struction process. Those subjects that made hardly any progress at all showed us
the importance of the first step. In the preliminary situation with the toy houses

----- FIGURE 7.
60 Barbel Inhelder

glued to matchsticks of equal length, one asks questions about the number of
houses and the length of the road. These children answered correctly the
number-of-houses question. They counted the houses and did not talk about one
set of houses "going further" than the other. As soon as they were asked a
question about the respective lengths of the roads, they did not think of
counting the elements or of going back to the one-to-one correspondence. They
answered incorrectly, judging according to the "going-beyond" criterion. In this
way, it became clear that one or another of two or more different systems of
evaluation could be elicited, both in a sense pertinent to the question, but
neither sufficiently developed to allow their integration. There was successive
activation of two separate systems, and no contradiction was felt by the
subject.
A second step in the construction process follows very soon afterward.
Instead of the two evaluation schemes arising separately, according to the
question asked, both seem to be present practically simultaneously. For exam-
ple, when the subjects had to construct a road "just as long" as and parallel to
the experimenter's road but with shorter matches, they would start off by
counting the elements, a scheme activated by the second problem situation, and
build their path with the same number of elements. However, no sooner had
they fmished their construction, than they noticed that one path "went further"
and they found their solution no longer acceptable. They could then turn to the
other solution, but on noticing that despite the coincidence there were more
small matches in the road than long matches in the other, they went back to
their first solution. Neither could satisfy them and they could not conceive of a
new solution taking both the preceding ones into account, although they were
conscious of the contradiction.
The third step did not appear in all the different experiments, but it is
perhaps the most significant one. It C0ll81StS in an inadequate effort at integra-
tion and is visible in what we have called compromise solutions. The child, as we
have already mentioned, breaks one of his matches in several pieces and thus
obtains the same number of matches and still does not have a path that "goes
beyond"; or he ignores the instruction that he has to make a straight road and
puts one of his matches vertically instead of horizontally. In this way, he fulfills
both his exigencies in a solution that at least temporarily satisfies him
From here, the fourth step in the construction process follows for many
subjects. Instead of one scheme's operating as a post hoc correction on the
other, we now see a reciprocal adjustment whereby the criterion of coincidence
(sufficient provided the two paths are parallel) and that of numerical equility
(sufficient prOVided all matches are of equal length) are successfully integrated
into a coherent system that allows the child to solve problems of length in
general and no longer only in special cases. Now the different schemes can be
integrated, which gives a new impetus to the search for necessary and sufficient
conditions for equality of length. This results in a complete understanding of the
Information-Processing Tendencies 61

compensation involved. The children explain, "You need more matches when
they are smaller" and "The road goes less far but it has zigzags."
Development takes place in a very similar way in all the processes that have
come to light during our training experiments. There is, however, one essential
difference. In the logical operations, in the strict sense of the term the regula-
tory mechanisms that lead sooner or later to an awareness of contradiction are
not followed by compromise solutions in the form of partial compensations;
instead, they are immediately followed by complete logical compensations that
later result in correct solutions. A particularly striking example is the acquisition
oflogical quantification (Piaget & Szeminska, 1952; Inhelder & Piaget, 1964).
The problem of class inclusion concerns addition compositions. For instance,
if B is in the general class and A and A' the subclasses, the following operations
obtain: A + A' = B, B - A' =A, andB- A =A'. From this it can be deduced that
if both A and A' are nonempty classes, B is larger than A and larger than A'. The
inclusion of class A in class B provides the relationship that proves the state-
ments "All A's are some B's" and "A is smaller than B." Certain subjects can
agree with the first statement even though they do not understand the second.
Complete understanding of the concept of inclusion implies the understanding
of the link between the operation A + A = B and the operation B - A = A'. this
link takes the form of logical compensation. It is only at the level of concrete
operations that the child becomes capable of working simultaneously on a
general class defmed by a general property (e.g., flowers) and on subclasses of
this general class that are defmed by a more restrictive property (e.g., roses). At
the preoperatory level, the child does not conserve the whole when he has to
compare it to one of the parts. His mistake is that when he begins by mentally
evaluating A, he isolates it from the whole B and can only compare it with A'
and not with B. When faced with a bunch of flowers containing a great many
roses and a few tulips and asked if there are more roses or more flowers, the
child replies that there are more roses. If he is then asked more than what, he
often answers, "Than tUlips." The main difficulty lies in the fact that the child is
asked to compare within only one collection of the logical extension of a
subclass A with the logical extension of the total class B.
Sinclair (Inhelder & Sinclair, 1969) has constructed a learning procedure in
which the children had to construct by themselves two collections within which
the subclasses varied in comparative size while the total collection was kept
constant. The experimenter gives one girl doll six pieces of fruit, for example,
four peaches and two apples (PPPPAA). The child is asked to give the other doll,
the boy doll, "just as many pieces of fruit, so that they have just as much to eat,
but more apples because he likes them better than peaches." The instruction is
repeated as often as necessary, in different forms. The situation can be varied,
made easier or more difficult.
Let me cite one typical example. At the beginning of the learning sessions, a
51h-year-old child asserts that the experimenter's instructions cannot be com-
62 Barbel Inhelder

plied with: "It can't be done." Later, when he accepts that it can indeed be
done, he gives the other doll an identical collection.
Q. What have you given him?
A. Two apples and four peaches.
Q. Can you remember what I just said?
A. He is to have the same thing as the girl.
Q. The same thing as what?
A. The same thing of the other fruit.

The experimenter's instructions, "Give the other doll more apples but just as
many pieces of fruit," contain two conditions: more apples (referring to the
subclass) and just as many (referring to the total class). In his interpretation of
these instructions, the child seems to be incapable of simultaneously taking into
account the four components, namely, the same, more, total class, and subclass.
At first he mentions only the condition referring to the total class, "the same
thing as the girl," but when the experimenter asks him about the first part of the
instructions, the child Uisconnects this condition from the total class and applies
it to the subclass, "the same thing of the other fruit. " When the other condition,
more apples, is stressed, the child applies it correctly but then neglects the first
one. He says, "We've got to add some then," and proceeds to add two apples to
the whole collection, so that he now has four peaches and four apples. When he
is asked if he is satisfied with his solution, he says that he is not. When we repeat
the instructions, he takes away all the fruit he had given the boy doll, ponders,
and then seems to make a real discovery: "We've got to give just apples then?"
And he gives six apples. This solution actually does solve the conflict among the
conditions. It does satisfy all the conditions, but vacuously. That is, he solves the
problem of including one class in another by identifying the total class with one
subclass. He identifies the part and the whole without going through the trouble
of having to make compensations for the members of the complementary
subclasses. As discussed previously, compensation means taking away one A'
whenever one A is added.
The above solution is functionally similar to the third step in the construc-
tion process in the preceding experiment: the compromise solution between
ordinal and numerical schemes. But here the compensation is immediately
complete because it happens to be a special case of the solution. It is specific to
logical problems in the strict sense where the ordinal and the extensional aspects
of quantification are nondifferentiated.
That this is a special case and not a general logical solution is clearly
demonstrated by the fact that when the experimenter's questions reintroduce
the two aspects, the child again decomposes his solution into his former
disconnected categories:
Q. There we are. Now what's he got?
A. Now he's got more apples than the girl.
Q. Right. Do they have the same number of pieces of fruit?
Information-Processing Tendencies 63

A. No, one's got more.

Q. Who?
A. The boy doll. I gave him two extra apples.
Q. You're sure? How many pieces of fruit has he got then?
A. (without counting) He's got eight.
Q. Have a good look and count them carefully.
A. (very surprised) He has got six too!
This particular child, who started at the lowest operative level, was not able
to go further. However, children who were more advanced at the beginning of
the learning sessions resolved the contradiction by a very adequate complete
compensation of logical operations and acquired full understanding of class
inclusion. This understanding was shown not only in situations involving two
collections but also in the more difficult one-collection situation. Finally, for all
these children, training in class inclusion had an unexpected positive effect on
progress in conservation problems.
These two examples, among many of our learning studies, seem to lead to
the follOwing conclusions. Instead of a more-or-less straightforward type of
development, with differentiations becoming more and more refmed in the form
of a treelike diagram the interactions between different subsystems appear to be
of the greatest importance. As the first example shows, interactions between
numerical and ordinal ways of dealing with problems of judging or constructing
lengths lead to a conflict. It is this conflict that leads to the fmal resolution,
through reciprocal assimilation of two different subsystems that do not neces-
sarily belong to the same developmentalleve1. The emergence of conflicts can
explain the frequently occurring regressions in the subject's overt reasoning; they
are only apparent regressions. In fact, they are observable symptoms of an
internal event, announcing the beginning of a structuration of a higher order.
It now seems necessary to relate such a dynamic model to the classical
Piagetian structural mode1. In the first place, the different systems of judging or
constructing are internalized schemes. As to their appearance and their possi-
bilities of being integrated into others, these schemes are determined by the
general structure of the corresponding level of development.
In the second place, the hierarchical structures are in part common to both
types of knowledge: logicomathematical on the one hand and knowledge of the
physical world on the other. DUring the four successive steps in the construction
process exemplified in the preceding experiments, either the apprehension of the
properties of the subject's own actions or the apprehension of the actual
properties or features of the objects may be preponderant at one time. The
epistemological nature of their interplay becomes clear only in the structural
model.
From our point of view, it is illusory to try to establish process models that
are not closely linked to structural ones. Since we are concerned with the
specific Piagetian perspective, it would appear that the structural model, since it
is based on a developmental hierarchy of structures, can absorb the process
64 Barbel Inbelder

model. In fact, if we want to fmd the components that are common to both, we
should think of the all-important concept of compensation.
For each different level of development, the structural model uses specific
types of compensation, for instance, the cancellation of a direct operation or, in
the case of the logic of relations, reciprocity. Psychologically and even biologi-
cally speaking, disturbances always give rise to a reaction on the part of the
organism but this reaction is not a passive submission to the environment. On
the contrary, it leads to recombination of already existing capacities, in order to
reestablish the destroyed equilibrium. In this sense, the reestablishment of an
equilibrium involving a novel construction is also a compensation. The process
model therefore comprises compensations in the psychological sense. We have
seen the example of first a juxtaposition, then an opposition, then a compro-
mise, and fmally an integration of different schemes. The fmal integration, as we
have also shown, gives rise to a new set of compensations.
In biology, new combinations take place only inside what are called reaction
norms. Similarly, we propose that in cognitive development, these new combina-
tions can occur only inside what may be called zones of assimilation capacity.
The structural levels are at the root of the generation of new combinations, but
Simultaneously, they impose limits on the novelties than can be produced. The
compensations in the structural model thus fmd their dynamic explanation in
the process model; and the way these new combinations act fmds explanation in
the structural model.

References

Inhelder, B., Bovet, M., & Sinclair, H. D6veloppement et apprentissage. Revue Suisse de
Psychologie, 1967,26, 1-23.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. [Early growth of logic in the child] (E. A. Lunzer & D. Papert,
trans.). New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Inhelder, B., & Sinclair, H. Learning cognitive structures. In P. H. Mussen, J. Langer, & M.
Covington (Eds.), Trends and issues in developmental psychology. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, & Winston, 1969.
Piaget, J. [The child's conception of number] (C. Cattegno & F. M. Hodgson, trans.).
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952. (Originally published, 1941.)
Piaget, J., & Szeminska, A. 1952.
 CHAPTER 6

Some Observations on
Early Cognitive Development
Ina C. Uzgiris
Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts

The issue that I should like to take as my central concern pertains most broadly
to organization of achievements in development. If the notion of organization is
taken to imply a differentiation of parts in a system and an interdependence of
the parts through specifiable relations within the system, the issue of organiza-
tion may be addressed at the level of actions or at the level of structurations of
cognitive processes manifested in actions. One of the attractions of studying
development during infancy stems from the relative lack of differentiation
between the level of actions and of thought during this period. In the course of
this presentation, I should like to share with you some observations on the
interrelationships between various achievements stemming from a longitudinal
study of a small group of infants as well as some speculations on the implications
these observations have for the question of organization in early cognitive
development.
Assuming as self-evident the limits imposed by the status of the biological
organism, the various achievements observed during infancy may be conceived to
be inherently unrelated, at one extreme, or related by virtue of being compo-
nents in an organized system, at the other. If achievements are thought to be
inherently unrelated, the co-occurrence of particular ones tends to be seen as the
product of circumstances, the typical environmental conditions provided for
individuals, and so forth. This approach invites an attempt to alter the pattern of
co-occurrences of achievements by modifying some aspect of the circumstances,
thus demonstrating the fortuitous nature of their association. The one aspect of
circumstances common to all relates to the passage of chronological time, and
6S
66 Ina C. Uzgiris

thus, chronological time from the moment of birth is used as an anchor for
examining the co-occurrence of other achievements. This is basically the
approach of traditional infant or intelligence tests. Those achievements that are
typically found to co-occur with a chronological anchor point are taken to
characterize a level of psychological development, as evidenced in the notion of
mental age. The nature of these achievements and their relationship to each
other are not considered in themselves as long as they obtain with requisite
regularity at that specific point in chronology. Individual departure from the
norm creates no serious problem, since variation in individual circumstances can
always be invoked to account for such departure.
On the other hand, achievements may be conceived to be related as manifes-
tations of a given form of organization, with necessary and specifiable ties
between them. Their co-occurrence becomes central, while their link to chrono-
logical time becomes quite unimportant. Piaget has dealt with the problems
pertaining to the organization of achievements in development in terms of the
concept of stage. Most generally, he has applied the term stage to each of the
four major periods in development: the sensorimotor period, the preoperational
period, the period of concrete operations, and the period of formal operations.
At times, discernable levels within each period-namely, the level of entrance
into a period, the level of transition, and the level of consolidation-have beem
referred to as stages also. In all instances, Piaget has attempted to characterize a
stage in terms of an overall structure and to emphasize his lack of concern with
the specific chronological age at which it is manifest, except for the claim of an
invariant order, arising out of a direct relationship between the structures of
successive stages.
Given a notion of structural relationships between achievements of each level
in development, lack of synchrony in their occurrence and individual variability
in manifesting such achievements become much more critical. These problems
have been recognized by investigators of development in the period of concrete
operations. Several studies (Dodwell, 1963; Tuddenham, 1971) have observed a
considerable lack of correspondence in the same individual in the appearance of
achievements taken to be manifestations of the same concrete operational
structures. One approach to this problem is to think of structures as specific to
particular domains such as quantity, space, causality, etc., or as specific to
particular sets of operations. However, Piaget (1971) has recently spoken against
such delimitation of cognitive structures, claiming that he is "looking for total
structures or systems with their own laws, systems which incorporate all their
elements and whose laws cover the entire set of elements in the system" (p. 3).
Another approach is to posit variability upon formation of a structure-that is,
during initial access to a stage in development-but progressive integration and
consolidation of various achievements with its ascendance. There is some empiri-
cal support for this suggestion in studies of concrete operational children
(Nassefat, 1963; Tuddenham, 1971; Uzgiris, 1964), but the question still
Early Cognitive Development 67

remains open. Furthermore, a noncircular specification of the initial phase and

the consolidation phase would be required for a strong demonstration of this
proposition.
In the sensorimotor period of development, Piaget (1952) has identified six
levels, which he also calls stages. While he has repeatedly stated that a logic of
actions is constructed and culminates in an organization of displacements and
positions according to a "group" structure, with practical reversibility and asso-
ciativity ( detours), in a notion of the permanence of objects, and in an objectifi-
cation and spatialization of causality (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969), he has not been
very explicit about the organization of achievements at each of the sensorimotor
stages. In view of some of the recent formulations regarding criteria for the
identification of stages in development (Pinard & Laurendeau, 1969), it seems
almost better to reserve the term stage to the sensorimotor period as a whole and
to attempt, first, to explicate the structures characterizing identifiable levels in
sensorimotor intelligence. The question of synchrony of structuration in differ-
ent domains at these levels must be also resolved.
It is somewhat surprising that Piaget's theory has not inspired more studies
of infant congitive development. There have been attempts to relate the rate of
development in various domains-mostly construction of the object-to the
environmental circumstances of infants (Golden & Biros, 1968; Paraskevopoulos
& Hunt, 1971; Wachs, UZgiris, & Hunt, 1971) or to relate cognitive achievements
to interpersonal behavior (Bell, 1970; Decarie, 1965; Serafica & UZgiris, 1971).
The question of sequential order of achievements in sensorimotor development
has received the most systematic study. Corman and Escalona (1969) have
investigated the invariance of the sequence of stages pertaining to the develop-
ment of prehension, object permanence, and spatial relationships. Using both
longitudinal and cross-sectional approaches, they confrrmed the invariance of the
order of ascent to achievements marking the stages in each domain. It is
interesting to note that in examining the appearance of achievements deemed
characteristic of anyone stage, they found neither synchrony, nor a regular
sequence, nor even a consolidation of the various achievements prior to progress
to the next stage within the same domain. The co-occurrence of achievements in
different domains was not studied. Similarly, the work that Professor Hunt and I
have carried out to construct scales for assessing development in several domains
during infancy was focused on establishing invariant sequences of achievements
(Uzgiris & Hunt, 1975), and the problem of correlation between achievements in
different domains was treated only secondarily.
The one attempt to look at congruence of sensorimotor achievements across
domains was carried out by Woodward (1959), not on infants, but on severely
mentally retarded children. On the basis of their performance in a number of
situations, the children were assigned to a stage of sensorimotor intelligence and
also to a stage with respect to object-concept development, to problem-solving
behavior (e.g., the use of means), and to level of circular reactions. Considerable
68 Ina C. Uzgiris

consistency was obtained between the child's stage of sensorimotor intelligence

and his level in object-concept development (with 87% of the children classified
at the same stage in hoth), as well as between level of circular reactions and
problem-solving behavior (with 52% classified at the same stage in both). In view
of the considerable variability in level of development in different domains that
has been observed in children attaining concrete operations, Woodward's finding
of consistency may be interpreted as due to the nature of her subjects, who may
be considered to be almost arrested in their development. On the other hand, it
may be that greater consistency in development across domains should be
expected at the level of sensorimotor intelligence, with an increase in variability
as the complexity of cognitive structures increases with development.
Another impetus for considering the issue of organization of achievements
comes from several recent reports of great plasticity in the age at which some of
the landmarks of sensorimotor intelligence are achieved by infants in differing
circumstances. Some of the earlier studies of object-concept development in
infants replicated the ages for various achievements in this domain fairly closely
(within a month or two) suggesting only sampling variability. However, the
study by Paraskevopoulos and Hunt (1971) on three groups of Greek infants
found marked retardation in the orphanage samples, with the highest level of
object-concept development being reached from 10 to 20 months later, on the
average, by orphanage infants than by typical home-reared infants. On the other
hand, in a thesis recently submitted to Brown University, Gaiter (1972) reported
that a group of infants given training in activities related to the construction of
the permanent object by their own mothers were significantly advanced in
object-concept development in comparison to a control group at the end of a
6-month training period. In fact, at the age of l3~ months, 5 of the 12
experimental infants showed behavior indicating the highest levels of object-
concept development, about a 6-month advance in comparison to typical home-
reared infants. Unfortunately, neither of these studies provides information on
whether the retardation or advance, respectively, characterized the infants'
functioning in other domains. If circumstances can affect the rate of develop-
ment during the sensorimotor period to such a marked degree, the generality of
their effect becomes a particularly poignant question for the issue of structural
organization of sensimotor achievements. Particularly if the notion of stages
within the sensorimotor period is to be maintained, a consistency of achieve-
ments across domains in varied circumstances must be demonstrated.
In order to obtain information on infant development in several domains
over time, a group of 12 infants was observed at regular intervals, from the age of
1 month up to 2 years, using the situations from scales we had devised (Uzgiris &
Hunt, 1975). The infants came from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, but all
had parents sincerely concerned with their well-being. They were observed in
their own homes by the same experimenter throughout the 2-year period. The
Early Cognitive Development 69

study has been completed recently and will, hopefully, provide information not
only on the intercorrelation of achievements across domains at different levels in
development but also on the changing interpatterning of achievements during
transitions from one level to another. All the analyses on the data have not been
completed, and furthermore, they tend to produce complex patterns, resisting
succinct presentation (see also UZgiris, 1973). Therefore, I shall present some
general ideas arising from my examination of these results.
First of all, these longitUdinal results confIrm, with few exceptions, the
ordering of achievements that had been obtained from scaling of the observa-
tions on infants studied in the construction of the scales. The exceptions are of
two kinds: either one or two infants did not follow the expected sequence (in
which case the result might be due to error in assessment) or two achievements
were as likely to appear in one order as in reverse (in which case the result would
suggest that the two achievements are not hierarchically related). I noted with
interest Inhelder's (1971) recent comment that in an ongoing study of concrete
operational development across various domains at Geneva, they are fmding that
only some 25% of the children in a replication sample show exactly the same
sequence of achievements as was established as modal for a previous sample, and
another 50% of the children show a small number of inversions or errors. The
results of both of these studies suggest that structurations within the larger
developmental stages may be less rigid than originally assumed, allowing some
substitutability between achievements and permitting considerable plasticity in
the rate of development within specifIc domains.
Moreover, my fIrst attempt to evaluate interrelationships between achieve-
ments in different domains was quite disappointing. Intercorrelations between
the infants' ranks in each domain-notion of object permanence, development in
means, imitation, causality, schemes for relating to objects, and construction
of object relations in space-in terms of the level attained at each month of age
were generally low, revealing no particular patterns. There were no periods of
higher intercorrelation that might suggest a period of consolidation prior to
transition to a new level. However, the use of chronological age intervals was a
crude approach to the problem,particularly since the data revealed considerable
variability in the rate of development for these infants. Another attempt to look
at interrelationships involved setting up contingency tables between achieve-
ments in different domains and a search for regularities in the attainment of
those achievements. Such contingency tables revealed a number of strong rela-
tionships between various achievements and suggested that it may be possible to
delineate and characterize at least three levels in the development of sensori-
motor intelligence. I have tried to characterize these three levels both in terms of
an assumed structuration and in terms of the actual achievements manifested.
These three levels may be roughly equated with Piaget's Stages IV, V, and VI of
the sensorimotor period, but 1 hope 10 give them slightly more detailed articula-
70 Ina C. Uzgiris

tion. I do not mean to imply that these levels do not have earlier roots; however,
at present, it seemed possible to characterize only these particular levels and to
relate them to my observations in the longitudinal study.
The nrst level may be characterized by the appearance of subcomponents in
actions. This appearance of subcomponents seems to be initiated by a differen-
tiation between self-initiated actions and environmental outcomes that become
progressively more articulated. The appearance of at least two-component
actions implies some organization of the components; the relations established
between the components may constitute the beginnings of the "logic of actions"
mentioned by Piaget (1970). He has suggested that the incorporation of one
scheme as a subpart of another may constitute the precursor for the operation of
inclusion, while the ordered execution of fll'st one scheme and then another may
constitute the precursor for the ordering operation. It seems that the appearance
of two-component actions makes both of these relations possible. In the domain
of object-concept development, this level seems to be manifest in the achieve-
ment of search for an object completely covered by a screen. The mean age for
this achievement was 7 months and 8 days in the sample of infants under
discussion. This achievement requires the construction of a two-component
action, involving the removal of the screen and the grasp of the object, which is
initiated by an attempt to obtain the object while the object is perceptually not
available. Prior to the attainment of this step in object-concept development, all
infants in the sample were observed to engage in examining behavior and in
speciflc attempts to reproduce interesting spectacles, which Piaget has called
"procedures." Both of these types of activities imply some focusing on the
outcomes of actions and probably facilitate the ensuing differentiation of
actions and goals.
There seem to be several grounds for considering this a distinct level in
development. Looking again at object-co!lcept development, while the correla-
tions in the age of achievement between one step in the sequence and other steps
were not high overall, indicating little individual consistency in the rate of
progress, the correlations between the age of beginning search for an object
completely covered by a screen and the extension of search to a number of
screens were fairly high. For the sample in question, beginning of search for a
partially covered object correlated only around .3 with the beginning of search
for a completely covered object; however, the beginning of search for a com-
pletely covered object correlated around .7 with search for an object under one
of two or one of three screens and around .5 with search for an object follOwing
a series of visible displacements. A number of associated achievements appeared
in other domains during the interval spanned by the extension of search for an
object from one to a number of locations; for the sample under discussion, an
interval of 4 months was the average. In terms of schemes shown in relation to
objects, 10 of the 12 infants were not actively dropping objects and observing
their fall at the beginning of this interval, but 11 of the 12 were engaging in this
Early Cognitive Development 71

activity at the time they searched for objects following a series of visible
displacements. It seems that the dropping activity involves a two-component
action, since the object is released by the infant to move through space and is
then visually relocated. Similarly, while none of the 12 infants showed what I
have called differentiated schemes at the beginning of this interval, 11 of the 12
engaged in such activities at the end. I would argue that most differentiated
schemes involve two-component actions, often tied' by an inverse relation, such
as crumpling and straightening, tearing and putting together, putting in and
taking out, and so forth. In the domain of imitation, 10 of the 12 infants did not
imitate sound patterns familiar to them at the beginning of this interval, but
only 2 did not do so by the end. Also, none of the 12 infants imitated complex
actions composed of familiar schemes at the beginning, but only 5 did not do so
in the end. The development in imitation at this level seems to involve the taking
of the modeled action as a goal with an attempt to reconstruct the appropriate
action to reproduce it. Some instances of an infant's reproducing only a part of a
modeled act are quite instructive. Furthermore, while 11 of the infants did not
make use of relationships between objects such as that of support at the
beginning of this interval, all did so at the end. It seems that a number of
achievements in different domains requiring a differentiation of action from goal
in order to commence at least a two-component action are achieved in parallel
within a relatively short interval. These achievements manifest the beginning of
the structuration of actions and may be considered to form a distinct level in
development. It may be of interest to note that in studying the taking into
possession of multiple objects, Bruner (1970) noted the appearance of the
strategy of setting one object in reserve while picking up another in infants of
roughly the same age as the age of infants at this level in development in the
present sample. What does not occur at this frrst level is an immediate modifica-
tion of actions as a result of t~eir outcome. Such modification seems to be
characteristic of the next level.
The second level in sensorimotor development may be characterized by the
beginning of regulation of actions by their outcomes and thus a gradual modifi-
cation of actions to attain various goals. The most prominent feature of various
achievements at this level is the alteration of actions through gradual approxima-
tion, the taking into account of correspondence between outcome and goal.
Since new forms of action are thus constructed, it may be that it is in this sense
that Piaget has talked of the appearance of an interest in novelty at the fifth
sensorimotor stage. The appearance of regulation by outcome is most clearly
evident in the infant's activities in relation to objects, in imitation, and in means
behavior. For example, at the time when infants begin to search for an object in
several locations or under a number of screens, practically none shows activities
with objects that indicate a social influence on his actions. However, very soon
afterwards. the social influence on his actions becomes evident, so that instead
of examining, banging, dropping, and stretching, he begins to push toy cars
72 Ina C. Uzgiris

around, to hug dolls or cuddly animal toys, to build with blocks, and to put a
necklace around his neck, the actions specific to each object. The adoption of
socially approved ways of acting on toys probably reflects both imitation of
models and modification of actions by their outcome. Furthermore, at about the
same time, varied relationships between objects-for example, one serving as an
extension of another-begin to be exploited in the obtaining of desired goals.
The use of these relationships is often achieved through a gradual modification
of initially ineffective actions. In regard to imitation, the infant's behavior
indicates not only an attempt to reconstruct the model by means of known
schemes but also the ability to recognize failure to reproduce the model
accurately. It was noticed that infants imitated unfamiliar gestures visible to
them more readily when they were performed in relation to an object than when
presented as a gesture. For instance, sliding a piece of paper back and forth was
imitated more readily than the sliding action alone. This suggests that an act
with a defmite result may facilitate reproduction by providing an outcome for
the infant to reconstruct. The successive modifications in an action that the
infants show in gradually approximating the model presented by the experi-
menter are also illuminating. This level corresponds roughly to the appearance in
the domain of object construction of search for objects hidden by means of an
invisible displacement in one or a number of locations; that is, the infant has to
infer the location of the object when it is not found where it was seen to disappear.
For the present sample, between 14 and 15~ months was the average age for such
search. Thus, at the appearance of search for an object hidden by an invisible
displacement under one of the three screens, 10 of the 12 infants
showed socially influenced activities with objects regularly. Similarly, at the
same point, the majority of infants (7 of the 12), began to imitate novel sounds
presented by the experimenter directly, after a period of responding to them by
varied vocal responses. All infants attempted to imitate novel visible gestures by
means of gradual approximation at the time they began to search for an object
hidden by one invisible displacement, although only 5 of the 12 imitated novel
gestures directly. In addition, most infants at this point seemed to recognize
centers of causality in objects and therefore learned from demonstrations how
to activate objects or produce some spectacle, frequently through gradual
approximation. Thus, while a diversity of new achievements may be observed to
occur in parallel at this level, including a great deal of specialization in actions,
the construction of regulating relationships between outcomes and actions, with
compensation and correction of succeeding actions, seems to be the advance in
structural organization.
The last level in sensorimotor development may be characterized by implicit
representation of objects and events. Piaget has described sensonmotor develop-
ment as culminating in the construction of a group of displacements that has
practical reversibility and thus leads to the first invariant, the notion of the
permanent object. It seems that the organization of actions in terms of a
Early Cognitive Development 73

network of relations, including combination, inversion, correspondence, and

practical reversibility, makes internalized actions possible and thus gives rise to
practical inference, evocation of nonongoing events, and modification of actions
without overt trial and error. If the achievement of the highest level in object
construction-that is, the beginning of search for objects following a series of
invisible displacements with the ability to reconstruct the path of an object in
reverse-is taken as an index for this level of development (21-23 months of age
on the average, in the present sample), a number of parallel achievements in
other domains may be found. By the time these infants began to search for
objects following a series of invisible displacements, all were engaging in activ-
ities with objects showing a social influence, all were imitating novel sounds
directly, and all were imitating novel visible gestures directly. They were begin-
ning to imitate novel invisible gestures, for example, facial gestures that one
cannot see oneself perform and thus from which one cannot obtain direct visual
feedback about the outcome of the attempt. However, by the time these infants
began to reconstruct the path of the object in reverse, 9 of the 12 were imitating
invisible gestures directly. Similarly, at the same point, 9 of the 12 infants were
imitating new words regularly, which they were just starting to do at the
beginning of this level. In regard to activities with objects, the naming of objects
in recognition appeared often in the context of interacting with another person.
The above should be distinguished from the use of a verbal label, as it involves
the examining of an object and the use of the name to express the possibilities
suggested by the object. Of the 12 infants, 10 were naming objects in recogni-
tion by the time they constructed a reverse path in their search for objects. In
addition, their activities with objects frequently evidenced evocation of objects
or events that were not within their perceptual field at the moment, that is, the
beginning of symbolic play. Furthermore, if they found direct access to a
desired object blocked, the majority of the infants by this time constructed
detours through space and thus were able to reach their goal. Evidence for the
construction of solutions to problem situations without overt groping was also
obtained at this level. All infants began to show foresightful behavior in one
problem situation (involving the necklace and the container), and 8 of the 12 did
so in another (the solid ring). It seems that the coordination achieved between
the construction of multicomponent actions and the regulation of action se-
quences by their outcomes at this level allows for a nonovert adaptation of
actions or, in other words, thought.
The three levels of organization in sensorimotor intelligence that have been
outlined seem to be supported by the occurrence of a number of achievements
in rough parallel, all of which may be interpreted as exemplifying that particular
level of organization. The parallels are, however, rough, and the question of
synchrony in achievements across domains in sensorimotor functioning is still
open. The study of this question is important to a theoretical understanding of
development, but it demands extensive observation of a sample of subjects at
74 Ina C. Uzgiris

frequent intervals over a period of time. Moreover, it is often difficult to come

to an agreement that a particular set of actions in a given situation do, in fact,
index the structural relations in question. No one behavior can serve as an index
in all instances, and the problems of agreeing on whether a performance does or
does not reflect a supposed structuration seen in the field of "conservation"
research may be expected to recur in such investigations. Nevertheless, the
sensorimotor period seems particularly suited to these investigations, since the
length of time involved in a study of the transition from one level to another is
not overburdening.
A more detailed articulation of three successive levels in sensorimotor
intelligence-the beginning of organization between components of actions in
terms of relations of inclusion, order, etc., initiated by differentiation of actions
and goals; the beginning of regulation of actions by their outcomes; and the
coordination into a structure of multicomponent actions and outcome regula-
tions-hopefully may facilitate further study of the organization of achievements
by suggesting additional situations in which evidence of these structurations
should be sought. A better grasp of the organization of the various achievements
in the sensorimotor period may facilitate not only the study of the plasticity of
the organism in varied circumstances but also the understanding of the full
impact of a particular modification in circumstances on psychological develop-
ment.

This chapter is based on a paper presented at the Second Annual Symposium

of the Jean Piaget Society on May 24, 1972.

References

Bell, S. M. The development of the concept of object as related to infant-mother attach-

ment. Child Development, 1970,41, 291-311.
Bruner, J. S. The growth and structure of skill. In K. Connolly (Ed.), Mechanisms of motor
skill development. London: Academic Press, 1970. .
Corman, H. H., & Escalona, S. K. Stages of sensorimotor development: A replication study.
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1969,15, 351-361.
D6carie, T. G. Intelligence and affectivity in early childhood. New York: International
Universities Press, 1965.
Dodwell, P. C. Children's understanding of spatial concepts. Canadian Journal of Psychol-
ogy, 1963,17, 141-161.
Gaiter, J. L. The development and acquisition of object permanence in infants. Unpublished
master's thesis, Brown University, 1972.
Golden, M., & Birns, B. Social class and cognitive development in infancy. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 1968,14, 139-149.
Inhelder, B. Developmental theory and diagnostic procedures. In D. R. Green, M. P. Ford, &
G. B. Flamer (Eds.), Measurement and Piaget. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
Nassefat, M. Etude quantitative sur !'evolution des operations intellectuelles. NeucMtel:
Delachaux et Niestl6, 1963.
Early Cognitive Development 7S

Paraskevopoulos, J., & Hunt, J. McV. Object construction and imitation under differing
conditions ofrearing. Journal of Genetic Pgychology, 1971,119, 301-321.
Piaget, J. [The origins of intelligence in children] (M. Cook, trans.). New York: interna-
tional Universities Press, 1952. (Originally published, 1936.)
Piaget, J. [Genetic epistemology] (E. Duckworth, trans.). New York: Columbia University
Press, 1970.
Piaget, J. The theory of stages in cognitive development. in D. R. Green, M. P. Ford, & G. B.
Flamer (Eds.), Measurement and }>Wget. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. [The psychology of the child] (H. Weaver, trans.). New York:
Basic Books, 1969.
Pinard, A., & Laurendeau, M. "Stage" in Piaget's cognitive-developmental theory: Exegesis
of a concept. In D. Elkind & J. H. Flavell (Eds.), Studies in cognitive development:
Essays in honor of Jean }>Wget. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Serafica, F., & Uzgiris, I. C. Infant-mother relationship and object concept. Proceedings of
the 79th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1971, 6,
141-142.
Tuddenham, R. D. Theoretical regularities and individual idiosyncrasies. In D. R. Green, M.
P. Ford, & G. B. Flamer (Eds.), Measurement and }>Wget. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1971.
Uzgiris, I. C. Situational generality of conservation. Child Development, 1964,35, 831-841.
Uzgiris, I. C. Patterns of cognitive development in infancy. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1973,
19, 181-204.
Uzgiris, I. C., & Hunt, J. McV. Assessment in Infancy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1975.
Wachs, T. D., Uzgiris, I. C., & Hunt, J. McV. Cognitive development in infants of different
age levels and from different environmental backgrounds: A.fl explanatory investigation.
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development. British Journal of Educational Pgychology, 1959,29,60-71.
 CHAPI'ER 7

Cognitive Development During

and Mter the Preconceptual Period
Jonas Langer
University of California, Berkeley, California

At the heart of structural developmental theory is the thesis that long-term,

ontogenetic progress is a self-generated process of equilibration. Equilibration
requires both coordination within the subject's functional structures and interac-
tion between the functional structures of the subject and his objects of cogni-
tion-the physical, social, and personal environment.
Two facets of coordination within the subject's functional structures are
especially important to the understanding of pre conceptual development. The
first facet is self-generated mental operations that the subject can use to
construct physical, social, and personal pre concepts (Langer, 1969b, pp. 168-
177). The second facet is the developmental filiations (e.g., genetic prerequisites
and parallelisms) between two forms of mental activity, operations, and figura-
tions (Langer, 1974). Previously, we have suggested that logical implication is a
more appropriate explanatory model of development than efficient determina-
tion or causality. Consequently, we suggested that one of the two major tasks
for developmental theory is to specify "the logical structure of each functional
stage of action in such a way that the first stage logically implies but does not
actually contain the structure of the second, the second logically implies the
third, and so on until the end stage" (Langer, 1969b, pp. 168-169). A main
derivative of this explanatory model of development is the following structural
developmental hypothesis about the form and content of cognition:
The form of cognition constructed at one stage serves, in part, as intrin-
sic (subject) content out of which the form of the subsequent stage is
self-generated.

77
78 Jonas Langer

When applied to the cognitive development of the preconceptual period, this

form-content hypothesis reads as follows:

The content-that is, material source (determinant or cause)-out of which the

form of the young child's preoperations develops is his sensorimotor cogni-
tion.

At its most advanced, the form of sensorimotor activity is fundamentally

pragmatic and presentational (Langer, 1969b, pp. 112-131). Consequently, the
sensorimotor child's physical, social, and personal conceptions remain funda-
mentally nondifferentiated and uncoordinated.
Once formed, presentational pragmatics constitute the developmental source
of the young child's intrinsic cognitive content. This is the intrinsic informa-
tional aliment that the young child differentiates and coordinates in order to
construct his subsequent stage of cognition. The form that it takes is that of
representational preoperations. This is a quasi-deductive, transitional form be-
tween the particularities of presentational pragmatics and the generalities of
representational (concrete) operations. The general structural character of this
transitional cognitive form is transductive. Here is an apt observation of trans-
ductive reasoning:

At 2;1 (13) J. wanted to go and see a little hunchbacked neighbour whom she
used to meet on her walks. A few days earlier she had asked why he had a
hump, and after I had explained she said: "Poor boy, he's ill, he has a hump."
The day before J. had also wanted to go and see him but he had influenza,
which J. called being "ill in bed." We started out for our walk and on the way
J. said: "Is he still ill in bed?-No. I saw him this morning, he isn't in bed
now.-He hasn't a big hump nowl" (Piaget, 1962, p. 231).

J. associates Y (ill) with X (hump) and Y (ill in bed) with Z (influenza). She
concludes that Y (not ill in bed) implies X (He hasn't a big hump now!). The
structure of J.'s reasoning may be characterized in a negative way as pseudo-
transitivity and in a positive way as transductive transitivity.
Transductive pre operations are the developmental precursors of intuitive
preoperations, which in tum are the precursors of concrete operations. It would
be both a logical and a structural developmental confusion to identify pre-
cursory forms, such as transductive transitivity, with more developed forms,
such as concrete operational transitivity. In passing, it might be useful to point
out that such confusions may well account for much of what we may call the
"anything you can fmd, I can fmd it earlier" research literature. In general, this
literature claims that logical operations may be found in children younger than
the ages predicted by structural developmental theory. A recent example is the
report of transitive judgments by 4-year-olds (Bryant & Trabasso, 1971). Indeed,
there is little doubt that problems could have been presented to J. when she was
Cognitive Development 79

only 2 years old that would have resulted in "even earlier" correct but transduc-
tive judgments.
In sum, the initial intrinsic content of the young child's postsensorimotor
cognitions is presentational and pragmatic, while its form is progressively repre-
sentational and transductive. The pre conceptual products may therefore be
expected to be diffuse in content and syncretic in form (Werner, 1948; Langer,
1970). A derivative empirical hypothesis then reads:
The conceptual constructions of transductive representations are relatively
nondifferentiated and uncoordinated physical, social, and personal precon-
cepts.

This general empirical hypothesis about the transductive representational

stage, from about 2 to 5 years, is being investigated in a number of related ways
in our laboratory (Damon, 1971, 1974; Langer, 1972; Lemke, 1971, 1974). The
basic research objective is twofold. The ftrst is to analyze the structural develop-
ment of transductive pre operations during the representational stage. The second
is to trace the manifestations of transductive reasoning in the physical, social,
and personal preconcepts constructed by representational cognition.
To ensure that representational rather than presentational concepts were
required, part of one investigation (Lemke, 1971, 1974) presented the task
material in pictOrial form. The pictures represented portraits of the same family
at different times from 1949 to 1963. Speciftcally, the photographs show the
family in 1949 (parents and 3 children), 1954 (parents and 5 children), 1956
(parents and 6 children), 1960 (parents and 6 children), and 1963 (parents and 6
children). The child is questioned about the relations between the pictures and
between the individuals they portray. Thus, this task requires representational
reasoning in order to be dealt with at all, but the operational structure of the
representational cognition may range from transductive to concrete operational.
In the fragments of subjects' protocols quoted below, the subject's perfor-
mance is italicized and the follOwing notation is used. The letter A designates the
father. The letters B, C, and D designate the male offspring in order of their
birth. The letter W designates the mother. The letters X, Y, and Z designate the
female offspring in order of their birth. The numbers I to 5 refer to the
photographs in the order they were taken from 1949 to 1963. The designations
la and Ib refer to two copies of the 1949 photographs. Thus, for example, the
ftrst notation in the ftrst protocol fragment (presented below) from MAT that
Y3 = Xl reads: MAT identifted the second-born female offspring in the third
photograph with the ftrst-born female in the ftrst photograph.
At the beginning of transductive representations, the young child's order or
durational prerelations consist of syncretic couplings of members within and/or
between pictures by appearance, that is, conftgurational elements. These con-
ftgurative elements provide the basis for the preconception of duration, succe!!-
sivity, or simultaneity that is beginning to develop.
80 Jonas Langer

MAT (2;7). He constructs the following identifications: Y3 = Xl. Z3 =D5. X5

= W5 = X3. D3 = Z5. Then he places three pictures in the order 3, I, 5.
Finally, MA T claims that Xl is himself. The tester notes some similarity in
appearance.

855 (2;11). "Do you see any people in those pictures (two identical copies, la
and lb, of picture 1) that are the same?" "Yeah," and points to all people,
successively, in each photo . .. "Where is he (CIa)?" "Right here:" CIa = BIb.
"This one is this one?" "Yeah."

Marcie (2;8). "Do you see any of the same people in these two pictures (la and
lb)?" No response. "Is he (Ala) in that picture (lb)?" Marcie constructs:
Ala = Alb. "Where's this little boy (CIa), do you see another picture of this
little boy?" Marcie constructs: CIa =BIb. Xla = Xlb. Wla = Wlb.

These protocol fragments reveal two related and basic, original charac-
teristics of transductive representation. The first relates to the young child's
physical preconceptions. Preorderings are constructed with little regard for-and
not consistent with-physical time, whether of succession or of simultaneity.
The second relates to the young chilq's social-personal preconceptions. The
syncretic identities constructed are not consistent with and not bounded by
elementary properties of age, sex, group membership, and physical lawfulness.
For example, the same individual may appear in two guises in one picture.
The first clear structural developmental elaboration upon these initial trans-
ductive constructions occurs when the child equates each member within each
representation with itself and with an exact copy of itself. However, he still
cannot fully relate the members to each other within a single representation,
that is, the familial relations. He also cannot relate one representation to another
representation within the series. In fact, he cannot even relate one member in
two (preselected) successive representations of the family.
842 (3;0). "You're going to show me some pictures." "Did you ever see those
pictures before?" "Yeah." "Do you see anyone in those pictures that's the
same?" "/ see someone in the pictures." "Tell me, who?" No response. "Let's
look at these two pictures (la and lb). Look at these two pictures. Are they
the same?" "Yeah." "Or are they different?" "They're different like mine."
"They're like what?" "They're different like my pictures." "Do you see the
same people in the pictures? Do you see this man in the other pictures
(Ala)?" "Yeah." "Where is that man?" Ala. "He's right here." "And is he
in this other picture?" "Yeah." "Where?" "There." Alb. "What about CIa,
do you see him in another picture?" No response. "Where is he over there?"
CIa. "Yeah, where is another picture of him?" Clb. "That's right. Any-
body else the same?" 8 is distracted. "I want to show you one more picture,
1,2. What about that picture, do you see anyone the same in those two pic-
tures?" "Yeah." "Do you see the daddy, AI?" "Yeah." "Show me." "The
daddy right here." B2. "What about D2, the baby? Do you see that little
boy?" "Right here." D2. "Where's another picture of him?" "This one. " Y2.
Concurrently, the child's personal--social preconception becomes exact as long as
his considerations of identity are limited to one representation replicated in two
Cognitive Development 81

exact copies. These identities are consistent with and are bounded by elementary
properties of age, sex, group membership, and physical lawfulness.
The next step in the developmental elaboration of transductive reasoning
occurs in the same two basic and related characteristics. First, the child's
orderings begin to relate pairs of successive representations. Second, the per-
sonal-social preconceptions begin fully to relate the members in one representa-
tion to each other as a family and sometimes to relate individual members in two
(preselected) successive representations of the family.
S87 (3;1). "Do you see anybody the same in those pictures?" "Yeah." "Where
is he?" No response. "O.K., let's look at this one and this one (2 & 3). Who do
you see?" Points to W2. "Who's that?" "1 don't know." "That's mommy."
"And that's the daddy. A2. And those are the kids. " "That's the family. What
about the other one?" "And that's the family too. " "Is it the same family or a
different family?" "Different family. " "Do you see A2 in 3?" "Yeah." A2 =
A3. "What about the mother?" "Here." W2 = W3. "What about the kids?"
Makes general motion to all the children. "What about Y2?" Y2 = Y3. "What
about D2?" D2 = D3. "What if I show you 1 & 2?" "This one goes with him
and this one goes with him. " Cl = D2, Bl = D2. "This little girl's name is X,
that's me." "Yeah." "Which picture do you think they took fIrst, which is the
fIrst picture?" 1 before 2. "How can you tell?" "T." (S's sister's name.)
"Which one is the ftrst here, 2 or 3?" 2 before 3. Counts the people in 3 up to
seven. "Let's see if you know who this is, do you see someone you know in
that picture?" "Yeah. This:" CS. "Who is it?" "I don't know. " "Who's this
(X5)?" "You." "And that's my family. Do you see me in this picture, 4?" X4.
"And there's your sister, she's outside." "Do you see C4 in 5?" C4 = AS.

Such fmdings make clear that there is no impression of time in advance of

the child's ordering preoperations. The inability to order events has structural
implications for the child's preconception of social identity; not only does it set
limits to the construction of social knowledge, but it also gives it conceptual
definition. Indeed, most of the 3-year-olds could not relate two pictures of the
same individual. Some 3-year-olds barely began to identify two individuals in
separate photographs as the same person. However, the identification ignored
the configurational qualities of the individuals being related, such as their sex.
Those children incorrectly claimed, for example, that a boy in one picture was
the same person as a girl in another picture. Further, a given individual in one
picture might have dual representation in another picture. For example, S87
claimed that D2 was identical with both BI and Cl.
To sum up, we are working on the structural developmental hypothesis that
the cognitive form of the 3-year-old's physical, social, and personal preconcepts
during this initial preoperational stage is that of transductive representational
arrangements in which:
1. Nonobservable events can be linked.
2. Linkages can collate a small number of units.
3. Linkages are becoming physically asymmetrical. (An early manifestation
is that 3-year-olds can somewhat imitate a temporal sequence in order.)
82 Jonas Langer

4. Temporal linkages are not seriatable. Therefore successive linkages are

still not differentiated from simultaneous linkages.
5. Time is not yet continuous. Time remains local time.
6. Linkages are not quantifiable. (Duration, such as age, is not conceivable.)
7. Linkages are neither irreversible nor reversible.

The analysis presented so far should suffice as an indication of our currently

ongoing structural developmental inquiries into operational coordinations during
and after the pre conceptual period. Let us proceed by reviewing in broad outline
the rest of the work we are doing.
At age 4, children think that the time is different in two neighboring towns
(Oakden & Sturt, 1922). Even though these temporal judgments are inconsistent
with physical time, they still indicate some beginning construction of functional
temporal relating. Children of 4 cannot yet temporally order the five family
photographs. But they can sometimes couple pairs of photographs. This implies
that they should also be able to relate a person in one picture with a person in
another picture. Analyzing the cognitive structure of functional ordering at this
stage into its extensive and intensive components, we hypothesized that the
extension of relating is limited to individual members, not to the group, and not
even to pairs within the group; and that the extension of relating is limited to
couplings, not even to triplings. The consequent expectation, which the data
bear out, is that the subject's identity preconcept is limited to transformations
of a single member in two and no more than two photographs. We also
hypothesized that the intension of relating at this stage composes atemporal
(adurational) global configurational properties. Consequently, we expected and
found that the subject denies the identity of members in the family across two
photographs unless all or most of the properties of the two members are the
same in appearance. Therefore, his identification should often he incorrect.
Children of 5 still cannot spontaneously order the series of family photo-
graphs. They can collate adjacent pairs into couplings. With much empirical
sorting and resorting, plus feedback from the experimenter, they can also arrive
at a correct ordering of the couplings, eventually arranging all five photographs.
Occasionally, 5-year-olds also understand that a group member need not have
the identical global properties in two different photographs to be related; that is,
they know that the same person may reappear in two photographs even though
his appearance is altered somewhat, such as in height or in dress.
Typically, the 5-year-olds' orderings are based upon proximity. They may
still incorrectly identify two members because both look about the same size in
the two photographs. Rejections of orderings by 5-year-olds are based upon
globalities. Often they claim, incorrectly, that a baby in one photograph does
not reappear in a second photograph since there is no baby in the second
picture. The incidence of global reasoning increases as the comparison made is
between more extreme photographs in the series. For example, more errors are
Cognitive Development 83

made when the comparison is between photographs 1 and 5 than when the
comparison is between 1 and 2 in the series of family portraits. Thus, the
structure of the order constructed is a functional relationship based upon global
configurational proximities. As the global proximities and the specific objects
"between" increase, so the subjects' cognition of temporal linkage and personal
identification diminishes.
Six-year-old children spontaneously and immediately arrange the family
photographs in proper temporal order. The vestigial preoperational character of
the ordering, however, is revealed by the subjects' continuing difficulty with
probes about identification of members who have not yet been born and
therefore do not appear in any picture. When a member A is younger than a
member B at a given time (Tn in the series of photographs), then it can be
deduced that in some earlier, intermediate photograph (Tk)' B will still appear
but in a younger guise, while A will not yet appear because he has not been
born. Nevertheless, 6-year-olds still claim that A was already born and does
appear in the photograph (on the basis of global similarity) or was simply left
out when the picture was taken (by omission of the photographer). A central
structural feature, then, of preoperational, intuitive ordering is that it is still not
a seriation operation.
In this way, we are structurally tracking one pre operation-constructing
ordering transformations-that may be used by the young child to produce
coordinated and partially isomorphic physical, social, and personal preconcepts.
We are also developmentally tracking the transformations in constructive mental
activity from its initial preoperational form of intuitive functional orderings.
There are two c~:)Qrdinative features of our structural developmental fmdings
that should be underscored. The first is the remarkable ontogenetic parallelism
between the temporal preorderings of growing people and the temporal pre-
orderings of physical motion as constructed by the preoperational child (Piaget,
1971). The second is the partial isomorphism between the preconcepts of
physical time and the preconcepts of personal and social identity produced by
the young child's ordering preoperations. In this regard, it should be noted that
the study referred to here focused upon the child's preconception of the identity
of others. In another inquiry, similar results were obtained when the child was
probed about his own identity preconcepts (Wolfsohn, 1972).
The above are not isolated instances of structural developmental coordina-
tions. Another investigation, which dealt with very different cognitive problems
(Damon, 1974), reported additional confirmatory evidence for the principle of
structural filiations outlined above. Children of 4-8 were tested on problems
involving ratios, classification, seriation, projective spatial perspectives, and
moral judgments. The intercorrelations of subjects' scores on these problems
were all statistically s~gnificant at the p > .001 leveL They ranged from a low of
.63 to a high of .88. The results outlined so far require that note be taken of
studies that have failed to fmd significant intercorrelations in children's cognitive
84 Jonas Langer

performances (Green, Ford, & Flamer, 1971). Two general ingredients of our
studies may account for the discrepancy. The first is that the aim of our testing
is intensive and extensive clinical probing of individual subjects on each task.
The second is that the aim of our data analysis is to formalize the structure of
operations composing each subject's reasoning.
The second facet of coordination within the subject's functional structures
that we are studying is the developmental filiations between two classes of
mental activity, operations, and figurations (Strauss & Langer, 1970; Langer,
1974). Figurations are the subject's action systems directed toward construc-
tively extracting and representing empirical information; that is, probabil-
istic. Extracting schematic knowledge-such as information about the appear-
ance, reality, and predictability of the physical and social environment-is
accomplished by symbolic embodiments in a variety of media that have com-
municative value. Operations are the subject's action systems for constructing
transformative concepts that ideally become logically necessary. They range
from representational pre operations, such as the one we have just discussed, to
formal operations, which develop during adolescence.
In our continuing research on the developmental fIliations between opera-
tional and figurative structures, we have recently focused upon the subject's
understanding and coordination between the apptarance and the reality of
things, on the one hand, and the transient and the permanent characteristics of
things on the other (Langer & Strauss, 1972). In his metaphysical investigation,
Bradley (1969) claimed that relating appearance to reality is central to experi-
ence: "Appearance without reality would be impossible, for what then could
appear? And reality without appearance would be nothing, for there is nothing
outside appearances" (p. 432). The first clear ontogenetic manifestations of both
distinguishing reality and relating appearance to it were located in the preverbal
sensorimotor child's playful pretending, such as the l-year-old baby who makes
believe that he is sleeping. Ontogenetically later manifestations of the cognition
of appearance and reality have been found, for example, in the child's develop-
ing conception of dreams. Not until about 6-7 years do children begin to
distinguish between and relate the appearance and the reality of dreams (Piaget,
1929; Kohlberg, 1969).
These ontogenetic investigations, it seems, can be summarized into two
general and related hypotheses, one developmental and the other cognitive. The
developmental hypothesis is that the cognition of the appearance and the reality
of things follows a long and varied course. This course begins early, in the form
of sensorimotor presentational activity. It requires a long intellectual history to
achieve the abstract conceptual form it takes in adult theoretical thought,
particularly in its epistemological and scientific embodiments. Given the long-
standing interest in the problem of appearance and reality, it is surprising that
most of the details in this ontogenesis have yet to be determined. The cognitive
hypotheSis is that much of the person's knowledge about the appearance and the
Cognitive Development 85

reality of things comes from his figurative activity (Langer, 1974; Piaget, 1970).
Here figurative activity refers to those cognitions that are primarily directed
toward extracting empirical information from the physical and social configura-
tion of the environment. To illustrate, one way for a child to determine whether
two perpendicular lines merely look different or really are different lengths is to
place them on top of each other. This way of extracting information from the
configuration of the two lines is a plausible source of empirical knowledge about
the appearance and the reality of illusory versus nonillusory physical objects.
As is well known, an early focus of considerable epistemological and psycho-
logical inquiry was the cognitive development of the identity of objects (Cas-
sirer, 1957; Meyerson, 1962; Werner, 1948). The ontogenetic course of the
cognition of identity begins with the infant's preverbal, sensorimotor activity.
By 12 months, this infantile activity has well established the presentational
permanence of objects, notwithstanding transient spatiotemporal displacements
that are observable (piaget, 1954). The cognition of identity culminates onto-
genetically, during adolescence, in the formal operational concept of the con-
servation of objects notwithstanding spatiotemporal and qualititative deforma-
tions in their configurations (piaget, 1952).
Again, it seems that the ontogenetic investigations of the identity of objects
can be summarized into two general hypotheses, one developmental and the
other cognitive. The developmental hypothesis (outlined in more detail in
Langer, 1969a, p. 97) is that working out the identity of objects requires a long
and varied history of subject-object interactions that passes through numerous
stages. The cognitive hypothesis is that much of the subject's knowledge about
the identity of objects comes from his operational reasoning (Langer, 1974;
Piaget, 1970). Here operational reasoning means those cognitions that are
primarily directed toward mentally transforming observed things and their
deformations in a logical fashion. Operational rea:;oning constructs mental struc-
tures about the logic of things. These logical conceptions supersede the character
of immediate observations. To illustrate the obvious, if a child understands that
a deformation in the shape of a ball of clay may be transformed in thought to
reestablish its initial state, then this mentally constructed reversibility enables
him to know that the quantity of objects is conserved under all conditions of
observed shape deformation.
-In his metaphysical investigation, Bradley (1969, pp. 62-63) argued that the
flux of deformative changes in objects constitutes reality, while the identity of
objects is an idealization created by thought. Interestingly, some recent psycho-
logical investigations are based on the opposite metaphysic; namely, that defor-
mations are illusory appearances of things that have not changed (are identical)
in reality (Braine & Shanks, 1965a, b; King, 1971; Murray, 1965). The claim is
that the young child confuses the way illusory objects appear (that is, unequal
and unchanged) with the way they really are (that is, constant and conserved).
Consequently, it is argued, distinguishing between the appearance and the reality
86 Jonas Langer

of objects should be the sufficient condition for cognizing identity. Older

children who distinguish between the appearance and the reality (AR) of objects
should therefore judge them to be conserved even when they are deformed.
Our fmdings on the S-year-olds' conception of objects are not consistent
with either metaphysical view. We found that AR judgments and conservation
concepts are not coextensive cognitive phenomena. At least half the S-year-old
subjects produced nonparallel performances between these cognitive activities.
Furthermore, conservation concepts are not the cognitive products of AR
judgments. Most of the spontaneous, nonparallel performances were featured by
more advanced operational reasoning about identity than figurative AR judg-
ments. Morever, neither training to distinguish the appearance from the reality
of illusory objects nor training to distinguish the appearance from the reality of
deformed objects produced progress in operational reasoning about the conserva-
tion of discontinuous quantity, length, or continuous quantity.
The structural developmental relations between ARjudgments and conserva-
tion conceptions are complex. The conservation concepts of our subjects were
not influenced by AR training, whether the spontaneous operational structure of
the subjects was mixed operational-that is, partially intuitive and partially
concrete-or was purely intuitive operational. Rather, our best, but still initial
and therefore tentative. indication is that the coordination is probably more
delimited and precise. Subjects were most likely to progress if their initial
operational structure was intuitive preoperational about the more difficult
deformations and mixed or concrete operational about the easier deformations
(discontinuous quantity deformations). But the cognitive progress of these
subjects was limited to their conservation concepts of length deformations. The
progress did not generalize to another form of deformations of equal difficulty
(continuous quantity deformations).
Whatever the validity of Bradley's metaphysical speCUlation that identity is
an appearance, "an idea which at no actual time is ever real," our empirical
research indicates that this is not the case for the developing cognition of the
young child. little coordination was found within the young child's cognitions
of appearance, reality, and identity, with the possible but still-to-be-replicated
exception of the child who is in a transitional phase between intuitive pre opera-
tions and concrete operations.
In concluding this consideration of coordination within the subject's func-
tional structures, I fmd two additional hypotheses worth noting. The first
hypothesis requires a structural epistemological metric that we do not have. If
we did, then we would expect the coordination to be greater, at any given
developmental stage, between the physical, social, and personal concepts pro-
duced by the same operation than between the facts produced by figurations
and the concepts produced by operations. This is so even when the facts and
concepts are in the same knowledge domain, such as the cognition of physical
objects. Greater disparity should obtain between concepts and facts than be-
tween physical and social concepts.
Cognitive Development 87

The second additional hypothesis is that the disparity between related

concepts and facts constitutes the kind of perturbation that may be a source of
cognitive progress. Interestingly, it was found that factual knowledge about the
appearance and reality of objects did not seem to be relevant to the young
child's conceptual knowledge about the same object's conservation, with the
possible exception of when his conceptual knowledge was in transition from
preoperational to concrete operational.
In general, from our perspective, the structural developmental filiations
between figurations and operations is an orthogenetiC process of equilibration.
The basic organization of the sensorimotor stage is a global fusion of assimila-
tory operations (such as playful transformations) and accommodatory figura-
tions (such as imitative reproductions). The observable result is syncresis of
perception, action, and affect. The sequence of stage development, starting with
the sensorimotor stage, is marked by progressive differentiation and integration
of these functional structures. The orthogenesis of accommodatory figurations
and assimilatory operations constitutes a central feature of the coordinative
equilibration that is the source of stage development, that is, progressive altera-
tion of functional structures. The functioning of one structural system of action
may lead to the feedback of information that modifies its organization. In turn,
this may result in intrinsic disequilibrium between it and the organization of
other functional structures. Disequilibrium is a necessary condition for progres-
sive reorganization and feedforward to the child's schemes of action. The
manifest symptom may then be some observable modifications and advances in
acts and their products, constructed facts and theories.
Finally, we may turn briefly to the second part of the equilibration thesis,
w}ljch refers to the interaction between the subject and his environment. In a
recent analysis (Langer, 1969a), I hypothesized that establishing disparity be-
tween a child's and a model's level of reasoning may be one way of studying
interactive disequilibrium leading to developmental change. The general idea is
that cognitive development is a progressive approximation to a potential, ideal
equilibrial state that is never fully achieved. In particular, this means that if the
child is perturbed by an event that he lacks the structural competence to deal
with, then he will be in a heightened state of disequilibrium. This leads the child
to act so as to compensate for the perturbation so that his existing functional
structures are transformed. Thus is developed the competence for new forms of
action that more intelligently anticipate and efficiently deal with future events
of the same class.
Several types of experiments have been performed in the study of the
interactive aspect of cognitive development. Beginning with Smedslund's (1961)
initial investigations, a series of experiments have sought the developmental
consequences of presenting children with a confrontation and/or conflict be-
tween logical mental operations such as addition-subtraction and reversibility
(Wallach, Wall, & Anderson, 1967; Langer, 1969a; Mermelstein & Meyer, 1969).
Another set of experiments has been begun to assess the consequences of
88 Jonas Langer

conflict in children's predictions and outcome judgments (Bruner, Olver, &

Greenfield, 1966; Inhelder & Sinclair, 1969; Strauss & Langer, 1970).
A third experimental approach is the one with which we are specifically
concerned. The basic research design is to examine the effect of structural
disparity between the child's own judgments and explanations-and those of a
model-upon the subsequent conceptions of the child. Thus, the interactive
disparity refers to the differing level of the child's and the model's reasoning.
A fair amount of research has been done along these lines on moral (social)
concepts (Turiel, 1969), and we are beginning to work along these lines on
logical and physical concepts. In the first study of this kind on logical concep-
tions (Kuhn, 1970, 1972), 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children were exposed to
models dealing with classification problems (taken from Inhelder & Piaget,
1964) at different levels in relation to the childrens' predominant pretest stage.
Very little change was induced. Insofar as change was obtained, the children
observing a model performing at a slightly higher structural level than their own
were most affected. Children observing a model performing at a considerably
higher level than their own were affected less. The least affected were children
observing a model performing at a slightly lower structural level than their own.
It may come as no surprise that it is impossible to induce progress to stages
that have not yet developed, because the requisite functional structures are not
yet present in the subject. But the difficulty in interactively inducing regression
in reasoning to a stage that the person has just passed through is on its face
highly surprising. After all, the child is simply in the position of merely having to
exercise reasoning capacities that he has already developed. The finding is,
however, completely consistent with the conservative rules of self-regulatory
coherence proposed elsewhere as the source of resistance to extrinsic induce-
ment to change, whether progressive or regressive (Langer, 1969b ) ..
Now we can bank on the conservative nature of developmental processes to
result in phenotypical actualization at the stage of concrete operations and
conventional morality. Most children reach that level of development, some a bit
faster or a bit slower. However, they will actualize their potential for concrete
operations and conventional morality. At the same time, we have begun to find
that the genotypical potential for the development of formal operations and
principled morality is not always actualized by adolescents and adults (Kuhn,
Langer, Kohlberg, & Haan, in press). These findings suggest the pedagogical
hypothesis that if you have to pick only one period for educational intervention
to support mental development, adolescence is a prime target. An obvious
question that follows is the optimal relation between speed of overall develop-
ment and the most mature stage of development that will be actualized. It may
well be that the child has to progress through the sequence of early develop-
mental stages within an optimal rate-range, or he will not actualize his full
potential. But we do not know, and this must therefore remain an open research
hypothesis.
Cognitive Development 89

This is not, however, the research route we have been taking. Rather, as we
have sketchily described, we have been trying to track the coordinative, filiative,
and interactive facets of the equilibration thesis of structural stage development
of operations and figurations. The thesis is that the orthogenesis of operations
and figurations produces physical, social, and personal concepts that are trans-
formed at each stage of development.

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 CHAPTERS

The Emergence
of the Child as Grammarian *
Lila R. Gleitman, Henry Gleitman, and Elizabeth F. Shipley
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Demonstrations of some young children's awareness of syntactic and semantic

properties of language are presented. Rudiments of such "metalinguistic" func-
tioning are shown in 2-year-olds, who give judgments of grammaticalness in a
role-modeling situation. The growth of these abilities is documented for a group
of 5- to 8-year-old children, who are asked explicitly to give judgments of
deviant sentences. Adultlike behavior, in these talented subjects, is found to
emerge in the period from 5 to 8 years. Possible relations of metalinguistic
functioning to other "metacognitive" processes are suggested.

Introduction

What do we mean when we say a speaker "knows the rules" of language?

Transformational linguists have been guarded in explicating this claim, for surely
there is a difference between what the speaker knows and what a professional
grammarian knows. There is broad agreement that speakers "follow the rules"
and, in fact, have trouble not following them (as in memorizing deviant sen-
tences and the like; e.g., Miller & Isard, 1963). But performances of this kind are
hardly equivalent to our everyday understanding of what it means to know rules.

'"This paper is reprinted with permission from Cognition, International Journal of Cognitive
Psychology, 1972,1(2-3), 137-164.
91
 92 LHa R. Gleitman et aI.

Used in this ordinary sense, the term knowledge implies awareness of generality;
in its strongest form it involves the capacity to articulate the rule system itself,
as in a chess player who can readily recite the rules of the game that constrain
his behavior. The elite linguistic informant is rather like the chess player: he
follows the language rules, but on demand he can do much more. He can
demonstrate some awareness of the existence of a rule system by performing the
one task that provides the main data base for modern grammatical theories: he
can indicate whether a sentence is or is not well-formed. A rule system may be
followed and yet not be known in this sense. The spider weaves his web
according to a well-defmed set of arachnid principles, but we hardly expect him
to note any deviance if he weaves under the influence of LSD. Rule following
per se implies knowledge of a weaker sort than that which linguists have
generally been interested in. The very tasks they impose upon their informants
require more than mere obedience to the rule system: the rules themselves must
be engaged in the service of a further cognitive act. In away, the linguist assumes
not only that the speaker knows the rules but that he knows something about
his knowledge.
This paper is concerned with the development of this aspect of linguistic
behavior, the ability of a speaker to reflect upon the rules that he follows. There
is little doubt that this metalinguistic skill has been a critical methodological
prerequisite for the construction of linguistiC theories during the last two
decades. We are here concerned with the emergence of this skill in young
children.
Developmental psycholinguists have shown us that the young child already
honors the rules for English sentence formation, at least within very wide limits.
Children of 4 and 5 speak the language fairly well, have trouble-like adults-in
repeating and memorizing deviant sentences, and so forth (e.g., Labov, 1970).
But this work tells us only that children follow the rules, "know how" to speak
English. 1 The question is whether they can also contemplate the structure of the
language, whether they know that they know. We will claim that at least some
5-, 6- and 7-year-olds possess this metalinguistic ability to a remarkable degree
and that a germ of this capacity can already be seen in the 2-year-old. Thus, in
part we are pursuing a claim some of us have made elsewhere (Gleitman &
Gleitman, 1970), a claim that is, we believe, implied-though usually cautious-
ly-in the writings of most generative grammarians: it is the speaker's potential
abstract awareness of language structure, and not merely his orderly behavior in

1 We do not wish to overstate the case for the sophistication of chHdren's speech. Although
many developmental psycholinguists state the language-learning process is essentially
complete at age 4 or 5 (e.g., McNeill, 1966; Lenneberg, 1967), this is by no means clear.
We do know that gross errors in speech have largely disappeared at this time, except where
morphophonemic irregularities (bringed, etc.) are involved; but we have no irrm data on
the complexity and variety of structures in early child speech.
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 93

accord with these rules, that lies at the heart of the generative-transformational
hypothesis.

The Child '8 Garden of Syntax

At first glance, there seems to be something of a paradox for students of

cognitive development in the preschooler's linguistic precocity: if language is
simply a tool of thought, then it is surprising that language abilities seem to
emerge so much earlier than other cognitive skills. The child's progress to logic,
to a belief in the conservation of quantities, to concepts of number, seems
painfully slow, but almost any mother can attest to leaps of apparently abstract
thought in the particular areas of phonology and syntax. For example, no
3-year-old lisps out his syllables so poorly that he does not feel entitled to
employ a self-conscious baby talk to dolls and other social inferiors (Gelman &
Shatz, 1976; Shipley & Shipley, 1969). Such aspects of juvenile competence are
rarely studied, in part because of the widespread belief that they cannot be dealt
with experimentally (e.g., Brown, Fraser, & Bellugi, 1964). Yet anecdotally, it is
easy to point to cases where young children manifest great sensitivity to
identifiable subtle features of language. For example, here is a question about
segmentation from a 4-year-old:
Mommy, is it AN A-dult or A NUH-dult?,
a query made doubly intriguing by the fact that this child did not make the a/an
distinction in spontaneous speech until 2 years later. And a 4-year-old with a
question about adverbial complements:
Mother (taking car around a sharp bend): Hold on tight!
Child: Isn't it tightly?
A precocious first-grader, unacquainted with formal punctuation marks, deli-
cately observes the distinction between use and mention:
Child (writing): They call Pennsylvania Pennsylvania because William Penn
had a (penn) in his name.
Mother: Why did you put those marks around the word Penn?
Child: Well, I wasn't saying Penn, I was just talking about the word.
This child quite apparently does more than speak in accordance with the rules of
grammar. She recognizes paraphrases, laughs at puns, and rejects deviant though
meaningful sentences. We believe that these features of behavior, far from being
the icing on the linguistic cake, represent our best clues to central aspects of
language competence. We will show in this paper that the capacity to reflect on
linguistic structure is available to some very young children. First, we demon-
strate the rudiments of this abstract attitude in 2-year-olds. Second, we docu-
94 Lila R. Gleitman et al.

ment evolution of this capacity in the young school-aged child. No normative

data are presented. We intend the work as an existential comment on linguistic
creativity in some young children. We cannot speculate on how widespread such
talents may be in the population at large.

Judgments of Grammaticalness from the 2-Year-Old

The Problem of Doing Developmental Psycholinguistics

Fruitful linguistic inquiry can hardly begin unless the speaker-listener can
provide firm judgments on at least some sentences of his language. The primary
data are not the' subject's utterances, but rather a set of sentences he judges,
upon reflection, to be well formed. The theory of grammar that emerges is an
account of these judgments. Precisely how such an account is related to a
description oflanguage performances (other than judgment-giving performances)
is currently something of a mystery. What is important for our purposes here is.
the fact that these judgmental data have not been available to the developmental
psycholinguist. Even if we had a complete description of the child's speech and a
complete description of the adult's linguistic judgments, this would be a dis-
satisfying state of affairs, for there is no obvious way to compare these accounts
in the interest of describing language acquisition. Brown, Fraser, and Bellugi
commented in 1964 on this methodological gap separating the linguist's study of
the adult from the psychologist's study of the child:
The linguist working with an adult informant gets reactions to utterances as
well as the utterances themselves ••.• Can such data be obtained from very
young children?
With Abel [a 2-year-<>ldj we were not successful in eliciting judgments of
grammaticality. Of course there was no point in asking him whether an
utterance was "grammatical" OI "well-formed." We experimented with some
possible childhood equivalents. The fust step was to formulate tentative
grammatical rules, and the next to construct some utterances that ought to
have been acceptable. For Abel "The cake" should have been grammatical and
"Cake the" ungrammatical. How to ask? The experimenter said: "Some of the
things I say will be silly and some are not. You tell me when I say something
silly." Abel would not. If Abel had a sense of grammaticality, we were unable
to frod the words that would engage it. (Brown, 1970, pp. 72-73)

Given this outcome, psychologists have used various indirect methods in the
study of the very young language learner. Almost all of the techniques represent
attempts to get at the classificatory system. Large contributions to our knowl-
edge of the emerging speaker have come from careful observation of sponta-
neous speech (e.g., Braine, 1963; Miller & Ervin, 1964; Brown, Cazden, &
Bellugi, 1969; Bloom, 1970), which must, in some admittedly cloudy way,
reflect something of the speaker's underlying organization of the language.
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 9S

Similarly, studies of repetition, memory, and the comprehension of various

syntactic and semantic structures (e.g., Brown & Bellugi, 1964; Menyuk, 1969;
Chomsky, 1969) are in many ways analogous to solicitation of judgments of
well-formedness. These latter methods are to some extent validated by their
success with adult informants for whom concordant judgmental data can be
provided (e.g., Savin & Perchonock, 1965; Johnson, 1965; Bever, Lackner, &
Kirk, 1969; and many others).
At present, then, we are able to get a fairly coherent picture of the course of
speech acquisition and some hints about the mechanisms of language learning
from the work of these investigators. But the fact remains that the insights
incorporated into modern generative grammar could probably not have been
achieved by the use of such indirect methods (see, for discussion, Chomsky,
1965). Judgments of grammaticalness have always been used to provide the
primary data. Comparable data from child informants would obviously be very
useful. They would enable the developmental psycholinguist to proceed just like
a linguist who studies some exotic adult language. But so far no one has found a
little child who gives stable judgments on his own primitive language.
Why is the young child unable or unwilling to provide these judgments? Does
he merely fail to understand the instruction? Is this failure orthogonal to his
linguistic capacities-perhaps representing a general cognitive immaturity? The
work of Shipley, Smith, and Gleitman (1969) was designed to examine this
issue. Perhaps the child does make judgments of well-formedness but simply
cannot understand an instruction to report on them.·1f so, we might get
classificatory data from the child by developing some behavioral indices of
differential responsiveness to various language forms. An examination of this
study will help set the problem toward which the present paper is directed: the
growth of metalinguistic reflection in the language learner.
Shipley et al. had mothers give commands (mild imperative sentences) to
children aged 18-30 months. Some commands were well formed (e.g., Throw
me the ballf), but some were "telegraphic" or foreshortened, as in the children's
own speech (Ball! or Throw ball/). We found that children discriminate among
these formats, as shown by their differential tendency to obey these commands.
More specifically, the holophrastic children (who do not yet put two words
together in speech) tended to obey foreshortened commands. In contrast,
telegraphic speakers ignored, repeated, talked about, laughed about telegraphic
commands, but obeyed well-formed commands. Shipley et al. assumed that
children fail to obey commands that they perceive as lingUistically deviant; thus,
differential tendency to obey these commands was interpreted as an implicit
judgment on the "acceptability" or "naturalness" of their format. 2
1 A simpler hypothesis-that the child fails to obey only because there isn't enough
information in the shortened commands-is falsified by the outcome: a child is more apt to
obey Ball! than Gor ronta ball! though the two contain identical intelligible information.
Further, at these ages, information outside the noun itself has no effect on the specific
96 Lila R. G1eitman et 01.

This study revealed that the spontaneous speech of children provides a

limited data source for the study of their linguistic knowledge, in practice as well
as in theory. Clearly, the telegraphic speech of these children did not reflect the
fact that they could discriminate telegraphic syntax from the adult syntax.
Perhaps the children "preferred" the well-formed sentences that they themselves
never produced at this stage, as indicated by their tendency to act on just these.
But such behavioral indices can be at best crude indicators of the child's
"judgments" on the sentences offered to him-if indeed he can make such
judgments. These indices do not come to grips with the question of classifica-
tion.

Soliciting Judgments from 2-Year Old Children

Can the 2-year-old child be induced to give judgments of grammaticalness
more directly? Some curious hints began to appear among the subjects of
Shipley et al. Every once in a while, a child seemed to behave much like an adult
when confronted with a linguistically bizarre stimulus:
Mother (delivering stimulus): Joseph: Gor ronta ball!
Joseph:3 Wha', Momma? "Gor ronta ball"?
We have punctuated this sentence advisedly. The child seemed to be querying
the format directly-not asking whether or not his mother really wanted him to
gor ronta ball. Other children would grab the list of stimulus sentences from
their mothers (obviously they could not read) and say "Now I do one!" Such
behavior suggests that these children were regarding the sentences apart from
their communicative function.
In a longitudinal variant of this work, in which eight children were studied at
successive stages of language development, these sophisticated responses became
too frequent to ignore. 4 To be sure, in the first run of the experiment, the
children behaved as we had anticipated. By and large (but with the usual
enormous noise), the telegraphic speakers obeyed well-formed commands more
often than telegraphic commands. In successive runs some months later with
these same children, we expected to see the culmination of this development:

behavior of the child given that he looks at the stimulus object in the fIrst place: if he does
anything at all with the ball, he is equally likely to throw it if you say Ball, Throw ball,
Throw me the ball, or Gor ronta ball. Only the likelihood of his coming into contact with
the ball in the fIrst place differs under these formats.
3In all instances, names have been changed to protect the innocents.
4 The longitudinal study was undertaken, in part, to replace spontaneous speech measures
with a better external criterion of each child's development. Thus, each child served as his
own control. This experiment differed in various ways from the 1969 study, most
relevantly by the inclusion of some word-order reverses (e.g., Ball bring; Ball me the bring)
which allow us to ask whether the child who rejects telegraphic sentences does so merely
because they lack the intonation contour of well-formed sentences.
Emergence of the ChDd as Grammarian 97

the subjects would now more uniformly respond to well-formed sentences and
balk more often at deviance. But this was not the outcome. On successive runs,
the distinction between well-formed and telegraphic commands became less
potent in predicting the children's tendency to obey.
Obviously these subjects had not been unlearning English. On the contrary,
they seemed to have learned to cope with anomaly. Our feeble operational
techniques thus are well-foiled:
Mother: Allison: Mailbox fill!
Allison: We don't have any mailbox fills here.
Assuming the subject is playing it straight, she has interpreted the stimulus as a
compound noun (albeit one whose referent she cannot discern) and has re-
sponded accordingly. But in light of Allison's IO-month-long experience as a
subject with such sentences-and with her favorite ready-to-be-filled mailbox toy
not 2 feet from her eyes-it is more likely that she is putting us on. Accordingly,
we had to reopen the question of whether she had become a functioning
linguistic informant at all of 2 years old.
Abandoning the indirect route, we now performed an experiment designed
to solicit judgments of grammaticalness directly. The subjects were three girls, all
about 2* years old, who had participated in the longitudinal study. Two of the
girls (Allison and Sarah) had responded preferentially to well-formed sentences
in the nrst part of the longitudinal study (the expected result for the "tele-
graphic speaker") and had become indifferent to this distinction ("posttele-
graphic") by the last run, as we have just discussed. The third (Ann) had
responded preferentially to telegraphic sentences in her nrst run through the
experiment (the expected result for the "holophrastic speaker") and responded
preferentially to well-formed sentences by the time of the fmal run (the
telegraphic stage). Thus, by the behavioral measures, Allison and Sarah were a
step ahead of Ann in language development when the present experiment was
run.
In designing the test situation, we exploited the children's willingness to
imitate adult roles. The child was told "Today we have a new game." Mother,
experimenter, and child would take turns being "teacher." As a preliminary step,
the experimenter (as teacher) read a list of sentences to the mother, who
judged them "good" or "silly" and did so correctly in all cases. She also repeated
the good sentences verbatim and "flXed up" the silly ones. If the child hadn't
quickly clamored for her turn, she was now offered it. The mother became
teacher and the child was asked to judge the sentences, repeating the good ones
and fIXing the silly ones. Finally, the child became teacher. She was handed the
stimulus list (needless to say, she could not read) and was told to offer sentences
to the experimenter, who gamely undertook to judge these (as correctly as he
could) for grammaticalness. 5

'We have frequently been asked how we succeeded in telling the children to deal with
98 Lila R. Gleitman et aL

The stimuli were 60 sentences, all short imperatives. The noun object ofeach
sentence was the name of a toy or other object known to the child. The
sentences varied along two dimensions:
1. Intonation contour: the sentences had either the contour of a well-
formed imperative (Bring me the ball,' Ball me the bring) or that of a
telegraphic sentence of the kind these children sometimes still produced
in speech (Bring ball; Ball bring).
2. Order: the serial order of words might be correct (Bring me the ball,'
Bring ball) or the order of noun and verb might be reversed (Ball me the
bring; Ball bring).
Thirty of the sentences were those used in the prior study and thus were familiar
to the child. The other thirty sentences were new. The familiar sentences were
presented at one session. the new ones a week later.
All three children undertook to judge the sentences offered to them. The
mere fact that they did so, and that the results were nonrandom, suggests that
these 2-year-olds could view language "as an object." That their classificatory
skills were quite feeble. nevertheless. can be seen from Table 1. Each child
tended to judge well-formed sentences (those that were full in contour and
correct in serial order) as "good," though this outcome is far from categorical
(combined probabilities from chi-square test, p < .02). There were no differ-
ences between the familiar and the unfamiliar sentences. For all subjects, the
reversed-order sentences resulted in more judgments of "silly" (combined proba-
bilities from chi-square test, p < .001). But only Allison judged telegraphic
sentences with word order preserved as sillier than well-formed sentences. Recall
that all three subjects distinguished telegraphic from well-formed sentences by
the behavioral index (tendency to obey such commands) in earlier runs through
that test.
Two of the three subjects (Allison and Sarah) were willing to repeat those
sentences they had judged to be good. Sarah's repetitions were with one
exception verbatim; her single "error" was a recognizable correction of a
telegraphic sentence. Allison judged 20 of the 30 sentences of session 2 to be
good, and she was asked to repeat these. Of these 20 sentences, 10 were actually
well formed, and she repeated all these verbatlm. Of the 10 that were actually
deviant, she repeated 5 verbatim and changed 5 in some way. That is, she gave
verbatim repetitions of well-formed sentences 10 times out of 10 and of deviant
sentences 5 times out of 10 (Fisher test, p = .025). Four of the five nonverbatim
"repetitions" were partial corrections. This outcome is similar to that achieved
by Labov (1970), whose 12-year-old subjects unintentionally, and in spite of the

"sentences" when these children could hardly be expected to understand the word sen·
tence. Indeed that is a puzzle, but nevertheless the children acted as if they understood
what to do.
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 99

TABLE 1
Sentences Judged "Good" by Three 2-Year-Olds (in percentage)

Normal order Reversed order

Subjects Well-formed Telegraphic Well-formed Telegraphic

Sarah 92 100 75 58
Ann 80 82 50 58
Allison 80 58 58 58

task requIrements, ·'corrected" sentences offered for repetition to conform with

their own dialect.
The repetition data, coupled with Labov's fmdings, give some independent
evidence of these children's language organization. More relevant to the issue of
metalinguistic functions are Allison's and Sarah's attempts to correct those
sentences they had judged to be silly (Ann refused to attempt this). The
corrections are shown in Table 2. Inspection of the table shows that Allison

TABLE 2
Sentences Judged "Silly" and Corrected by Two 2-Year-Oldsa

Subjects Sentences judged "silly" Correction

Sarah Pull wagon Pull the wagon me
Chair look Chair look
Clothes iron Iron clothes
Door shut Door shut
Put on a coat Put me in a coat
Make up the bed Hake the bed
Wash the dishes Wash the dishes
Song me a sing Sing me a song
Box the open Get in the box

Allison Find cup Drink out of the cup

Push sweeper The rug sweeped
Bring book Close book
Mailbox fill Mailman, put the mail in the mailbox
Cup fmd Fill the cup
Pick up the iron Iron the clothes
Fill the mailbox Put mail in the mailbox
Ball me the throw Throw the ball
Sweeper the push The sweeper push on the rug
Iron up the pick Iron the clothes

aThe table shows all cases in which correction was attempted. Some other sentences were
also judged to be "silly" but no corrections were offered for them. One subject, Ann,
refused to provide any corrections at all.
100 Lila R. Gleitman et aL

usually (about 7 times in 10) and Sarah sometimes (about 4 times in 9) made a
change in the direction of well-formedness. It appears that the children under-
stood the question that was asked and made a conscious attempt to restructure
the output.
There is a further curiosity in Allison's repsonses: some of them were
nonparaphrastic (e.g., Bring book / Qose book; Cup find / Fill the cup) We must
admit that the instructions were vague; when we told the child to "ftx it up if it
is silly," we did not stipulate that the correction had to mean the same thing.
But it is worth noting that one need not so instruct an adult. If we ask an adult
to correct the expression The dog bit cat the, we expect the response The dog
bit the cat. If informants responded The dog bit the rat with any measurable
frequency, linguistic theory would look a good deal different than it does. Nor
would we ever expect as responses The cat was bitten by the dog, The domestic
canine bit the cat, It was the dog who bit the cat, or any of a host of other
paraphrastically related responses. The adult informant has a surprisingly precise
notion of what "it" means in the instruction "Fix it up" in the context of a
deviant sentence. We show later on that at least some 6- and 7-year-olds interpret
the task just as adults do.
In the last experimental condition (the child as "teacher"), we got some
further suggestive evidence from Allison, who invented 20 sentences for her
mother to judge. Of these 20, 18 were well-formed imperatives of the type she
had been tested on in this and the earlier experiment (e.g., Sit on the horsie; Put
pants on yourself; Look at that chair). One was a reversed-order imperative (Rug
put on the floor) and the last a peculiar declarative (Hair is on yourself). It is of
some interest that all save one of these inventions were imperatives, reproducing
in minute detail the syntactic structure of the sentences we had offered to her. It
seems unlikely that a child asked simply to "say sentences" will produce
imperatives so exclusively; thus, it is probable that Allison was capable of
developing a set for a unique grammatical structure in response to her perception
of the requirements of the task. On the other hand, she showed no tendency to
be rigid on semantic grounds, for her inventions varied over a wide range of
topics.
In sum, we have found that the method of Shipley et al. (1969) rapidly
becomes unworkable as the child passes out of the telegraphic stage of speech.
The sophisticated 2-year-old, like his seniors, seems to ftddle around with
deviant material. He may somehow internally "correct" it and then respond to
the corrected material (the general paradigm hypothesized for adults by Katz,
1964; Ziff, 1964; and Chomsky, 1964; see Gleitman & Gleitman, 1970, for some
experimental eVidence). Thus, no simple behavioral index now gets close to his
recognition of the distinction between well-formed and deviant sentences. At
this stage, some of his knowledge can be tapped by direct query: Tell me if the
following sentence is good or silly. Tenuously, but quite clearly, some 2-year-
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 101

olds can follow this instruction in the role-modeling situation. Further, two of
the three subjects studied gave evidence of going beyond simple classification.
Isolating the deviance, at least in some measure, they often provided partial
corrected paraphrases of deviant material. Indirect data from their spontaneous
speech and from corrected repetitions were also consistent with these interpreta-
tions.
We believe that with appropriate refmement of these elicitation procedures,
it may be feasible to inquire quite directly into aspects of young children's
language organization. However, we do not know how far this judgmental
capacity extends. In this study, we dealt only with very simple sentence types.
We do not know if these subjects could have provided stable judgments if we had
edged closer to the limits of their knowledge (a matter which is after all in some
doubt even for adults; see, e.g., Maclay & Sleator, 1960; Hill, 1961). What has
been demonstrated here is at least a minimal capacity in some children under 3
to contemplate the structure of language.

The Child as Informant

We will now show that some children from 5 to 8 years old come up with
intuitions about syntactic and semantic structure so subtle that they are often
overlooked even by professional grammarians. We will not argue that most or
even many children can perform such feats of reflection. Since extreme differ-
ences in linguistic creativity have already been demonstrated for adults (Gleit-
man & Gleitman, 1970; Geer, Gleitman, & Gleitman, 1972), it would be
surprising if we did not find great differences among children. We have not, then,
looked for subjects who are in any way representative of the dialect population.
On the contrary, we have taken some pains to interview children we suspected
were highly articulate, either from personal knowledge or from aspects of their
background. After all, the adult informants whose judgments provide the empiri-
cal basis for lingUistic theory are at least as far from being a random sample of
the population.
Having granted the bias of our sample, we begin with a transcription of a
dialogue between one of us (LRG) and one of her children.

An Interview with a 7-Year-Old Child

At the time this dialogue was taped, Claire was 7 years old, in her second
year of grammar school. She had had a good deal of exposure to language games
and had participated when very young in pilot studies of the sort reported by
Shipley et al. (1969). We are not suggesting, then, that Claire was average in
either linguistic capacity or experience, although some of the results we report
102 Lila R. Gleitman et at.

below for children of less special background suggest that her approach to
syntactic questions is by no means unique. 6
LG: Are you ready to do some work?
CG: Yes.
LG: We're going to talk about sentences this morning. And I want your
opinion about these sentences.
CG: Yes, I know.
LG: Are they good sentences, are they bad sentences, do they mean
something, are they silly, whatever your opinions are. Do you know
that your opinions can't really be wrong?
CG: I know because you told me.
LG: Do you believe me?
CG: Yes, I believe you, because everybody has his own opinion.
LG: You and I may disagree; would you like me to tell you when I disagree
with you?
CG: Yes, but you won't tell me!
LG: Okay, okay, I'll tell you. The important thing is you should know it's
all right to disagree. Okay: John and Mary went home. (1)
CG: That's okay.
LG: That's an okay sentence?
CG: Yes.
LG: Does it mean the same thing as: John went home and Mary went
home? (2)
CG: Yes, but it's sort of a little different because they might be going to
the same home-well, it's okay, because they both might mean that, so
it's the same.
LG: Here's another one: Two and two are four. (3)
CG: I think it sounds better is.
LG: Two and two is four?
CG: Am I right?
LG: Well, people say it both ways. How about this one: Oaire and Eleanor
is a sister. (4)
CG: (laugh): Claire and Eleanor are sisters.
LG: Well then, how come it's all right to say Two and two is four?
CG: You can say different sentences different ways! (annoyed)
LG: I see, does this mean the same thing: Two is four and two is four?
CG: No, because Two and two are two and two and two and two is four.
LG: Isn't that a little funny?
CG: Two and two more is four, also you can say that.
LG: How's this one: My sister plays golf (5)
6 Allsentences presented to Claire and all of her initial responses appear in thiS transcript. A
few tedious interchanges resulting from probes have been deleted.
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 103

CG: That's okay.

LG: How about this one: Gol/plays my sister. (6)
CG: I think that sounds terrible, you know why?
LG: Why?
CG: Poor girl!
LG: Well, what does it mean?
CG: It means the golf stands up and picks up the thing and hits the girl at
the goal.
LG: How about this one: Boy is at the door. (7)
CG: If his name is Boy. You should-the kid is named John, see? John is at
the door or A boy is at the door or The boy is at the door or He's
knocking at the door.
LG: Okay, how about this one: I saw the queen and you saw one. (8)
CG: No, because you're saying that one person saw a queen and one person
saw a one-ha ha-what's a one?
LG: How about this: I saw Mrs. Jones and you saw one. (9)
CG: It's not okay-I saw-You saw Mrs. Jones and I saw one (ha ha).
Besides there aren't two Mrs. Jones.
LG: Is that the problem there? Is that why the sentence sounds so funny?
CG: No, the other problem is I saw-You saw Mrs. Jones and I saw one-a
one.
LG: A one, you mean like a number one?
CG: No-a one, whatever a one-well, okay, a number one.
LG: How about this: Be good! (10)
CG: That sounds okay.
LG: How about this: Know the answer! (11)
CG: That's the only way to say it, I think.
LG: The only way to say what?
CG: You better know the answer! (threatening tone)
LG: How about this one: I am eating dinner. (12)
CG: Yeah, that's okay.
LG: How about this one: I am knowing your sister. (13)
CG: No: I know your sister.
LG: Why not I am knowing your sister-you can say I am eating your
dinner.
CG: It's different! (sho,uting) You say different sentences in different
ways! Otherwise it wouldn't make sense!
LG: I see, you mean you don't understand what that means, I am knowing
your sister.
CG: I don't understand what it means.
LG: How would you say it?
CG: I know your sister. Do you disagree with me?
104 Lfia R. Gleitman et aL

LG: It so happens I agree with you. How's this one: I doubt that any snow
will fall today. (14)
CG: I doubt that snow will fall today.
LG: How's this: I think that any snow will fall today. (15)
CG: I think that some snow will fall today.
LG: That way it's okay?
CG: I don't think snow will fall taday cause it's nice out-ha ha.
LG: How about this: Claire loves Claire. (16)
CG: Gaire loves herself sounds much better.
LG: Would you ever say Claire loves Gaire?
CG: Well, if there's somebody Claire knows named Claire. I know some-
body named Claire and maybe I'm named Claire.
LG: And then you wouldn't say Claire loves herself?
CG: No, because if it was another person named Claire-like if it was me
and that other Claire I know, and somebody wanted to say that I
loved that other Claire, they'd say Gaire loves Claire.
LG: Okay, I see. How about this: I do, too. (17)
CG: It sounds okay but only if you explain what you're trying to say.
LG: How about: The color green frightens George. (18)
CG: Doesn't frighten me, but it sounds okay.
LG: How about this one: George frightens the color green. (19)
CG: Sounds okay, but it's stupid, it's stupid!
LG: What's wrong with it?
CG: The color green isn't even alive, so how can it be afraid of George?
LG: Tell me, Claire, is this game getting boring to you?
CG: Never-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
LG: Why do you like to playa game like this? What's the difference how
you say things as long as people understand you?
CG: It's a difference because people would stare at you (titter). No, but I
think it's fun. Because I don't want somebody coming around and
saying-correcting me.
LG: Oh, so that's why you want to learn how to speak properly?
CG: That's not the only reason.
LG: Well, what is it?
CG: Well, there's a lotta reasons, but I think this game is plain fun.
LG: You want to go on playing?
CG: Yeah, and after this let's do some spelling; I love spelling.

Other Subjects
As a further check on the incidence of skills apparent in Claire's responses,
we tested six more children with these same materials. listed in ascending age,
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 105

they were: Sl-female, 5 years; S2-male, 5 years; S3-male, 6 years; S4-male, 7

years; S5-male, 7 years; S7-female, 8 years (S6 was Claire Gleitman, 7 years).
All of the subjects were children of academic families. The interviewer for Sl
and S5 was their mother, an undergraduate psychology student. The interviewer
for S2, S3, S4, and S7 was an undergraduate linguistics student who had never
met the children before the interview. All sessions were taped.

Results
Rather to our surprise, all of the children we interviewed were prepared to
play the game; all classified the sentences in fair conformance with adult
judgments; and all, including the youngest, gave interesting and relevant ac-
counts of what is wrong with the deviant sentences, at least some of the time.
Oassification of the Sentences. Table 3 presents the conformance of the
children's judgments on these sentences with our own. There are many reasons
to be embarrassed by so formal a presentation of these data. Most centrally, the
accuracy of the child's response was often dependent on the wit of the inter-
viewer in making the correct probe. In particular, the youngest subjects would
accept almost any sentence unless some further question was asked:
E: How about this one? Boy is at the door.
Sl: Good.
E: Good? Is that the way you would say it?
Sl: No. A boy is at the door. Boy is at the door isn't a good sentence.
More generally, it should be clear that this test was performed simply to
ascertain whether children of these ages can in principle adopt the attitude of
judging and classifying in a manner similar to that of adult informants: with
respect to this point, the results are clear cut. But since the choice of test
sentences was haphazard in terms of any metric of well-formedness, complexity,
and the like, we can make no general statement about the judgmental capacities
of children as compared with adults; the percentage of agreement with adults
would almost certainly be changed by a varying of the proportion of one or
another kind of deviance. In the absence of normative data, these subjects'
responses are useful only to expand the picture drawn in the original interview.
But the results leave little doubt that a variety of delicate questions of syntax
and semantics were handled rather neatly by these children. Below we give a
number of examples, organized according to several rough syntactic subcate-
gories.
Stative verbs: Sentences 13 (J am knowing your brother) and 11 (Know the
answer!) contained stative verbs in deviant environments. As can be seen from
these examples, this verb class has no forms in the present progressive or in the
imperative. As Table 3 indicates, the younger children failed to notice the
problem. The older ones rejected the deviant forms. S6 suggested the so-called
106 Lila R. Gleitrnan et 01.

TABLE 3
Conformance of Children's Judgments to Those of Adults a

Subject

SI S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7

Age

Adult
judgment 5 5 6 7 7 7 8
(1) John and Mary went home wf + + + + + + +
(2) John went home and Mary went home wf + + + + + + +
(3) Two and two are four wf + + + + + + +
(4) Claire and Eleanor is a sister d + + + + +
(5) My sister plays golf wf + + + + + + +
(6) Golf plays my sister d + + + + + + +
(7) Boy is at the door d + + + + + + +
(8) I saw the queen and you saw one d + + +
(9) I saw Mrs. Jones and you saw one d + + + + + + +
(10) Be good! wf + + + + + + +
(11) Know the answer! d + + +
(12) I am eating dinner wf + + + + + +
(13) I am knowing your sister d + + + +
(14) I doubt that any snow will fall today wf + + + + +
(15) I think that any snow will fall today d + + + + +
(16) Claire loves Claire wfld
(17) I do too wf + + + + +
(18) The color green frightens George wf + + +
(19) George frightens the color green d + + + + + + +

Total "+" judgments for all sentences 12 10 15 15 16 17 17

a Adjust judgments were provided by three independent judges who indicated whether each
sentence was well-formed (wf) or deviant (d). The children's judgments are marked "+" if
they agreed with those of the adult and "-" if they did not, regardless of their explanation.
Sentence 16 cannot be scored in this manner; whether or not it is deviant depends upon
whether the same referent is assumed for both nouns. The names in sentences 4 and 9 were
chosen to be familiar; in sentence 16 the child's own name was used.

pseudo-imperative interpretation (an ellipsis for an if-clause), which is acceptable

for such verbs (Know the answer = You better know the answer =If you don't
know the answer, **!).
Collective versus distributive use of and: All children stated that (1) John
and Mary went home and (2) John went home and Mary went home mean the
same thing. Claire spontaneously brought up the collective/distributive issue in
response to this comparison. She first tried to distinguish the two sentences on
this basis ("they might be going to the same home") but then recognized that
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 107

both forms share both construals ("they might both mean that, so it's the
same").
Pronominal referents: Sentences 8 and 9 display the anomaly that arises
when a definite noun-phrase is the apparent antecedent of an indefinite pro-
noun:

(8) I saw the queen and you saw one.

(9) I saw Mrs. Jones and you saw one.

The oddity is clearer in (9), for while there may be only one Mrs. Jones in the
world, one cannot have that same Mrs. Jones as its grammatical antecedent. The
four younger children accepted (8) without question, which is consistent with
their tendency not to notice syntactic deviance when no semantic anomaly
arises. On the other hand, all of the subjects rejected (9). The responses to these
questions are displayed in full below. It is quite clear that the quality of the
explanations improves with the age of the children; put another way, there is an
increasing conformance of their judgments with our own. Note that the younger
children gave explanations that accorded with their judgments: they rejected
only the case with the proper noun, and they explained by claiming that this
structure is incorrect with a name. (The stimulus sentence is tagged by its
number; the experimenter's comments, somewhat abbreviated, are bracketed):
Sl: (8) Good. (9) No, 'cause there's only one Mrs. Jones. [Then how would
you say it?] I saw Mrs. Jones [and?] I did, too.
S2: (8) Yeah. (9) I would hate that 'cause they're not-I got two reasons.
They're not the same age and they don't look the same. [So how would
you say it?] I don't know. It's silly. Because it don't say the name
and-it don't say the name-it's-I saw Richard Jamison, and you saw
one. Don't give no reason.
S3: (8) Good. (9) It sounds funny 'cause You saw Mrs. Jones is okay, but I
saw a one-it should mean something like I saw-You saw a tree and I
saw one, too. You can't say it with a name. [So what's the problem?]
Because you have to say something like You saw a tree and I saw one.
But you can't say something like You saw Mrs. Jones and I saw one.
You have to say You saw Mrs. Jones and I saw her, too.
S4: (8) That's a good sentence. (9) That's silly, 'cause there might not be
two Mrs. Jones that I know. [So how would you say it?] I saw Mrs.
Jones and so did you. Both of us saw Mrs. Jones.
S5: (8) No, I saw the queen and you saw the same queen that I saw-you
and me saw the queen. (9) No, I saw a Mrs. Jones and so did you.
S6: (8) No, because you're saying that one person saw a queen and one
person saw a one-ha ha-what's a one? (9) It's not okay-I saw-You
saw Mrs. Jones and I saw one-ha ha-besides, there aren't two Mrs.
Jones. [Is that the problem here?] No, the other problem is You saw
108 Lila R. Gleitman et 01.

Mrs. Jones and 1 saw one-a one. [Like a number one?] No-a one---:
whatever a one-well, okay, a number one.
S7: (8) That doesn't really make sense. You saw a queen-no, I'll say me-I
saw a queen and you saw a queen, too.(9) That doesn't make sense
because there's only one Mrs. Jones that you saw and you have to see
the same one, probably. 1 saw Mrs. Jones and you saw her, too. [But if
there were two Mrs. Jones?] You saw her-I don't know. I guess if
there were two you could say one. It would sound funny. [Suppose
your grandmother and your mother are both Mrs. Smith, so you
might be able to see two of them at the same time.] 1 saw Mrs. Smith
and you saw them, too-ha ha-that sounds-and you saw them, too-I
saw Mrs. Smiths . .. I don't know.

Explanations of Deviance. While our subjects very often rejected syn-

tactically deviant but meaningful expressions, they ordinarily, and improbably,
explained their rejection on semantic grounds, e.g.:
E: How about Karl and Kirsten is a sister.
S4: Funny.
E: Why is it funny?
S4: Because that doesn't make sense.
E: How would you say it?
S4: Karl and Kirsten are sisters.
This happened with trying consistency. Since the subject easily provided a
paraphrase, he had obviously grasped the sense of the sentence; but even so he
often "explained" the peculiarity of the sentence by denying its meaningfulness.
Again, this confusion is not restricted to children; one has only to make the case
a bit more difficult. Thus, adults given the sentence 1 saw the queen of England
and you saw one, too will often reject it on the grounds that there is only one
queen of England. The fact that the sentence would sound just as odd if there
were fifty queens of England entirely escapes their notice (Gleitman, 1961).
Of course very often a semantic explanation is appropriate; here is an
example from a 5-year-old:
E: George frightens the color green.
Sl: No, because green is used to boys.
E: If there was a color that never saw children, it could be frightened?
Sl: No. It couldn't be frightened because-'cause-I'm thinking, okay,
Mom? ... No, 'cause colors don't have faces of paint. You talking
about paint?
We have seen that semantic "explanations" were common among our subjects,
even where they were inappropriate. Yet, there also were many instances in
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 109

which the children, including the 5-year-olds, pointed quite precisely to a

syntactic violation; e.g.:
E: I think that any rain will fall today.
83: You can't say any there.
E: I am knowing your brother.
84: It's not right English. It should be I know your brother, not I am
knowing your brother.
E: Two and two are four.
86: I think it sounds better is.
It is worth noting that these children, not yet exposed to grammar exercises in
school, nonetheless had defmite opinions that took the form "you can't say ...
you have to say."
To this extent, the children seemed to adopt a frame of reference in
answering these questions that is similar to our own. The non paraphrastic
responses often observed in the 2-year-old subjects (see Table 2) had disap-
peared. The quality of explanation changed markedly with age (whether it also
changes with intelligence, schooling, and the like is a question we cannot
speculate on).
80me further ticklish differences in the frame of reference for dealing with
our experimental question are left unanswered here. As a fmal comment,
however, the following kind of response would probably be exceedingly rare in
adult subjects, but it occurred more than once in our sample. (ytIe were trying to
fmd out whether is and are are both acceptable in sums):
E: Two and two are four.
83: Yeah.
E: Can you think of any other way to say that?
83: Three and one?

Discussion
We now consider the factors that determined the behavior of these subjects
in responding to the question: Is the following sentence "good" or "silly"? A
number of tangled -issues of truth, plausibility, meaningfulness, and syntactic
patterning enter into the interpretation of these findings. Did our subjects
distinguish between implausible or false expressions and linguistically anomalous
ones? Even if they did, did they really contemplate the constraints on arrange-
ments of words and phrases (syntax) or did they consider only the meanings of
such arrays and the entities that comprise them (semantics)? Below we comment
on our subjects' approaches to these fine distinctions. These matters are pre-
sumably of some importance, perhaps especially to those psychologists who
110 Lila R. Gleitrnan et aL

claim that "semantics is what is important" about language and language

learning and that the transfonnational foray into syntax is in some ways
uninteresting or not cogent for psychologists of language. In our view there are
really two issues. One is the immediate question about the factors that de-
termined our subjects' judgments. The other concerns the general problem of
distinguishing syntax from meaning.
What Makes a Sentence "Silly": Falsehood or Ill-Fonnedness? There are
many ways that a sentence can be "silly." For example, there are quite different
oddities involved in Mud makes me clean versus Mud drinks my ankle. Notice
that the negative of the first is entirely unexceptional (Mud does not make me
clean), while the negative of the second is precisely as odd as the positive (Mud
does not drink my ankle). Stated more generally, Mud makes me clean is
implausible to the extent that mud is rarely a cleansing agent, but it is a "good"
sentence of English.
Is this true of Mud drinks my ankle? Again, some would say that tlus IS a
good sentence of English on the grounds that it is a case of a noun phrase
followed by a verb phrase in which the right completion of the verb drink (a
noun phrase) is also correct, given the gross patterns of English. But most
linguists would respond that a description of the English language that fails
to account for the oddity of this sentence is primitive and incomplete (after all, if
linguists disclaim responsibility for this phenomenon, who is to handle it?). In
the standard transformational fonnulation, such oddities are described as viola-
tions of selectional restrictions that obtain among the words and phrases of the
language (for discussion, see Chomsky, 1965): drink requires an animate subject
while mud is not an animate noun. Knowledge of selectional restrictions on
words is claimed to be part of the lexical infonnation that speakers have
internalized. (Whether this infonnation is "semantic" or "syntactic" is a ques-
tion to which we will return.) Linguists are less concerned (although not utterly
unconcerned) to account for the implausibility of Mud makes me clean, which
more clearly turns on the language user's "knowledge of the world" as opposed
to "knowledge of language."
How do speakers interpret the instruction to tell whether or not a sentence is
"silly?" By and large, adults accept Mud makes me clean with only mild
waffling, and they reject Mud drinks my ankle. They accept implausible sen-
tences and reject violations of selectional restrictions.
In contrast, 2-year-olds, as already mentioned, seem to reject implausible
sentences. For example, Find book was "corrected" as crose book. Our guess is
that these non paraphrastic responses were attempts to come up with more
plausible expressions. Similarly, the 5-year-olds studied here sometimes rejected
sentences on these grounds:
E: I am eating dinner.
S2: I would hate that.
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 111

E: Why?
S2: I don't eat dinner anymore.
E: How about! am eating breakfast?
S2: Yum, yum, good!
On the contrary, the older subjects rarely rejected sentences on the basis of
implausibility or falsehood. If the experimenter suggested that they do so, they
considered this only a JOKe:

E: I think that any rain will fall today.

S3: Well, any is not the right word. You should say I don't think that any
rain is going to come down. Right?
E: Okay. It's a pretty nice day anyway.
S3: So it's not gonna rain, so that's why I'm probably right (gai/s of
laughter).
Similarly, Claire pointed up this distinction in one response:
E: The color green frightens George.
S6: Doesn't frighten me, but it sounds O.K.
On the other hand, violated selectional restrictions-which indeed lead to a
bizarre meaning-were uniformly rejected. For a simple case such as Golf plays
my brother, all subjects said that it is "backwards" or that "it doesn't make
sense." They might also provide a reading for the deviant sentence:
S3: Ha ha. That doesn't sound right. You should say My brother plays golf
instead of golf plays brother-that would mean a golf ball or something
bats the boy over the thing.
It is also worth noting that S1, who for mysterious reasons of his own rejected I
am eating dinner, rejected Golfplays my brother on appropriate grounds:
Sl: I hate it cause it's backwar(h
Nhile the tendency to reject implausible but "correct" sentences diminished
with the older subjects, it did not disappear. All subjects rejected George
frightens the color green, which violates a selectional restriction on frighten. But
some also rejected The color green frightens George on the grounds of im-
plausibility:
S7: No, because green is just still. It isn't going to jump up and go BOO!
Nor should we expect categorical acceptance of implausible expressions in the
light of the vagueness of these instructions. The point here is not whether
categorical behavior was found: given these instructions, some adults also reject
such sentences (after all, the idea is silly). Much more centrally, the plausibility
112 Lila R. Gleitman et al.

dimension seemed highly salient for 2-year-olds (see Table 2), was still some-
times apparent in 5-year-olds, and became much less salient as the determinant
of judgments among the older children and adults. As we will now discuss,
syntactic dimensions become more potent with age.
What Makes a Sentence "Silly": Syntactic Deviance or Semantic Ano-
maly? We have so far seen that what differed among our subjects, and what
differentiated them most clearly from adults, was the precise understanding of
the question: Is the following a good sentence of English? Did they respond in
terms of meaning or form? (Of course this further question raises serious
problems of deflnition, most of which we regretfully ignore, for they reach well
beyond the scope of this paper.)
While syntactic structure appears to be the basis of many of the rejections of
sentences we have cited thus far, it may be argued that semantic anomalies arise
from the syntactic deviations and that it was the semantic anomaly to which
these subjects responded. In that event, the best test cases for sensitivity to
syntax would be those sentences whose syntactic deviations have the least
semantic force. These are usually low-order violations of phrase-structure con-
straints. Examples among our stimuli are sentences in which number concord is
violated (John and Jim is a brother) or in which determiners required by count
nouns are missing (Boy is at the door). Similar to the last instance are the
foreshortened forms without particles and determiners presented to 2-year-olds
(Bring book). These cases can be contrasted with deviations from well-formed-
ness that, at least intuitively, do more radical violence to meaning, such as Golf
plays my brother, I think that any rain will fall today, and, for the 2-year-old,
Ball me the throw. If the children noticed only semantic anomaly and ignored
syntactic pattei1ling, they should have accepted sentences of the flrst sort (John
and Jim is a brother) and rejected sentences of the second sort (I think that any
rain will fall today).
The youngest subjects were indeed most responsive to deformations which
obscured or complicated semantic interpretation. Thus the 2-year-olds gave
clear-cut data only for sentences with word-order reversals, such as Ball me the
bring, whose meaning is obscure. Similarly, the 5-year-olds often accepted a
deviant sentence if it was odd only in its word arrangement but still clear in
meaning (e.g., John and Jim is a brother). Nevertheless, there are some indica-
tions that even the youngest children were sensitive to syntactic issues as such.
For example, one of the 2-year-olds (Allison) was much more likely to judge a
telegraphic sentence as "silly" than a well-formed one. The sensitivity to syntax
was more obvious in the 5-year-olds, who sometimes noticed syntactic oddities
that yielded no semantic problems. One of them rejected Boy is at the door and
spontaneously added, "Boy is at the door isn't a good sentence." From 6 years
on, the salience of syntactic deviance was no longer in doubt. All children over 5
years of age rejected Boy is at the door and John and Jim is a brother. Each
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 113

provided the appropriate paraphrase, so they obviously understood these expres-

sions. They were then rejected solely on grounds of syntactic nicety.
Beyond the immediate issue we have just considered is the question of
whether a relevant distinction can in general be drawn between syntax and
semantics. Certain psycholinguists seem to believe that it can. They seem to
assume that constraints on word order and the like, insofar as these are not
merely historical accidents, are relevant only to the nature of memory, se-
quencing of outputs, and other issues of linguistic information-processing. What
they fail to notice, or misinterpret, is that very much of what we mean by
meaning is expressed through syntactic devices. Notions such as subject, predi-
cate, noun, adverbial phrase, and the like are the categories and functions
described in the syntax of the language; but of course these are not semantically
empty notions. The movement within transformational linguistics known as
generative semantics (e.g., Lakoff, 1972) is an attempt, as we understand it, to
merge the semantic and syntactic descriptions of the language in a way more
perspicuous than in Chomsky's (1965) formulation. But whatever success this
venture may have, it is bizarre that any version of transformational-gen-
erative grammar could be viewed as describing "merely" the semantically empty
syntax of the language. Clearly, these theories have always been attempts to
describe the complex interweave of form and meaning that natural languages
represent.
This being our view, it is hard for us to argue any more strenuously than we
have that our subjects were aware of English syntactic structure. If it can be
shown that the features of syntactic structure that these children noted and
commented on always have some semantic content, that can come as no surprise
to us and cannot mitigate our interpretations of these fmdings.

Conclusions

The Child as Language Knower

All of the children we have studied showed at least a muddy capacity to be
reflective about knowledge. Even the 2-year-olds provided nonrandom classifica-
tions of simple sentences: the fact that they undertook this task at all is evidence
of at least the rudiments of a metalinguistic skill. A child who can do this must
already be said to know something about language that the spider does not know
about web weaving.
The ability to reflect upon language dramatically increases with age. The
older children were better not only in noting deviance but also in explaining
where the deviance lay. By and large, the 5-year-olds offered only paraphrastic
corrections. They did not add much in the way of explanation, even though they
114 Lila R. Gleitman et 01.

indicated that there are ways "you have to say it" and that some of the
sentences are just "not right." In contrast, the older children often referred to
linguistic categories (e.g., "You can't say it with a name") and occasionally
changed the lexical classification of a familiar word, thus rendering a deviant
sentence well formed (e.g., "You can't say that unless you are 'a Green' "; "One
person saw a queen and one person saw a one-whatever a 'one' is"). This
achievement is all the more impressive conSidering the fact that many adults
have serious difficulty when required to change the categorial status of a word
(Gleitman & Gleitman, 1970). But even when the subjects offered only example
or paraphrase, the older ones sometimes came up with all of the data relevant to
the writing of a rule of grammar, Claire's response to Boy is at the door is a case
in point:
If his name is Boy. The kid is named John, see? John is at the door, or The
boy is at the door, or A boy is at the door, or He's knocking at the door.
Most of the main distinctions among noun and noun-phrase types (count,
proper, pronoun; definite versus indefinite noun-phrase) are neatly laid out in
this response. Such manipulation of linguistic data is a not inconsiderable
accomplishment. It is after all the modus operandi of the practicing linguiSt.
We should reiterate that the abilities we have demonstrated in some children
do not necessarily appear in very many. Our claims are simply existential. The
lack of normative data is only one of the reasons for this caution. A number of
studies (e.g., Pfafflin, 1961; Gleitman & Gleitman, 1970) have shown that there
are substantial individual differences among adults in the ability to deal with
classificatory problems. These differences in metalinguistic skills are not at-
tributable solely to differences in nonlinguistic matters such as memorial capa-
city (Geer, Gleitman & Gleitman, 1972). Under the circumstances, it is only
reasonable to suppose that such differences already exist among young children.
Chomsky's demonstration (1969) of individual differences in the recognition of
transformational features of verbs in 6- to lO-year-olds gives further grounds for
this belief.

Metalinguistic Functions Compared to Other Metacognitive Processes

At least in adults, there are some other "metacognitive" processes which
seem to be similar in some ways to the metalinguistic functions we have just
considered. We think and we sometimes know that we think; we remember and
sometimes know that we remember. In such cases, the appropriate cognitive
process is itself the object of a higher-order cognitive process, as if the
homunculus perceived the operations of a lower-order system. But the lower-
order process often proceeds without any metacognition. This is certainly true
of language, whose use (even in profeSSional grammarians) is often unac-
Emergence of the Child as Grammarian 115

companied by metaIinguistic reflection. Similarly. for other cognitive processes

such as memory: we see a friend and call him by name without any awareness
that we have just recognized and recalled. The important point is that we can
deal with memory in a metacognitive way, just as we can reflect metalin-
guistically. Examples of metacognition in memory are recollection (when we
know that we remember) and intentional learning (when we know that we must
store the material for later retrieval). Another example is the phenomenon of
knowing that one knows-that is, has stored in memory-some item of informa-
tion even though one cannot recall it at the moment (e.g., the "tip-of-the-
tongue" phenomenon, Brown & McNeill, 1966; memory monitoring, Hart,
1967).
Developmental evidence suggests that these various metacognitive processes
may be closely related. In particular, their time of emergence seems suspiciously
close to the 5- to 7-year age range in which we found adultlike performance on
metaIinguistic tasks. Whether Piaget's stage analysis can handle such findings is
another matter, but it is interesting to note that the period from 5 to 7 is just
about the time when children begin to explain their judgments of space and
number (Ginsburg & Opper, 1969). Similarly for monitoring processes in
memory. Several Russian investigators have shown that intentional strategies for
remembering are rarely adopted before 5 years of age but are increasingly
utilized thereafter (Yendovitskaya, 1971).
Whether these relations among the various metacognitive functions will tum
out to be more than mere analogies remains to be seen. The primary emphasis of
the present paper has been on the metacognitive aspect oflanguage behavior, for
it is this that allows us to say that language is not only used but known. The
results indicate that this kind of knowledge is found even in children. Consider a
reaction to Chomsky's paradigm (1969) in which the child is shown a blind-
folded doll and is asked: "Is this doll easy or hard to see?" (Claire, age 8):
CG: Easy to see-wow! That's confUSing.
LG: Why is it confusing?
CG: Because it's hard for the doll to see but the doll is easy to see and
that's what's confUSing.
Or again, on the ambiguity of ask to:
LG: What would it mean: I asked the teacher to leave the room.
CG: It would mean I asked the teacher if I could leave the room to go to the
bathroom or it would mean I asked the teacher to leave the room so I
could go to the bathroom in privacy.
Here knowledge is explicit. The child has moved from mere language use to
serious innovation and creativity, to contemplation of language as an object.
Such skills are frequently manifest in 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds. We believe it is this
116 Lila R. Gleitman et oL

kind of language activity that is most intriguingly engaged and convincingly

explained by transfonnational theory; this is hardly surprising because just such
data are the methodological prerequisite for grammar construction.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The work reported here was supported by the National Institute of Health
under grant number 20041-01. Thanks are due to Rochel Gelman and Francis W.
Irwin for helpful comments on the manuscript, and to Harris Savin for many
useful suggestions and criticisms in developing this work. We also wish to thank
Betsy Alloway and Judy Buchanan, who carried out some of the experiments.
The change of judgments from semantic to syntactic over the age range studied
here was first pointed out to us by Marilyn Shatz, to whom we are much
indebted.

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Shipley, E. F., Smith, C. S., & Gleitman, L. R. A study in the acquisition of language: Free
responses to commands. Language, 1969,45, 322-342.
Yendovitskaya, T. V. Development of memory. In A. V. Zaporozhets & D. B. Elkonin
(Eds.), The psychology of preschool children, Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1971.
Ziff, P. On understanding understanding utterances. In J. A. Fodor & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The
structure of language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
 CHAPTER 9

Environment, Experience,
and Equilibration
Celia Stendler Lavatelli

University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

We are witnessing today in America a phenomenal growth in early childhood

education. The number of states making kindergarten mandatory is increasing
rapidly, as is the number of states and communities offering public school
education for 4-year-old children. Unfortunately, while opportunity can be
legislated, quality of program cannot. All too many preschool programs are
basing their curricula upon modified primary programs of the kind Silberman
(1970) decries in Crisis in the Classroom for being dull and joyless. One
curriculum suggests the following for the fall months:
1. Arithmetic: Introduction of numerals 0-5, worksheets, games on the
chalkboard, exercises on the feltboard. Introduction to commercial
arithmetic blocks.
2. Reading: Alphabet recognition and sounds. Games with initial consonant
sounds.
3. Social studies: People and animals prepare for cold weather. Columbus
Day-dramatic plays and crafts centered around voyage. Halloween-
stories of ghosts and witches.
4. Art: Boat pictures.
And so on, for a completely preplanned, academic curriculum, based upon the
notion that the best preparation for first grade is to be taught the first-grade
curriculum in the preschool and that education goes on when the teacher is
directing the class, teaching a specific skill or concept. It assumes that learning
follows such teaching. It provides little or no opportunity for children to
119
120 Celia Stendler LavateUi

explore, to become involved in something they want to do, to stretch their

minds as they solve problems meaningful to them. However, it is only as we
change the emphasis from a view that education is direct teaching to one that
education is learning, and as we begin to view the child as the agent of his own
learning, that classrooms become joyous places, warm and humane, where
intelligence is nurtured and grows during the critical preschool years.
This view of education is not new; John Dewey elaborated on it over 50
years ago. Piaget's developmental theory has provided fresh impetus for the
notion that the school is an environment for learning and that school environ-
ments can facilitate the development of intelligence. Some teachers interpret this
to mean that the teacher's role is to make available to the child the conventional
preschool materials-doll-play equipment, blocks, wheel toys, art media, puzzles,
books, and games-and let the child choose what he wants to do and how he
wants to do it. The teacher steers the work and play into constructive social
channels, encouraging the shy and timid and redirecting the child who is acting
out. The child's own play activities will contribute to his cognitive development,
the argument goes; as the child plays, he will make important discoveries about
the properties of objects and relations between objects. Anything more in the
way of teacher direction is considered to be imposition.
It is true that as they play children make discoveries contributing to their
cognitive growth, but what children discover is a function of the mental
structures they can impose upon data. What children get out of play is what they
bring to it. When I was in high school, I chose to do a project in biology
class-keeping a diary of observations of birds. Daily, I recorded the kinds of
birds I saw, where I saw them, whether they were eating or flying, and so on. I
had little to' bring to my observations, for I did not have the structures from
ethological research available to today's student to interpret certain behaviors as
courting behaviors, signals of distress, and so on. There is a structure to a
discipline composed of generalizations that have mileage.
Similarly, as Piaget has suggested, there is a structure to mental processes
that allows logical processing of data, bringing order to what we see when we
look at particular stimuli. Perhaps we subordinate some data to others, establish-
ing superordinate and subordinate classes; perhaps we relate what we are experi-
encing to past experiences in a one-to-one mapping. These structures are not
innate; they are constructed by the child out of his interactions with objects or
events. Observe the behavior of the preoperational child-whose structure for
dealing with classification is not complete. When we ask him to sort objects
varying in size, shape, and color into three different piles, he is very reluctant to
put red circles and red squares in the same pile and equally reluctant to put
green circles and red circles in the same pile. That an object can belong to the
class of circles and also to the class of redness is a notion of multiple classifica-
tion that does not exist, nor does the notion of subordinate and superordinate
classes. It is only as the child constructs a classificatory structure out of many
Environment, Experience, and EquDibration 121

actions of combining subclasses and taking classes apart that an elegant way of
classifying emerges.
I propose that the cognitive task of the preschool should be to aid in the
construction of classificatory structures as well as to facilitate the construction
of number and ordering structures identified by Piaget that develop along with
classification during this period. A preschool academic program will not do this;
conventional reading-rediness activities do little to promote intellectual growth.
Furthermore, in a completely unstructured preschool, some children may make
marvelous discoveries; however, not all do, and not all do in every domain. We
overestimated the child's ability to discover in the days of progressive education,
and one hopes that we do not make the same mistake in the name of open
education. There are college students who have difficulty in preparing outlines
of papers because they do not subordinate some ideas to others or who have
other difficulties with hierarchical classification. And there are others who have
difficulty with spatial relationships. Man's greatest evolutionary achievement is
logical intelligence, and it is found in man in all cultures; individuals, however,
have vulnerable areas.

Logic Is Logic: The Structuralist View

Piaget's (1970) position, that mental structures are the same for all men, is
supported by cross-cultural data. As human beings, we all have the same
biological structures and functions. These interact with the common features of
the natural world, leading to the development of the same mental structures and
functions. Logical thought is universal.
The French anthropologist Levi-Strauss pioneered in analyzing social struc-
tures to examine the workings of the mind. From his analysis of thought in
primitive cultures, Levi-Strauss (1963) concluded that "the kind of logic in
mythical thought is as rigorous as that of modern science ... the difference lies
not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things to
which it is applied , .. in the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its
unchanged and unchanging powers" (p. 28). He maintained that logic is logic
whether it is professed by Australian aborigines or a theoretical physicist. The
mind imposes forms upon content, and one can fmd examples of forms common
to all societies.
Levi-Strauss (1966) discounted the notion of a "savage mind" in a "creature
barely emerged from an animal condition" (p. 42) and incapable of logical
thought. He examined classifications in primitive societies and found in them an
inherent logic. The Aymara Indians in Bolivia, for example, developed a tax-
onomy of the genus Solanum that included over 250 varieties (the eggplant and
the potato are examples), divided and subdivided into an elaborate binominal
taxonomy, a high-order achievement of logical thought. Similarly, structural
122 Celia Stendler Lavatern

analysis of kinship systems reveals evidence of logical structures. In totemic

societies, for example, clans are divided on the basis of relationship to some
object or animal (a totem) not only in a methodological way but also according
to a classification scheme based. upon carefully built theoretical knowledge of
the plant or animal. These groupings are instances of algebraic structures. "The
savage mind," Levi-Strauss (1966) concluded, "is logical in the same sense and
the same fashion as ours" (p. 268).
Still another structuralist, Chomsky (1968), applied the structuralist point of
view to language, claiming that the human mind is programmed at birth with a
mental representation of a universal grammar that makes possible the learning of
a natural language. Chomsky believes that there is some innate equipment for
processing certain kinds of phenomenal entities, which accounts for the common
structure underlying language learning.
Piaget, too, has been concerned with mental structures and is sympathetic to
the work of both Chomsky and Levi-Strauss. However, he parts company with
Chomsky on the issues of innate syntatic laws, preferring instead, like Levi-
Strauss, to explain stability in structures across cultures in terms of equilibrium
mechanisms. For Piaget (1971, p. 114), mind, at any point in life, is the un-
finished product of continual self-construction. Structures are not preformed
but are self-regulatory transformational systems, with the functional factors in
that construction being assimilation and accommodation.
For Piaget, any critical account of structuralism must begin with a considera-
tion of mathematical structures. The first known structure to be identified and
studied is the mathematical "group," a system consisting of a set of elements
and having certain properties. These properties are not derived from properties
of things but f!'om ways of acting upon things, for example, reversing them or
combining them. The properties (Piaget, 1970, p. 18) are such that:
1. When performed upon elements of the set, the combinatory operation
yields only elements of the set.
2. The set contains a neuter or identity element that, when it is combined
with any other element of the set, is unaffected.
3. Each element 01 the set has an inverse that, when combined with the
former, yields the neuter or identity element.
4. The combinatory operation (and its inverse) is associative ([n + mJ + 1 =
n + [m + 1]).
A discovery of Piaget's that has had a profound effect upon his thinking is
that there is a resemblance between the structures of thought and mathematical
structures, with the mathematical group being a prototype of logical structures:
that is, thought, when it is logical, has the same properties as mathematical group
structure, both being governed by an internal logic. We can carry on thought
displacements upon data; we can reverse an operation (go back to the starting
point) with a realization that the starting point will be unchanged. We can be
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 123

certain that the end result in thought is independent of the route taken; we can
figuratively put 2 and 2 together in different ways and still get 4. We can
compare sets of data, knowing that if for every element in one set there is a
corresponding element in the other, the sets must be equal. These displacements
are derived from group properties.
One can identify structure in children's responses to Genevan tasks most
readily in those involving physical causality. Here it is the structure of knowl-
edge that the child reveals, as well as the structure for comparing events. Over
and over again, for example, the child offers explanations of a phenomenon that
show his growth, and confusion, in the area of gravity. Given a task in which he
must assess the height of two towers, one constructed on a lower base, the child
often places a stick across the top of both and says, "They're the same because
the stick doesn't go down." The child never lacks for an explanation; he has
notions and schemes, which he uses to explain many different phenomena. The
way in which he applies his structure of knowledge to compare events depends
upon his developmental state of mental structures for processing data. Most
preschool children have not yet developed the mathematical group structure;
their thought is preoperational. The teacher can playa role in helping them build
the group structure Piaget has identified.

Logical Development in Cross-Cultural Studies

The brief review of the structuralist position presented here may help to
dispel the naive viewpoint of "the savage mind" and the young disadvantaged as
children who "do not just think at an immature level; many of them do not
think at all" (Bereiter & Engelmann, 1966). All children think and all attain
logical thought, but the timing may be different, and the logic may be applied to
different problems in different cultural environments.
We turn next to a consideration of the impact of environment upon logical
development.
The Genevan tasks, adapted for particular cultures, have been useful in
revealing differences between nonindustrialized and industrialized societies. In-
vestigators have compared the development of thinking processes among the
Uganda (Almy, 1967), the Zulu (Cowley & Murray, 1962), Australian aborigines
(De Lemos , 1967), and the Papual (Prince, 1968). The reasons children gave for
their responses had a universal quality; "you didn't add anything and you didn't
take anything away" was a way of reasoning expressed in many languages.
However, children growing up in an aboriginal environment achieved conserva-
tion on the Genevan tasks at a later age than did European children in the same
country.
There is the very real possibility that certain terms that express equivalence
in administration of conservation tasks may have different meanings in different
124 Celia Stendler LavateUi

cultures. However, as Maccoby and Modiano (1966) pointed out, differences in

cognitive demands between industrialized and primitive societies, between urban
and rural environments, may very well be the source of differences in cognitive
strengths. For example, it may be that urban man must make "more abstract
formulations as to how things are. how they are alike and how they are
different" (p. 268).
Is schooling a ftlctor? Goodnow's (Goodnow & Bethon, 1966) research is
relevant here. She tested European and Chinese boys in Hong Kong, between 10
and 13 years of age, on Genevan tasks of combinatorial reasoning and conserva-
tion of space (area), weight, and volume. She reported that similarities across
milieus were more striking than differences, with both European and Chinese
children in Hong Kong performing much as children performed in Geneva,
although space and volume tasks were more difficult for the Hong Kong sample.
An examination of the data, however, reveals that one of her groups, consisting
of Chinese boys with less than a year of schooling, did the poorest on the tasks.
Only 60% of the boys who were between 10 and 13 years of age had attained
conservation of area, whereas 70% of the Genevan children passed this task
successfully at 7-8 years.
Additional light on the effects of environment comes from studies showing
that effects of schooling can differ for different tasks. Price-Williams's (1961)
study on the Nigerian and Vernon's (1966) on the Canadian-Indian and Eskimo
both show that while performance of their sample was roughly comparable to
that of the Genevan children, some tasks were more vulnerable to lack of
schooling than others.
The work of Siegel and Mermelstein (1965) and Mermelstein and Shulman
(1967) is relevant to the question of environmental setting and development.
They found that children denied schooling in Prince Edward County, Virginia
did as well as disadvantaged children in Flint, Michigan on conservation tasks,
with neither group performing as well as the Genevan group. Girls, however, did
somewhat better than boys on a conservation-of-quantity task, perhaps, the
authors speculated, because of participation in certain household tasks. Wei's
(1967) study of classifactory behavior of preschool white children from educa-
tionally advantaged and disadvantaged families indicated that vulnerability in
some areas may begin before school; she found significant differences favoring
the advantaged between the two groups.
My own work on logical development among the Houk-Lo, the boat people
living in Aberdeen Harbor in Hong Kong, reveals that it is not low socioeco-
nomic status (SES) per se that sets the pace of logical growth, but rather the
opportunities provided in natural settings for interactions contributing to logico-
mathematical development. The Houk~Lo families are among the poorest of the
Hong Kong poor, and since the British Crown Colony provides no free compul-
sory education, the children grow up with only minimal schooling, if any, in the
overcrowded settlement-house classes. These children leave the sampans each
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 125

day, some to fmd work on the streets, others up to 7 years of age to play on
shore, where I observed them. I was struck with their vitality and industry. Hong
Kong is a city that teems with life, and there is a hustle and bustle on the streets,
a vitality that is reflected in the vim and vigor with which the children throw
themselves into their games. I was also struck with the children's inventiveness at
games and with the fact that the games provided a natural setting for the
acquisition of certain logical concepts.
There were four separate play areas along the shore, each featuring a
particular game or set of games. The children divided themselves among each of
the play areas, moving from one area to another as they tired of one kind of
activity. The number of children in the total play area averaged 60 per day. A
random sample of 12 of the children was selected for scheduled observation.
Two games, described below, were selected for special observation because of
their inherent logic. Of the 1 hour of observed play each morning, 6 of the 12
children tended to stay with one of these games for at least half of each session
and spent the rest of the time as active observers of the other games. There were
4 who divided their time almost equally between the two games and 2 who were
"flitters," going from game to game and back again. During the 1 week of
observation, the actual time spent on one of the two games being observed
varied from 100 minutes (1 child only) to 40 minutes (2 children}.
The two games selected were, as stated previously, chosen for their potential
contribution to development of logical thinking. They were:
1. Playing cards. This game was played with paper cards picturing characters
from Chinese history. Two children played at one time. A card was held in the
palm of one hand. The children dropped the cards simultaneously. Each pictured
character had a certain value attached to it (as in our system, in which a queen is
worth 2 points, a king 3 points, and so on). The child whose character had a
lower value had to give to his opponent enough cards to make up the difference.
Thus the game involved attaching a value to a particular card, recognizing the
difference in value between it and other cards, and counting out the proper
number of cards to make up the difference. The game was therefore excellent
preparation for conservation of number, where conservation is achieved by
compensation.
2. Bottle caps. For this game, a 2 X 2 matrix was drawn in the dirt:

1 3

4 2

Each child had a supply of bottle caps to begin with, and each stood at the same
distance from the diagram to pitch a bottle cap at one of the numbers. The child
126 Celia Stendler LavateUi

who landed his cap in the highest number was rewarded by being paid in bottle
caps the difference between his score and that of each of the other players. Like
playing cards. this game, too. contributed to conservation of number.
The "natural" curriculum, then, the one devised by the children themselves,
provided opportunity for acquiring conservation structures. The natural setting
in which the children lived provided opportunity for acquiring certain spatial
concepts. The sampans where the children lived were lined up, three or four
deep, several hundreds of them along the shore. All looked more or less alike in
size, shape, and state of deterioration. To find one's own sampan required
certain spatial skills, such as attending to cues denoting position (in front of, in
back of, on the other side of) and using a frame of reference with points away
from the boat (toward the far end of the shore line, toward the middle of the
shore line, toward the street end of the shore line). The need for certain spatial
skills might conceivably facilitate development of certain aspects of spatial
relations in Houk-Lo children.
One would expect !lIese children on the basis of their low SES to score low
on Piagetian tasks in comparison with a Genevan sample. But it was hypo-
thesized that when the "natural" curriculum and natural settings provide for the
kind of interactions conducive to logical growth, the disadvantages of low SES
were compensated for. I am suggesting that one must analyze the kind and
quality of interactions in natural settings for their possible contribution to
logical development and not assume an inevitable connection between SES and
development of intelligence.
To assess the children's progress in logical thinking, I administered three of
the Genevan tasks, with some changes to allow for cultural differences: conserva-
tion of number, conservation of quantity, and rotation of an object in space.
A complete account of procedures and findings is presented in a paper, "The
Acquisition of Conservation in a Natural Setting: A Study of Houk-Lo children
in Hong Kong" (Lavatelli, Hotvedt, & Lee, 1976). Here I want to report only a
brief summary of results.

Task 1, Conservation of Number

Of the children tested, 81% gave a conservation response, with 71% being
able to justify conservation with evidence of reversibility. The mean age of these
children was 7.07 years. For this same task, 70% of Genevan children passed at 7
years.

Task 2, Conservation of Quantity

Conservation was achieved by 66% after the first transformation (rice poured
from a larger bowl into two smaller ones), while 58% maintained conservation
Environment, Experience, and EQuilibration 127

after the second transfonnation (rice poured from a larger bowl into seven
smaller ones). Full conservation with evidence of reversibility was achieved by
38%. Again on this task, the Houk-Lo children compared favorably with
Genevan children. While 38% of Houk-Lo subjects achieved full conservation at
7.02 years, 32% of Genevan children reached this stage at 7 years.

Task 3, Rotation of an Object in Space

Of the Houk-Lo children, 62% solved the simplest of reversals on a task
involving rotation of an object in space by 1800 at 7 years of age, and 10%
solved a double reversal. The task involved two identical boats with the same
easily identifiable parts on each (mast and difference in levels, for example). A
man was placed in the middle of one of the boats while the two boats were lying
side by side facing in the same direction. Then one of the boats was rotated
1800 , and the child was asked to place a second man in the same place on the
second boat as the first man in the first boat. The next step was more
complicated, since the man was at the edge of the boat and so a double reversal
was necessary. Again the Houk-Los' perfonnance was in line with that of more
advantaged subjects, although subtle differences in procedure made precise
comparison difficult.
While the study is not defmitive, fmdings certainly lend support to the
proposal of several investigators that social settings be examined for interactional
opportunities contributing to logicomathematical development. Play experiences
of varying cultural groups might be analyzed for the extent to which participant
action contributes it) construction of number, classification, ordering, and
spatial structures.

Experience and Equilibration

A word here about experience and success on Piagetian tasks. Piaget has
discussed experience as a possible contributing factor but has discounted its
effectiveness as the unique factor. Certainly, merely being exposed to a par-
ticular experience is not necessarily conducive to cognition. Some children make
brilliant discoveries in the course of play; others do not. Watching a laboratory
experiment or even conducting one mayor may not help a child to acquire a
particular concept. The key factor for Piaget is equilibration. The child as-
similates data from an interaction into existing mental structures that may
produce disequilibrium. The mind goes to work to restore equilibrium, as
structures change to accommodate to the new. The process is one of autoregula-
tion: the child regulates input and regulates the transfonnation of data. Accom-
modation as well as assimilation may result in disequilibrium when there is
128 Celia Stendler Lavatelli

disparity between notions. In either case, the child must convince himself of
what he will accept and then modify the existing framework of thought in order
to incorporate the new data.
Natural settings provide learning situations in which the child is highly
motivated. He may want to be competent because of some inner need for
competence, as White (1959) has suggested. Or the social setting may provide a
stimulus to do well in the eyes of one's peers or perhaps to strive for success
because everyone else is striving. Or a competitive spirit may urge the child to
better his peers. Child development specialists and educators prefer that a child
be motivated by a drive for competence rather than a drive to "better one's
peers."
The process of equilibration may be facilitated in the social setting. Watching
what one's peer does can contribute to assimilation. The child can, of course,
copy without assimilating. A child may sometimes say in the course of clinical
interviews, "I'll say they're the same because he said it, and he's smarter than I
am, but I don't really believe it." The child is telling us that seeing is not
necessarily believing. But seeing what another is doing may click with the child
whose cognitive growth is far enough along not only to assimilate but to
accommodate to what he sees.
What is done with the data depends upon the mental structures the child has
available for processing data. We tum next to how teachers can facilitate their
development.

Implications for Early Childhood Education

Piaget has described important developments in cognitive growth that occur

during the period of early childhood. At that time, sensorimotor schemata are
elaborated into conceptual structures. Setting up correspondences becomes quite
systematic; subordination schemes develop.
At the present time, preschool teachers are trying to influence developments
in classification, number, and ordering, but all too often, they do not understand
that there is a structure to classification, to number, and to ordering. Because
they are not aware of structure, they provide learning activities of the Sesame
Street genre; children learn to count by rote, to identify letters of the alphabet
by name, and to separate objects according to color, size, or shape when directed
to do so. In all such activities, the teacher has imposed a structure upon the data;
the teacher has done the thinking, while the children simply carry out directions
for tasks that they can solve perceptually. There is no great intellectual challenge
to the child in putting all red objects in one pile and all yellow objects in another
when told to do so. Under such a system, the script writer or the teacher
becomes smarter, but not the child.
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 129

How can the teacher provide learning opportunities for children to build
logical structures during the preschool years? The ftrst prerequisite is for the
teacher to understand the properties of logical classiftcation, number, and
ordering and to understand the teaching role in the educational process. I am
going to describe what it means, in terms of structure, to classify logically and
suggest activities in which children may engage, working in small groups with the
teacher for short periods at a time. The activities are adapted from Genevan
tasks and from science and mathematics learning experiences in American and
British experimental programs. There is a sequential order in which the charac-
teristics of classiftcatory behavior emerges; this order has been described by
Inhelder and Piaget (1964) as a result of investigations with more than 2,000
children in Geneva. With minor variations, the order has been conftrmed by
Kofsky (1966), who found six different levels of difftculty in her tests of
classiftcatory logic, with success on the tasks at each step differing signiftcantly
from tasks at the preceding level. Teachers can observe where children are on the
developmental ladder by examining the structure of the class the child forms
when asked to group objects together. The structure he imposes upon objects is
a reflection of the mental structure he has already constructed.

The Characteristics of Logical Classification

Those characteristics of particular concern to the development of young

children are:
1. There are no isolated elements, that is, elements not belonging to a class.
If an element is the only one of its kind, then it gives rise to its own
speciftc class.
2. For every speciftc class, there is a complementary class characterized by
the property of not having the property of the specific class. The class of
oranges, for example, might be said to consist of oranges and all the
fruit-not-oranges.
3. For a class of wire-haired dogs, we have the class of dogs-not-wire-haired.
4. A specific class includes all the members having the property common to
that class.
5. A speciftc class includes only members having the property common to
that class.
6. The class of things that belong both to As and not As is the empty set.
Or there is no such thing as a dog belonging to neither the class of
wire-haired or the class of dogs-not-wire-haired.
7. A complementary class has its own characteristics.
8. A particular class is included in every higher-ranking class that contains
all its elements: "all" A or "some" B.
130 Celia Stendler Lavatelli

With these characteristics of classification in mind, it is possible to construct

a model of a training program to foster development of logical classification.
First, the characteristics listed above have to be translated into separate opera-
tions, and then the operations must be arranged in order of difficulty to match
as nearly as possible a developmental sequence.
For children to be able to carryon classification activities according to the
logic of the characteristics mentioned, they must be capable of certain mental
operations. They have to be able to take in information from an object or
experience in the environment and transform that information, do something to
it, as follows:
1. Identify properties of objects (size, color, shape, etc.), and match objects
with more than one property.
2. Keep in mind two or more properties of objects at the same time while
searching for any object to complete a set.
3. Combine objects to make up subclasses, combine subclasses to make
supraclasses, and recognize the existence of complementary classes.
4. Change from one criterion for grouping to another.
5. Take a whole class apart to fmd subclasses and make comparisons of
"all" and "some."
6. Discover intension and extension of a class.
7. Visualize an object as having simultaneous membership in two classes.
8. Put together elements from several groups so that none is repeated.
9. Make all possible combinations of elements.
Some classification activities designed to facilitate development of logical
classification are described below.
Identifying properties of objects and matching objects by more than one
property. The goals for this set of activities include not only identifying
properties of objects but also matching objects by more than one property. The
equipment used is a specially selected set of kindergarten beads in two sizes, two
shapes, and three colors. The teacher makes a model string and the children copy
the string. Activities are sequenced, beginning with the very simple one in which
the child copies a model necklace made up of all the red beads on a shoelace. He
does the other colors in turn and, in subsequent lessons, shapes and sizes. Next,
there are additional models that the teacher makes, models that begin with a
simple alternation of red bead with yellow bead and end with a complex pattern
demanding that the child attend to the number, size, shape, and color of the
beads all at the same time.
The overall objective of having children identify properties of objects and
match objects by more than one property is to enable children to find the
common property of a class and to extend that class to include all objects
possessing that property. Thus, the teacher may vary directions on subsequent
days to say, "Find all the beads that are alike in some way and string them" and
"Tell me how they're alike."
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 131

Accompanying the actions are verbal activities, with the teacher presenting
models of certain grammatical structures. As with the actions the child carries
out, grammatical structures modeled for him are sequenced, beginning with
simple declarative sentences and progressing to transformations upon those
sentences that include coordinate sentences with directions for more than one
action. In each case after the teacher gives the directions and the child begins
the action, the teacher says, "Tell me what you're doing. Why did you choose
that one?" This exercise forces the child to attend to not one but several
properties of an object at the same time and to describe the object using noun
phrases: "It's a round bead" or "It's a small yellow bead." If the child cannot
put words together to frame a response properly, the teacher models the correct
response and again asks the question. The child may not repeat the response
letter perfect; research on imitation (Slobin, 1971) shows that children repeat
correctly only those grammatical structures that they already have in their
repertoire, but word-for-word repetition is not necessary.
There are follow-up activities to be carried out in connection with each set
of materials that are designed to reinforce and extend what has been taught. For
example, in one activity, two children may be hidden from each other's view by
a screen. The child puts a bead on his string and says to the other, "I'm putting a
round yellow bead" (note use of noun phrase, with adjectives to describe two
properties). The other child then puts a round yellow bead on his string, plus
another that he describes to his unseen companion, and the game continues for a
specified number of beads, at the end of which time the children can physically
compare their strings. A number of investigators have commented on the need to
have children use the language of referents-to talk about events and objects not
visible or not in the immediate present. The follow-up activity just described
provides training in this very important skill.
Keeping in mind two or more properties of objects in searching for an object
to complete a set. This activity in the Piagetian program requires that the child
put to use the skill developed in the beads activity; he must keep two or more
properties of objects in mind as he searches for an object to complete a set. The
vehicle of instruction is the matrix puzzle. A matrix is an ordered series of
elements designed in such a manner that the elements in one pair are related to
the elements in another in the same way. Readers are familiar with matrices in
intelligence test items: "Black is to white as night is to __ ." The subject must
supply the necessary word. The puzzles in this program are picture puzzles. The
first puzzle in the series makes use of the training in recognizing properties of
size, shape, and color provided in the beads activity. The picture shows one large
red flower and one small yellow flower in the top horizontal row; beneath are
one large red apple and a blank space for which the child must select the
appropriate card from a number of choices of flowers and apples. The puzzles
become more difficult, demanding attention to three variables at the same time.
At first, an adult is likely to think that the puzzle is too difficult for the
preschool child, that he will not be able to follow the verbal directions. This,
132 Celia Stendler Lavatelli

however. is not the case. The young child can solve the puzzle without much
difficulty; however, he solves it at a perceptual level rather than a conceptual
one. Inhelder and Piaget (1964) have described how the child uses symmetry to
do this. Instead of thinking of how each of the first pictured pair of objects is
related and rmding a picture that will establish the same relationship in another
pair, he simply thinks, "I've got a red one here, and this one's yellow, so the
answer card must be yellow. And there's one here and one here and one here, so
it's got to be one here." By a simple matching of elements that stand out
perceptually, he can solve a puzzle.
How can one find out at what level the child is operating? Ask him. This is
what Inhelder and Piaget did and what the Piagetian program described here
urges teachers to do. Furthermore, the teacher who says, "Tell me about it. Why
did you choose that card?" is developing both language and logic. With many
children, such a question is often greeted with a look of surprise, as if this were
the first time the child had been asked to explain his action to another person.
Regardless of the answer, the teacher then selects another answer card, puts it in
place of the child's choice, and asks, "Would this one do just as well?" "In what
way?" or "Why?" We have found in our experimental work that time and time
again a child who has chosen the correct card without hesitation will abandon
his choice, also without hesitation, and justify the incorrect response by finding
a different symmetry. If he cannot think in terms of two variables at once, he
will agree to any card containing one of the properties in question.
Complementary classes. The next set of activities in the series is designed to
provide training in the ability to recognize complementary classes. Given pic-
tures of dogs of which two are collies, can the children separate the set into
collies and dogs-not-collies? The object is to make two classes of dogs, no more.
The young child may make collections of as many classes as there are kinds of
dogs, but this is not the task. In fact, teachers who are new to teaching
classification skills often characterize such behavior as "creative"; they remark
proudly on the number of classes the child can make. Actually, such behavior is
more characteristic of the younger child; it is not at all difficult to match dog for
dog on a perceptual basis. A much more creative task is demanded of the child in
dealing with complementary classes.
The actual materials used in our Piagetian program were an assortment of
miniature vehicles, consisting of trucks, airplanes, and a car, to make up the class
of trucks and the complementary class to things not-trucks. Since the vehicles
were in three colors, it was possible also to form a class of red objects and a
complementary class of objects-not-red or, more simply, other objects. As
Inhelder and Piaget (1964) have explained, the relationship here is important in
helping children to understand what is included in a class: when we talk about
collies or airplanes, there is understood a complementary class of dogs-not-collies
or vehicles-not-planes, and both the specified class and its complement make up
the total class. Often adults disregard the complementary class in discussing a
specified class and, as a result, make illogical remarks.
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 133

Taking the whole class apart to find subclasses and to make comparisons of
"all" and "some." The reader must bear in mind that one of the characteristics
of the preoperational child is that of making judgments on the basis of percep-
tion. Shown 20 wooden beads of which 18 are yellow and 2 are red, and asked if
there are more wooden beads or more yellow ones, the child may be over-
whelmed by the visual display of so many yellow beads. Because he is not yet
making transformations upon data. because he cannot reverse a process, he fails
to go back in his mind to the whole class of wooden beads and to compare the
whole class with subclass, or all with some. His answer, therefore, is that there
are more yellow beads because there are only two red beads.
How can we induce development of the classification structures essential to
solving such tasks? The way suggested iil this program is to have children carry
out many activities in which they combine subclasses to make a class and break a
class down into its subclasses. They can combine yellow roses and red roses to
make bunches of roses and combine roses and daisies to make bunches of
flowers. They answer questions about the classes that they make: Are all of the
roses yellow? Are all of the yellow flowers roses? Are there more daisies or more
white daisies? Are there more roses or more flowers? Suppose all the flowers
died, would there be any roses left? Such questions force the child to think
about groupings that he is composing, to make comparisons between classes, and
to break classes down into subgroups. As the child forms various subclasses and
classes, the teacher asks him to explain what he is doing and to justify his
actions, with the teacher supplying language models when they are needed.
Abstracting the common property of a class and extending the class to
include all objects possessing that property. The set of activities that develop the
skills of "intension" (abstracting the common property) and extension involves
hindsight and foresight, memory and prediction. Given a collection of miniature
objects-tools, eating utensils, animals-and three boxes in which to place objects
alike in some way, and required furthermore to use all the objects, the child
must both abstract the common property and then, remembering that property,
discover it in each object that he puts into a particular class. He must be able to
look back at what he started with and look ahead at the same time.
Such behavior is very different from that of the younger child (3-4 years
old). As Inhelder and Piaget (1964) pOinted out, children at an earlier stage do
not arrange elements in collections and sub collections on the basis of similarity
alone. They are unable to overlook the spatial configuration of the objects, and
what they do is unite them in "graphic" collections.
Making such graphic collections may take the form of laying objects in line,
or making a geometrical figure or pattern out of them, or making a pretend
picture out of them. Thus, given a set of circles, squares, and triangles, the child
may place a triangle on top of a square to make a house with a roof top, because
"they go together to make a house," instead of abstracting the common
property of squareness or triangUlarity or roundness out of the figures.
At the next stage in classification, the child is capable of spontaneous
134 Celia Stendler Lavatelli

anticipation, even if it is imperfect. He may be unable to foresee the details of a

classification, but he is no longer operating on the basis of perception. One
object may strike his fancy in a particular way, and he will choose the next
object to go with it on the basis of a common property, although he will not be
able to maintain the system for all objects. Gradually, as children have more and
more experience in classifying objects, the operations of hindsight and foresight
appear.
In addition to the special activities conducted in the structured periods,
there are many opportunities during the preschool day for the teacher to
stimulate actions upon classes as well as relations between· classes. In the
housekeeping corner,the teacher may begin by naming the common property:
"Put all the things-to-eat-with, or eating utensils, on this shelf." Later, however,
the teacher may say, "Let's put all the play clothes in separate boxes. Here are
three boxes. Put the clothes that are like each other, that go together in some
way, in each box." Note that there may be several schemes for classifying the
clothes-by color, by category, by material-provided the child adheres to the
rule of classifying all the clothes. In fact, the teacher may call attention to the
various classification schemes developed by different children and encourage
flexibility in changing from one criterion to another.
Finding an object to fit the intersection of two classes. Finding an object to
fit the intersection of two classes is a skill that depends upon a skill developed
earlier in the classification sequence, namely, abstracting the common property
in a group of objects. The task used in Geneva involves pictures of a red leaf, a
brown leaf, a green leaf, a purple leaf, and a yellow leaf, all lined up in a
horizontal row. In the vertical row are pictures of a green hat, a green jacket, a
green dress, a green' book, and a green umbrella. The child is asked to choose
from a group of pictures the one to put in a blank space where horizontal and
vertical rows meet, a picture that will "go" with both sets of objects. The groups
of pictures from which the child must choose includes pictures of all the objects
listed above. To solve the puzzle, the child must abstract the common property
from the objects in both the vertical and the horizontal rows, keep each
property in mind, and fmd the picture of an object that contains both properties
simultaneously. Since the common property of the vertical row is green-ness, he
must search for a green leaf to put in the intersection of the two classes. The
activity demands abstracting ability, memory, and the concept of simultaneous
membership in two or more classes. Earlier training experiences in this program
have attempted to build these. Here there is the opportunity to apply all three
mental processes to the problem of fmding an object to satisfy several conditions
simultaneously.
The next activity is also designed for training in fmding an object to fit the
intersections of two classes. The equipment needed for each child consists of
two nylon rope rings and colored geometric shapes. The first step in the activity
requires that each child arrange the rings so that a green square is in neither ring,
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 135

and then inside one ring, and fmally inside both rings. The first two directions
are carried out without difficulty; even the third, inside both rings, is carried out
with considerable success. Children quickly catch on to the fact that they can
put the figure inside both rings by putting one ring on top of the other. Then the
teacher asks, "Can you fmd another way to put the figure inside both rings?"
Gradually, children come to see that they can slide one of the rings to one side,
more and more, until there is barely room enough in the intersection for the
figure. Then more figures are introduced until, fmally, there are several miscel-
laneous red figures in one circle and several squares of various colors in the
other, and the problem is to determine which of the remaining shapes will fit in
the intersection. The activity can be carried out with a variety of materials,
including those used in other activities in the program. An outcome of the
activity is the child's awareness that whatever he puts in the intersection must
satisfy the conditions of both sets of objects and his awareness that the object in
the intersection belongs to both sets, regardless of how small the intersection is.
Making all possible combinations of elements. The two final sets in the
classification series involve combinatorial and permutation problems: "Given a
certain number of elements, how many combinations can you make?" The high
school student meets such problems in algebra when he is asked to fmd all
possible arrangements of three elements, abc. He can make abc, acb, bac, bca,
cab, and cba, for a total of six different combinations. If he has an unlimited
supply of each element-that is, a quantity of as, bs, and cs-and is asked to
make combinations of two elements, he can, of course, make nine. It comes as a
surprise to many high school students that the number of arrangements is
limited and that it is possible to predict in advance what the number of
arrangements will be. Arranging and rearranging elements abstractly are mental
transformations that are possible because of the concrete operations the child
has carried on at an earlier stage. A little girl who has two different skirts and
two different sweaters may discover that she can make a total of four outfits,
while a little boy who has one engine and three different kinds of freight cars,
with several of each kind, may discover that he can make nine different
arrangements of trains of two cars each.
Note that the child may make such discoveries in the course of daily living,
but as we pointed out earlier, children vary considerably in their level of logical
development. What the child gets out of a particular experience depends in part
upon what he brings to it. However, it also depends upon the teacher's role of
problem maker, upon the teacher's ability to raise pertinent questions that will
lead to fresh insights on the child's part.
The complete preschool program (Lavatelli, 1970) includes activities in
number and ordering, as well as in classification. The activities are based upon
the number and ordering structures as described by Piaget and Inhelder (piaget,
1952; Inhelder & Piaget, 1964). All of the activities in the program, in all three
domains, have basically the same ultimate goal: to facilitate development of
136 Celia Stendler Lavatelli

those properties of logical thought that correspond to the properties of the

mathematical group.
The teaching method, a modification of the clinical method, is also the same
for each activity. For a short period each day, each child works with his own set
of concrete materials in a small group. After exploratory play, the teacher
suggests a transformation of the materials and poses a problem about the
before-and-after that the child is to solve with the materials. The teacher asks of
an individual child. "Tell me what you're doing," or after response to a question
of fact, "Why do you think so?" The teacher sometimes proffers a counter-
suggestion, "The other day a boy told me ... ," and describes either a correct or
an incorrect solution. At this point, a child in the transition stage may give up
his correct, albeit tentative, solution when an incorrect response is suggested, or
he may assimilate enough from the mythical child's reasoning to withstand the
countersuggestion. The help the teacher offers is to call attention through
questions to certain elements the child may not have noticed or to suggest a
gradual transformation of the stimulus display. For example, to help the child
deal with conservation of number, the teacher may suggest a very gradual
bunching together of one set of elements, so that the child can build a mental
representation of the process. The teacher does not tell the children they are
"wrong" or give them the "right" solution. As Piaget (1970) has suggested,
"each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered
for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from under-
standing it completely" (p. 715). In fact, the teacher should not regard develop-
mentally immature responses such as the graphic collections of the 3-year-old as
wrong any more than crawling or painting with one color is wrong.
Specific te-aching techniques suggested within the program are derived from
research on the factors contributing to the transition from preoperational to
concrete operational thought. Techniques include addition-subtraction (Wohl-
will & Lowe, 1962), perceptual conflict (Smith, 1968), reversibility procedures
(Wallach, Wall, & Anderson, 1967), and verbal-rule instruction (Beilin, 1965). In
general, the maxim of the Geneva school is observed: training is effective only
within the limits imposed by the equilibration model.
Research has made it abundantly clear that short-term restricted types of
training are ultimately ineffective in inducing logical thought structures. These
structures are pervasive and powerful; they take time to develop and require the
background of a broad spectrum of experiences before they can be generalized
and applied universally. In addition to short instructional periods that serve the
purpose of bringing into focus certain elements of structure, the teacher must be
on the alert during periods of self-directed play for opportunities to strengthen
training begun during the instructional period. Only in this way will transfer of
training be facilitated.
The question arises: If logical operations appear anyway, why not sit back
and wait for time to make the child logical? Piaget is very clear on this point; the
child does not become logical by virtue of maturation alone. Intelligence grows
Environment, Experience, and Equilibration 137

through successive assimilations and accommodations; a training program can

provide opportunities for these to occur. As Piaget (1970, p. 715) suggested, the
teacher can devise experimental situations to facilitate the pupil's invention of
knowledge. Also individuals and even ethnic groups, as we have seen, may vary
in cognitive strengths and weaknesses; there are some who are strong in domains
such as classification and weak in spatial concepts, and vice versa. A training
program can provide the foundations that help to prevent development of spatial
idiots, or any other kind.
The question also arises: Why carry on training in groups? Why not have the
teacher intervene when the opportunity occurs and on an individual basis? The
group training is less haphazard and also provides a social situation that facili-
tates development. Children look at one another's work and listen to one
another's responses. As we have pointed out, no child is convinced by what
another says or does; each must convince himself. But as Piaget (1970) has
stated, "One of the fundamental processes of cognition is that of decentration
relative to subjective illusion, and this process has dimensions that are social or
interpersonal as well as rational" (p. 729). In a group setting organized along
nonauthoritarian lines, the child comes to realize that there are points of view
other than his own. His egocentricism is challenged and he moves toward an
equilibrium between assimilation and accommodation.
Environment and experience influence cognitive growth, but equilibration is
the key to the process. The teacher plays a critical role. Piaget has pointed out
that listening to children's responses to the Genevan tasks helps the teacher
become more aware of thinking processes. With increasing sophistication in the
area of structure, the teacher will be better prepared to ask the adroit question
or suggest a new line of inquiry to individual children during their periods of
self-chosen, self-directed activity. No daily 10-minute period of mental gymnas-
tics is going to work miracles in building mental structures, but the teacher must
be aware of the structures. Only then can the teacher set up a learning
environment conducive to autoregulation that will facilitate equilibration.

References

Almy, M. The usefulness of Piagetian methods for early primary education in Uganda: An
exploratory study. In Child growth and development projects. Makerere University
College National Institute of Education (mimeo), 1967.
Beilin, H. Learning and operational convergence in logical thought development. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 1965,2, 317-339.
Bereiter, C., & Engelmann, S. Teaching the di8lldvantaged child in the preschool. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
Chomsky, N. Language and the mind. Psychology Today, February 1968,1,48-51; 66-68.
Cowley, J. J., & Murray, M. Some aspects of the development of spatial concepts in Zulu
children. Journal for Social Research, 1962,]3, 1-18.
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DeLemos, M. M. Conceptual development in aboriginal children: Implications for aboriginal

education. Research Seminar on Education for Aborigines, Center for Research into
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Goodnow, J., & Bethon, G. Piaget's tasks: The effects of schooling and inte1ligence. Child
Development, 1966,37, 574-582.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. [Early growth of logic in the child] (E. A. Lunzer & D. Papert,
trans.). New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Kofsky, E. A scalog:am study of classification development. Child Development, 1966,37,
191-204.
Lavatelli, C. S. Early childhood curriculum. American Science and Engineering. Newton,
Mass., 1970.
Lavatelli, C., Hotvedt, & Lee, E. The acquisition of conservation in a natural setting. A
study of Houk-Lo children in Hong Kong. (In process).
Levi-Strauss, C. Structural anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
Levi-Strauss, C. The savage mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Maccoby, M., & Modiano, N. On culture and equivalence: I. In J. S. Bruner, R. R. Olver, P.
M. Greenfield, (Eds.), Studies in cognitive growth. New York: Wiley, 1970.
McCarthy, D. Language development in children. In L. Carmichael (Ed.), Manual of child
psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley, 1954.
Mermelstein, E., & Shulman, L. S. Lack of formal schooling and the acquisition of
conservation. Child Development, 1967,38,39-52.
Piaget, J. [The child's conception of number] (C. Cattegno & F. M. Hodgson, trans.).
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952. (Originally published, 1941.)
Piaget, J. Piaget's theory. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Carmichael's manual of child psychology.
New York: Wiley, 1970.
Piaget, J. [Structuralism] (C. Mafchlere, trans.). New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Price-Williams, D. R. A study concerning concepts of conservation of quantities among
primitive children. Acta Psychologica, 1961,18, 297-305.
Prince, J. R. Science concepts in New Guinean and European children. Australian Journal of
Education, 1968,12, 81-87.
Siegel, I. E., & Mermelstein, E. Effects of nonschooling on Piagetian tasks of conservation.
Paper presented at American Psychological Association meeting, September 1965.
Silberman, C. E. Crisis in the classroom. New York: Random, 1970.
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Urbana: University of Illinois, 1971.
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 CHAPTER 10

Application of Piagetian Theory

to Remediation of Reasoning
Beth Stephens

University of Texas, Richardson, Texas

A decade or more has elapsed since Piaget was "rediscovered," and during the
intervening years there have been continued and varied attempts to incorporate
his theory into classroom practices. Although Piaget has been a prolific author,
he has not supplied a guide book on "How to Practice Piaget" and probably will
not! Yet guidelines do evolve as one reviews his theoretical writings. Throughout
his work there is a recurring theme: intellectual development proceeds as the
child interacts with his environment-with the objects and people around him.
He states that "a child knows an object only to the extent to which he has acted
upon it." When urged to cite the educational approach that was most compatible
with his theory, he stated that perhaps it was Dewey's learning by doing-an
active student situation.
Another recurring theme is that understanding and/or successful reasoning
occurs only if the child's mental structures are sufficiently advanced to meet the
demands of the situation. A child, as Piaget has noted, may be impervious to a
particular learning opportunity if it requires thought structures that he has not
yet achieved.
Thus, there are three guidelines that can be deduced. First, provide a child
with learning opportunities that are commensurate with his level of cognitive
development. Commensurate activities may be defined as activities that are far
enough in advance of a person's present level of functioning to be motivating but
not so much in advance that they will be frustrating. Because tempos of
development vary from person to person, individual appraisal of a person's
current level of functioning is necessary to determine the individually appro-
priate level for reasoning activities. Second, after a student is provided cogni-
139
140 Beth Stephens

tively appropriate activities, he then must do the interacting-you can't do it for

him. Such an approach serves to challenge the traditional "passive pupil-active
teacher" roles and suggests instead an action-oriented student who explores and
manipulates, hypothesizes and experiments, as the teacher provides necessary
structure. In addition, the teacher provides questions that challenge reason and
thought, questions that motivate a person to explore and to thrust a bit further.
Emphasis is on the process of learning rather than on the product of learning.
Third, for a teacher to assume the role just described he or she must be trained
in Piaget's theory of cognitive development; that is, the teacher must know how
development proceeds and what characterizes a child's past, present, and suc-
ceeding levelS of functiOning. The teacher also must have knowledge of the
reasoning assessments used by the Geneva group and be skilled in providing
opportunities for the pupil to apply reasoning to ongoing problem situations.
Some teachers have difficulty in the implementation of Piagetian theory because
they don't clearly understand what constitutes reasoning as defmed by the
Geneva school.
Teachers of school-aged children will gain insight concerning these thought
processes if they review the assessments for analyzing concrete and formal
thought that were devised or adapted by the Geneva group. As a review is made
of the numerous concrete-level measures, one realizes that several basic abilities
are represented.
One concrete-level measure is conservation of substance, an assessment in
which the child agrees that two identical balls of clay contain the same amount
of clay and also agrees that there continues to be the same amount even when
one ball is successively transformed into a "hot dog," a "pancake," or into a
dozen small pieces. This involves understanding of the invariance of quantity,
the realization that quantity is constant although the shape of an object may
undergo changes. The task actually requires reversibility of thought processes. In
order to realize that the ball and the hot dog contain the same amount of clay
although the hog dog looks longer, the child must reverse his thought processes
and think back in time to remember that before the clay was rolled into a hot
dog it was a ball the same size as the other ball. The child must also realize that
nothing was added and nothing was taken away, therefore (his thought moves
from the past back into the present) they must still be the same. The numerous
Piagetian conservation experiments all tap this reversibility of thought processes
(Inhelder, 1968).
Assessments involving logical classification represent another area. Some
experiments deal with elementary lOgic-classification. One example is class
inclusion-animals (Piaget & Inhelder, 1964). The task requirements are to sort a
set of 17 pictures into three related piles (ducks, birds, and animals). After the
initial classification, the subject is questioned on class inclusion and possible
class extensions (e.g., "Can you group the ducks with the birds and keep the
Application of Piagetian TheolY 141

label "birds" for that group?"). Another example is class inclusion-beads

(Piaget & Inhelder, 1964). A box containing 10 wooden beads, 8 of which are
red and 2 of which are yellow, is displayed, and the subject is required to judge
whether there are more wooden beads or red beads in the box. Additional
questions are derived from modifications of the basic experimental arrangement.
A third example is that of intersection of classes (Piaget & Inhelder, 1959). Two
rows of pictures are presented. One, a horizontal row, contains five pictures of
the same object with each picture a different color; the other, a vertical row,
contains five pictures of the same color but of different objects. Instructions are
to pick a single picture from an assorted array and to place it at the intersection
of the two rows, a picture that relates appropriately to both rows. The tasks
previously described require flexibility of thought, the ability to group and
regroup objects, to categorize and sub-categorize, and to classify and reclassify.
Memory and mental imagery are involved in two assessments that measure
the ability to rotate a mental image of an object prior to its actual rotation.
Assessments that involve this operativity and symbolic imagery include rotation
of squares and rotation of beads. In the rotation of squares (Piaget & Inhelder,
1963), the subject is required to draw the anticipated rotations of two cardboard
squares, one red and· one blue, that are mounted on a board. In a second
procedure, the subject is asked to select the one drawing that represents the way
the red square will appear at a specific position as it is rotated clockwise. In the
rotation of beads (Piaget, 1952), three differently colored beads mounted on a
stiff wire are exhibited. Then the beads are placed in a tube and the tube is
rotated. The task is to judge which of the three beads will emerge first from the
tube.
An assessment that involves mental imagery and spatial orientation requires a
person to consider how objects will appear from another person's perspective, a
viewpoint or perspective different from the one he currently is experiencing.
One example is changing perspectives-mobile and stationary (Piaget & Inhelder,
1964). A cardboard tower, house, and tree are placed in specified positions on a
table. After moving to consecutive positions around the table, the subject is
required to fmd a drawing that represents the complex when viewed from these
perspectives. In a second task, the subject, while seated, is asked to indicate
where a doll will have to stand in order to see the perspective corresponding to
the drawing shown him.
Formal or abstract thought involves the ability to reason abstractly and/or to
hypothesize ways in which an answer may be obtained. It also involves the
ability to carry out actions that will check these hypotheses. Formal thought is
reqUired in the following assessment, which involves combinatory logiC. In a task
involving combination ofliquids (piaget & Inhelder, 1964), five identical bottles,
each filled with a colorless liquid, are placed on a table. Three bottles contain
chemicals that, when mixed together, produce a brown-red color. The fourth
142 Beth Stephens

bottle contains a neutralizer; the fifth, water. The task is to determine which of
the three liquids should be combined to obtain the brown-red color. As a person
is presented these tasks, his answers-and more importantly, the reasons for
these answers-are solicited. These replies reveal his thought processes, his level
of reasoning.
An implementation strategy or system has been devised at Temple University
(Stephens & Simpkins, 1975») that incorporates the three guidelines stated at
the outset: activities appropriate for an individual's level of development, an
action-oriented environment that emphasizes the ongoing interactive process of
learning, and a teacher trained in Piagetian theory and assessment.
The system is being used currently in two remediation projects. One remedi-
ation project seeks to promote reasoning in congenitally blind pupils. Findings
from a previous project have indicated that when compared with sighted subjects
of eqUivalent IQs, the congenitally blind experienced delays of from 4 to 8 years
in the development of reasoning. The other remediation project seeks to pro-
mote reasoning in mentally retarded, socially maladjusted pupils. It may be
presumptuous to state that our aims are "to promote reasoning." Therefore, a
correct phrasing would be that the goals of both of the projects are to promote
purposeful interaction with objects and people, and because of Piaget's theoreti-
cal work, it is posited that, in tum, this interaction will promote the develop-
ment of reasoning.
The system is both a teacher-training system and a pupil-remediation system.
A step-by-step analysis of this approach would include: teacher training in
theory, in assessment of reasoning, and in devising reasoning activities; individual
assessment of the reasoning of the experimental and control pupils included in
the study; review and profiling of individual pupils' reasoning skills; development
or adaptation of individually appropriate activities; conduct of tutorial training
periods during which the pupil is provided with reasoning activities; and at the
end of a IS-monL~ or 2-year remediation period, readministration of the reason-
ing assessments. Comparison is made between pre- and postscores (experimental,
control, and experimental versus control) to determine if significant develop-
ment has occurred.
It should be noted that in one project, the tutorial training is planned for a
IS-month period, in the other for a 2-year period. If training had been designed
to elicit a correct response to a particular situation in a particular area, gains
would have been expected in a relatively short time. However, when effort
centers, and appropriately so, on extending the structures of operational thought
and on facilitating the development of reasoning, a longer period is required.
In a previous study (Stephens & Simpkins, 1974), scores were obtained from
26 Piagetian measures of reasoning and on chronolOgical age (CA) and mental age
(MA) and from sub tests of the Wechsler verbal scale (WISC) and the Wide Range
Achievement Test (WRAT). It was our desire to see what basic abilities were
Application of Piagetian Tbeory 143

represented. To defme the basic abilities, the Kaiser Varimax orthogonal solu-
tion was employed, and 10 interpretable factors were extracted from scores for
the blind (Stephens & Simpkins, 1974, pp. 50-51):

Factor 1, which represented Piagetian reversibility of thought at the concrete

and formal level, was defmed by major loadings from seven conservation
assessments.
Factor 2 had negative loadings from WISe information, WISe arithmetic,
and WRAT arithmetic and positive loadings from eA, MA, and a Piagetian
task of hierarchical classification.
Factor 3, which was defmed by WRAT reading and WRAT spelling subscores
appeared to represent ability in language arts.
Factor 4 was suggestive of combinatory logic; it had major loadings from
WISe similarities and chemistry.
Factor 5 had major loadings from seven Piagetian assessments that measured
basic or initial ability in concrete reasoning; these tasks involved numerical
correspondence, hierarchical classification, sub categorization, memory, and
mental imagery.
Factor 6, also a Piagetian factor, represented the ability to dissociate notions
of weight and volume and engage in formal or abstract thought.
Factor 7 was defined by Piagetian measures of spatial relationships, hierar-
chical classification, and WISe measured comprehension; the structure
served to suggest analytical reasoning ability.
Factor 8 had major loadings from Piagetian measures assessing thought that
was transitory between the concrete and formal levels.
Factor 9, with loadings from a WISe measure that assessed the recall of
digits and a Piagetian measure of mental imagery that involved changing
perspectives, was suggestive of skill in grouping objects and numbers in
situations involving short-term memory.
Factor 10 served to indicate verbal facility because of its two loadings from
Wechsler measures of verbal ability, Wechsler vocabulary, and Wechsler
verbal IQ.

Of the 10 factors described above, 4 were defined solely by Piagetian

measurements, 2 exclusively by Wechsler verbal and WRAT scores, and 4 by
combinations of the Wechsler verbal and Piagetian reasoning measures.
A factor analysis of scores for sighted subjects on Piagetian reasoning
measures, eA, MA, and scores on the Wechsler scales and the WRAT was also
carried out. Eight interpretable factors were derived from the analysis (Stephens
& Simpkins, 1974, p. 52):

Factor 1, a Piagetian conservation factor, was defmed by loadings from 11

conservation variables, a classificatory variable, and a mental imagery vari-
144 Beth Stephens

able and by eA. Flexibility and reversibility of operational thought processes

were the basic abilities represented by the factor.
Factor 2 was primarily a WRAT factor; the three WRAT subscores combined
with Wechsler arithmetic to suggest an academic performance factor.
Factor 3, a Wechsler factor, had three major loadings: Wechsler comprehen-
sion, IQ, and MA.
Factor 4, a factor representative of classificatory and combinatorial logic,
had loadings from a Piagetian variable involving hierarchical classification
and one involving combinatorial logic at the formal (abstract) level. The
major loading for Wechsler similarities also occurred on this factor.
Factor 5 was defined by loadings from variables representative of thought
that was in transition from the concrete to the formal level. A task that
involved simultaneous classification of two criteria also contributed to the
strength of the factor.
Factor 6, a verbal factor, contained loadings from WISe information and
WISe vocabulary.
Factor 7 had major contributions from WISe digit span and a Piagetian
measure that assessed the ability to anticipate changes in perspective when
objects were viewed from different angles.
Factor 8 was characterized by mobility in reformulating mental images that
involved spatial relations. Three Piagetian measures of spatial relations and a
Piagetian measure of formal thought combined to define the factor.
As an effort was made to promote logical thought in the congenitally blind
subjects, a chart or profJIe was made of a subject's performance on the 10
factors derived from the analysis of scores for the blind. Activities were designed
to promote acquisition of these basic abilities. The same procedure was used to
devise intervention programs for the mentally retarded, socially maladjusted
subjects. In this instance, factors derived from the analysis of sighted subjects'
scores were used.
Because a developmental approach implies sequentially designed activities,
factor-based modules were devised. A module was defmed as a series of sequen-
tially related activities that have a common theme and a common goal and are
based on a common factor or basic ability. The key to each module was
interaction with objects and people. Overviews of specific modules follow.
The objective of the first module, systems and variables, was to promote the
discovery of variables that effect the interaction of a system. The factor labeled
combinatory logic represents the ability to combine variables systematically as
search is made for the particular combination required to produce a desired
effect. In one activity, the system, a "whirly-bird," devised by Karplus (1971),
consists of a propeller-type device. The propeller contains a series of holes in
which rivets can be inserted. A rubber band that is hooked to the base of the
propeller stand can be wound around the post that attaches the propeller to the
Application of Piagetian Theory 145

stand. As the rubber band unwinds, the propeller is set in motion. To adapt the
"whirly-bird" for use with blind pupils, a straw was attached to the post and a
nail to the base. Each rotation of the propeller resulted in a sound as the straw
brushed past the nail. In the initial phase, the pupil manipulated the system, that
is, wound the rubber band and counted the number of turns the propeller made.
In subsequent phases, he inserted rivets in the propeller arm and recorded the
number of turns made by the propeller as different combinations and locations
of rivets were employed. Through interaction with the object, he discovered
whether the number of rivets, the position of the rivets, and the number of
twists given the rubber band contributed to the number of times the propeller
rotated. Each of the contributing variables were altered systematically and the
resulting rotations of the propeller recorded. Histograms were made from these
data. In each activity, the pupil learned by doing: he set up the experiment,
altered the variables, recorded the data, and constructed the histograms (Wexler,
in press).
Another activity within the same module, although geared to a higher
interest level, also involved mental manipulation of variables. The Herefordshire
Farm Game, devised by Tidswell (Taylor & Walford, 1972), provided a frame-
work in which a child could actively explore patterns of land use and choice of
crop. The pupil was provided the following information:
Mr. Brown is a farmer at Canon Pyon and is going abroad for five years.
Imagine that you have been appointed to manage the farm while he is away.
He has instructed you to make as much profit for him as possible and you
must therefore plan carefully. He also does not wish to change the fruit and
hop fields while he is away. Study the plan of the farm together with the
details of fields and !:rops.
1. The farm is 235 acres in size and is divided into 12 fields.
2. Details on the fields are included in the text.
3. Each year you may grow anyone of the listed six crops in a field
labeled "Free Choice," provided that you do not grow the same crop
in the same field in two successive years. The crops are: barley, wheat,
oats, peas, beans, sugar beets.
Crop choice: Assume the fertility of each field is the same, since Mr.
Brown is a good farmer and has fed his soils correctly for a long time. The
crop yield therefore will depend on the weather for the year, which is called
climate. You may expect anyone of four kinds of weather:
1. Wet warm
2. Drywarm
3. Wet cool
4. Dry cool
You do not know how often or when each type of weather occurs.
The income per acre from each crop depends upon the weather and can be
obtained from the text.
Example: If you choose to grow peas in Field 7 and the season is a wet
warm one, then your income is
8 (income per acre) X 20 (number of acres) = 160
146 Beth Stephens

Procedure for the game:

1. Choose the crops for your fields and enter them on the worksheet.
2. Check that you have not broken the rules about the crops for each
field for each year.
3. Use a die or table or random numbers and determine the weather for
each year.
4. Enter the income correctly for each field and add up the total. Enter
this total opposite Year 1 in the table on the worksheet.
S. Repeat for five years and find the total income for the whole period.

The child may vary the climatic conditions in order to ascertain the effects
of climate on crops. In addition, the teacher may ask a variety of questions, such
as:

Why can't you change the hop and fruit field during the five years?
Why is there no income from the woodland?
Why aren't you allowed to grow the same crop in every field?
What else other than weather could affect the yield of your crops?
When did you make your most profit? Why?
When did you make your least profit? Why?
If you knew which kind of weather to expect, how much profit could you
make in one year?
What other factors could influence your decision about which crops to grow
each year?

This theme could grow into a class project involving a class garden. With
today's world food problem, this game could lead the student into a wider study
of the variables involved in food production and possible solutions to this greater
problem (Simpkins, 1976).
A second module, reproductory imagery, has been developed to promote
mental imagery in the blind. Mental imagery is accepted as a key component of
the intellectual process, a component that, according to Piaget, develops over a
period of time. The blind obviously are limited in the development of mental
images. However, research (Stephens & Simpkins, 1974) has indicated a limited
presence of the process. Learning activities have been devised in an attempt to
promote mental imagery in the blind. The present module, which consists of five
sequential activities, deals with reproductory imagery. The pretest assessed the
ability to reproduce bead patterns. Following the successful completion of this
task the pupil was presented a cardboard on which four objects were placed.
Through tactual exploration the pupil located the objects. The teacher then
moved one or more objects and requested that the child determine which object
was moved and to return it to its original position (Walton, 1974).
Three subsequent activities were adapted from "Mapping: Making Maps and
Mapping Games" (ESS, 1971). In one, which involved verbal reproduction, the
pupil constructed a design from blocks of different shapes. He then described
Application of Piagetian Theory 147

the design to his partner and in turn the partner reproduced it from the verbal
cues. Designs involving either two or three dimensions could be used.
The next activity was a game of tic-tac-toe. In it, the pupil told his partner
where to put the mark, and the partner told the pupil where he should put his
mark.
Geoboards were used in an activity that required that yarn or rubber bands
be used on the boards to indicate paths. After the pupil constructed a path, he
explained it to his partner, who then had to reproduce it.
In sighted persons, mental imagery generally is well established prior to the
attainment of concrete operations. Initial use of the above module resulted in
gains in the imagery skills of the blind pupils. It was hypothesized that this
would contribute to a strengthening of the operational abilities basic to concrete
operations (pote, 1976).
A third module, cooking, was designed for socially maladjusted, educable,
mentally retarded pupils. These activities maintained motivation and high inter-
est levels, yet avoided being frustratingly difficult. The kitchen provides a
perfect laboratory for developing concepts of substance, weight, and volume,
plus classificatory skills and understanding of cause and effect. Cooking is an
activity that permits questioning and inquiry. However, the teacher did not
cook; she questioned. Since the original goal was an inquiring mind, not cooked
food, the initial dish was hot chocolate or a simple pudding. Questioning and
planning differed from that used in a conventional class as it centered on the
classification of procedures in terms of time sequence and responsibilities and
the discussion of measurement via use of seriated measuring cups and spoons.
Conservation principles led to discussions of concepts of weight versus volume.
Questions were asked, such as: "Does a cup of sugar weigh more than a cup of
flour?" "What happens to flour when it is sifted, to butter when you melt it, to
egg whites when they are beaten?" "How can you tell when something is boiling,
why must it boil?" It was the questions and the seeking of answers that
were emphasized throughout the cooking activities. As understanding and
skill increased simple one- or two-step recipes were replaced by recipies that
entailed a multifaceted series of operations. These provided opportunities for
classificatory experiences, for in-depth analyses of cause and effect, and for the
manipulation of variables (Sower, 1974). Learning proceeded as the pupil
interacted with the ingredients.
Throughout the modules, emphasis was on learning that occured through the
pupil's own questioning, manipulating, inventing, and solving. The intrinsic
curiosity that motivates knowing (Wolff, 1975) was encouraged rather than rote
answers, which are provoked through repetitious reinforcers. "To acquire con-
cepts such as seriation, classification and conservation takes time, repetition and
practice. Once discovered by change in one context, a new idea must be
explored in other contexts, observed from different perspectives and integrated
148 Beth Stephens

with other schemes of thought, before it is consolidated as a stable tool of

thinking" (Wolff, 1975, p. 5).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a grant with Bureau
for Education of the Handicapped, Office of Education, U.S. Department of
Health, Education and Welfare. Contractors undertaking such projects under
government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their prof~ssional
judgment in the conduct of the project.

References

Inhelder, B., The diagnosis of reasoning in the mentally retarded. New York: John Day,
1968.
Karplus, R. Subsystems and variables: The science curriculum improvement study. Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1971.
Mapping: Making maps and mapping games. Educational Development Center Elementary
Science Study. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
Piaget, J. The child's conception of number. New York: Humanities, 1952.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. La genese des structures logiques elementaires: Classification et
seriation. Neuchatel: Delachaux et Niestle, 1959.
Piaget, J., and Inhelder, B. Les images mentales. Traite de Psychologie, 1963,1,65-100.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. Cognitive assessments. Personal communication, University of
Geneva, 1964.
Pote, J. Module. Reproductory mental imagery. (Cognitive Remediation Research Project:
Student Activity Manual). Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Dallas, 1976.
Simpkins, K. Module: Formal logic. (Cognitive Remediation Research Proiect: Student
Activity Manual). Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Dallas, 1976.
Sower, R. Module: Cooking activities. (Analysis and Training of Reasoning Research
Project: Student Activity Guide). Unpublished manuscript, Philadelphia Child Guidance
Center, 1974.
Stephens, W. B., & Simpkins, K. The reasoning, moral judgment, and moral conduct of the
congenitally blind (Final Report, Project No. OEG..Q-72-5464). Philadelphia: Temple
University, 1974.
Stephens, W. B., & Simpkins, K. Cognitive remediation in persons congenitally blind (project
No. OEG..Q-74-7445). Philadelphia: Temple University, 1975.
Taylor, J. L., & Walford, R. Simulation in the classroom. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972.
Walton, J. Logical-mathematical thinking and the pre-school classroom. College Park, Md.:
Head Start Regional Resource and Training Center, 4321 Hartwick Road, 1974.
Wexler, M. Module: Combinatory logic. (Cognitive Remediation Research Project, Student
Activity Manual). Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Dallas, 1975.
Wolff, P. H. What Piaget did not intend. Proceedings of the Fourth Interdisciplinary Seminar
on Piagetian Theory and Implications for the Helping Professions. Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of Southern California, 1975.
 PART Ill:

APPLICATION
 CHAPTER 11

Some Implications
of Jean Piaget's Theory
for the Education of Young Children
Lois P. Macomber
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In his studies of the developing intellect throughout the evolution of his model,
Piaget has clung to certain principles, many of which reflect his biological
interests. His faith in these principles has been substantiated by his own research
and that of his Genevan colleagues, most notably that of Barbel Inhelder. The
many replications of his work in this country and Canada have also provided
substantial support for his position. It is these principles that will be presented,
since they are essential to those working with the development of intellectual
skills. However, just as the total model cannot be presented within the limits of
this paper, neither can all of the principles. Thus, applying the criterion of value
to educators of young children, I have selected the following:
1. All development is hierarchical, that is, we must all go through the same
stages in the same sequence, moving from the simple to the complex.
2. Early learning is slower than later learning, although the rate at which we
progress through a given stage is a function of an interaction between our
environment and our genetic endowment. By genetic endowment. Piaget
means a healthy organism and not of specific genetic programming, as is
the mode today.
3. Development is divided into four general stages or phases, with a gradual
transition from one to another. Each of the four stages is characterized
by modes of learning and thinking unique to that stage.
4. Because of the hierarchical nature of Piaget's theory, thought and intelli-

151
152 Lois P. Macomber

gence are rooted in the actions of the sensorimotor period, the first of
the four stages of cognitive development. Thus, for Piaget, thought and
intelligence are internalized actions.
5. Throughout all of the stages, two "cognitive functions" are present that
are invariant. These are organization and adaptation. The former is
involved in the categorization of sensory data. The latter is comprised of
assimilation, the taking in of new information, and accommodation, the
adjusting of the existing knowledge to the new information.
6. The result of the above invariant or unchanging functions is what Piaget
refers to as "cognitive structures." The cognitive structures are formed
actively by each individual and contain all of the information that he has
assimilated and accommodated or is in the process of adapting.
7. The cognitive structures result in behaviors from which the content of
the structures can be inferred. Therefore, Piaget refers to such responses
as "cognitive content." Since the cognitive structures vary in content
from individual to individual according to personal experiences and level
of maturation, the behaviors or cognitive content vary accordingly.
8. As a result of the above, Piaget concludes that innate factors, environ-
ment, social transmission, and equilibration all play roles in what we
know and in how we use our knowledge. For him, equilibration consists
of the processes of equilibrium and disequilibrium which are in relative
balance at all maturational levels, motivating us not only to assimilate
and accommodate within stages but also to move from one stage to
another. It is the disequilibrium that motivates us to learn and the return
to eqUilibrium that leaves us at a higher level of learning.

With these principles in mind, the first topic of discussion will be the four
major stages of cognitive development identified by Piaget, namely, the sensori-
motor period, the preoperational period, the concrete operational period, and
the formal operational period. Each stage has been named according to the
logical operations or processes that characterize the stage.
Volumes could be written about the characteristics of each stage-and, in
fact, have been. Again, there are limitations that allow only the most cursory
review of the stages. Yet, each has important implications for the educator,
whether he be a classroom teacher, a curriculum specialist, or an administrator.
The first stage, the sensorimotor period, has been mentioned previously in
the major prinCiples set forth above. This stage is characterized by action and the
beginnings of both affect and cognition, in that order. Near the end of this stage,
action is internalized, providing the origins of intelligence as intelligence is
usually defined. Simultaneously, imitative action is internalized as the image
providing the beginnings of thought processes.
While the sensorimotor period lasts from birth to approximately the age of 2
in most children, it has many implications for practice with children who are
Some Implications of Jean Piaget's Theory 153

retarded, whether from organic defects, from stimulus deprivation, or from some
interaction of the two factors. Even when working with more advanced children,
should one embark upon a study of the sensorimotor period, one would find
some valuable clues for educational practice, clues that may aid some children in
the knowing process if not in the learning process. However, one will fmd that
all of the implications that are derived for educational practice from this period
are based upon action, not on the part of the teacher but on the part of the child
who is attempting to gain understanding.
The fourth period, the formal operations stage, is also applicable to teachers.
Piaget refers to this period as "formal operations," since individuals at this stage
are able to engage in both inductive and deductive thought. They are also able to
engage in abstract and hypothetical thought without dependence upon concrete
situations. Piaget is of the opinion that this period commences somewhere
between the ages of 11 and 14 in the average individual. However, he is adamant
about the fact that just because we are able to engage in formal operations is no
guarantee that we will do so consistently. We often fmd remnants of preopera-
tional thOUght in the adult that are not unlike the thought processes that
characterize the preschooler.
By this time, it is obvious that we have jumped from the Brst stage to the
last stage with no mention of the intervening stages. This has been done by
design for two reasons. First, in some of Piaget's work, the preoperational and
the concrete operational stages have been combined as one stage under the title
of "concrete operations." However, the differences between the children in the
second stage and those in the third are so marked that it is more functional to
keep the two stages separate, with children in the second stage being referred to
as preoperational and those in the third as concrete operational. The second
reason for speaking of the intervening stages last is related. By contrasting the
middle two stages, we can arrive at a better understanding of the nature of the
preoperational child. In addition, the transition between the second and third
stage, which Piaget considers as commencing somewhere between the ages of 6
and 8 in normal children, should be noted.
What, then, are the predominant characteristics of a child in the preopera-
tional period, those critical years from 2 to 7? Without the insignts provided by
Piaget's work, we might not know, since the preoperational period is a period in
our lives from which we have few memories. Those that we have retained have
been reconstructed as we have matured. In short, our memories from the
preoperational period tend to be distorted at best. As a result, we adults have
assumed for years that children think and learn as we do, albeit in a more
simplistic manner. Piaget's work has pointed out that these assumptions have
resulted in a grave misconception of the nature of the preoperational child.
Children in the preoperational stage neither learn nor think as we do. Further-
more, they do not even perceive as we do, all of which accounts for the
sometimes amusing, sometimes baffling behaviors of the preoperational child. To
154 Lois P. Macomber

make matters still more complex, their modes of perception and thought have
little in common with those of children in the concrete operational stage.
If the preoperational child neither thinks as does the child in the concrete
operational stage nor as the adult does in the formal operational stage, how does
he think? As mentioned earlier, the individual in the formal operational stage is
able to think both inductively and deductively, although he may resort to more
primitive modes of thought from time to time. The child in the concrete
operational stage is able to engage in one mode of logical thought, namely,
inductive thought. In contrast, the preoperational child is able to think neither
inductively nor deductively. This does not mean that the preoperational child
uses many modes of thought, none of which are logical in the strictest sense of
the word. Piaget describes children in this age range as using transductive
thought, a form of prelogical thought that connects one specific to another
specific because two observable events have occurred contiguously and the child
has associated them as if there were a logical connection between them Some-
times transductive thought results in right answers, and at other times it results
in answers that are incorrect. However, if one were to analyze the thought
processes without regard to the correctness of the answers, he would discover
that the reasoning strategies that the child utilizes in arriving at the answer
remain prelogical at this stage.
Let me describe an illustration of transductive thought from my own life.
When I was 3, my mother was taken to the hospital to give birth, which raised
the inevitable question of where babies come from. My little Dutch grandmother
was the recipient of the question, and her response was to take me out to my
grandfather's cabbage patch and point out the long rows of red and green
cabbages as the source of babies. My brother arrived home from the hospital,
and presumably I accepted him as coming from one of the cabbages. However,
shortly after, I saw a black baby for the first time. After some brief study, I
turned to its mother and asked if her baby came from a red cabbage. I might add
that this is neither a memory nor a reconstructed memory on my part but
simply information I gained by hearing my mother speak of how logical I was at
such a young age. I have never had the heart to disillusion her by pointing out
that it was an association characteristic of those found in prelogical, transductive
thought.
In addition to transductive thought, the preoperational child engages in
egocentric thought. Piaget explains carefully that he is not attaching the negative
connotation that we tend to attach to the term egocentric. For him egocentric
thought implies that the child during the preoperational period is completely
unaware that anyone could hold another point of view from the one he holds.
By the same token, the preoperational child feels that what he knows, the rest of
the world knows. A child may come up to you and start speaking of an event
that occurred in his home the evening before and be absolutely confident that
you know exactly what he is talking about, when you, in fact, have no reference
Some Implications of Jean Piagefs Theory ISS

point whatsoever for the conversation. If you question the child about it, he
may even respond with a statement such as "You know" or "You remember!"
A third form of thought seen in children of this age is magical thought. The
preoperational child often feels that he has magical powers as a result of his
confusion of cause and effect. For example, my own daughter thought that she
could control traffic lights by simply chanting "Red light, red light, tum green."
It was some time before she arrived at the realization that she had no control
over the lights whatsoever. Because of the magical-thought process, no amount
of explanation would have helped her to arrive at that understanding any earlier
than she did. Magical thought also occurs in the young child in other forms.
Children at this age fInd it difficult, if not impossible, to say "I don't know."
Instead, when confronted with a question to which they do not know the
answer, they are apt to give you fanciful answers. When describing their percep-
tual processes later, I will illustrate their ingenuity, although I am certain that
you have also encountered such examples frequently.
Animistic thought is a fourth mode of thought that exists in the young child,
a mode that tends to linger throughout subsequent stages. Animistic thOUght is
simply thOUght that attributes living properties to inanimate objects. At fIrst,
this mode of thOUght is applied to all inanimate objects, perhaps as an extension
of egocentric thought. A young child may insist that his teddy bear is hungry
and needs a cookie just as he does. Just as often, it is the child's imaginary
playmate, a product of magical thought, who needs the cookie or some other
thing that the child himself wants. Animistic thought has been observed in still
other forms. If a child's favorite dish breaks, he may talk to it and say something
like, "Poor dish. Does it hurt bad?" On the other hand, if he accidently stumbles
over a chair, he may tum around and kick the chair saying, "Naughty chair!"
Later on in the preoperational stage, animistic thought is restricted to
objects that move under their own power such as windup toys and electric
trains. It is this latter aspect that is reflected frequently in adult behavior and
language. For example, how many of us use masculine and feminine genders to
refer to inanimate objects? More specifIcally, how many of us have cars or boats
to which have been attached names or to which we talk in some fashion?
Before we leave the realm of thought in the young child, two points should
be made. First, the modes of thought are not mutually exclusive, and frequently
two or more occur in the same incident, as illustrated above in the cases of the
imaginary playmate and the traffic light incident. Second, and more important
to educational practice, thought in the young child is static and thus irreversible.
As adults, we can reverse a thought process at will. For example, one may arrive
at a conclusion and return to the starting point. For a young child, this is an
impossible task, since he can think in one direction only because of the nature of
thought in his prelogical state.
Just as modes of thought interact in the preoperational child, so do percep-
tions and thought. The young child is handicapped in that his perceptions are
156 Lois P. Macomber

not constant, and yet he is bound by what he can perceive. Thus, reality for the
young child is what he perceives as reality with no qualifications. As if this does
not complicate his life enough, there is another factor that makes the situation
even more complex, and that is the child's tenuous grasp of reality. For the
young child, fantasy and reality often become confused; fantasy becomes reality
for him since he perceives it as reality. Again, you may have seen many examples
of this phenomenon. A young child may start out romping with an adult. One
moment, reality is firm and the child squeals with delight. A moment later, he
may be screaming in terror as reality slips away and the playful adult assumes
some menacing role in the child's fantasy. You may see the same phenomenon as
well in some children's reactions to the fairy tales that we adults have considered
to be classics for children. The witch in "Hansel and Gretel" or the big bad wolf
in "little Red Riding Hood" become terrifying when fantasy replaces reality in
the child's perception.
Piaget points out many examples of the interaction of perception and
thought, although he separates the two as distinct processes. Because thought in
the young child is prelogical and under the influence of perception, causality is
unclear to the child as well. Thus, the child attributes causality to what he can
observe. One of Piaget's classic eXamples is one child's response when asked why
the wind blows. In essence, the child's response was "Because the trees move," a
phenomenon observable to the child.
However, Piaget has gone beyond this point to study the effects of percep-
tual inconstancy in the young child. Here we fmd his classic work on conserva-
tion, the phenomenon that marks the transition between the preoperational
stage and the stage of concrete operations. In many ingenious experiments,
Piaget has demonstrated the preoperational child's lack of conservation. In other
words, the preoperational child is limited in that he can attend to only one
dimension at a time, while conservers can not only attend to but take into
consideration two or more dimensions simultaneously. It is the dominant stimu-
lus that the child perceives that governs his thought processes at the preopera-
tional stage. The child makes the discovery only after he is ready to handle two
or more perceptual stimuli simultaneously.
The preoperational child who lacks number conservation will conclude that
there are more beads of a given color than the total number of beads if the beads
are not assorted evenly by color. He will also answer that there are more beads
when they are spread out in a long line than when they are grouped together.
When he is asked "Why?" we often elicit magical thought with answers such as
"You just put it there" or "More fell from the ceiling." The magical thought
represents his need to account for the inconsistency he perceives because of
limitations in his ability to perceive and comprehend an operation that is carried
out in front of him.
The second form of conservation is that of conservation of mass, which the
child attains somewhat later than number conservation. Again, the underlying
Some Implications of Jean Piaget's Theory 157

principle remains the same. Mass conservation is attained when the child is able
to take into consideration both length and width, or two comparable dimen-
sions. Prior to that time, the dominant stimulus is the one that he perceives and
the one to which he responds. On the other hand, Madison Avenue is aware that
we adults sometimes act as nonconservers just as we sometimes engage in modes
of thought other than formal thOUght. For example, how often have we
purchased the tall package rather than the short package, only to discover that it
contains no more and sometimes less because we have failed to consider width as
well as height?
One might suspect that weight conservation would follow mass conservation
closely in time. For most children, this is not the case. Even after mass
conservation has been attained, the child has to work to develop weight conser-
vation. He may be convinced that there is the same amount of material in two
objects regardless of their shape, but he may be equally convinced that there is
one that weighs more than the other even though both objects are made of the
same material. If such is the case, he is a conserver of mass but a nonconserver of
weight. On the other hand, when he discovers that equal amounts of the same
kind of material weigh the same without regard to their shape, he has become a
conserver of weight.
The fourth form of conservation and the last to appear is that of volume.
Piaget is of the opinion that most children become conservers of volume around
the age of 11, near the end of the concrete operations stage. Yet, on occasion,
many individuals in the formal operations period make the same mistake that the
child makes and react only to the dominant dimension or stimulus rather than to
all of the pertinent dimensions.
By now, it is clear that we are indebted to Piaget for clarifying the nature of
the preoperational child, whose learning we are expected to facilitate, not
inhibit. To summarize what Piaget has clarified, let us compare the preopera-
tional child with the child in the concrete operational stage. First, the preopera-
tional child differs from the more mature child in the modes of thought used,
namely, prelogical, transductive, egocentric, magical, and animistic thought in
contrast to the logical, inductive thOUght characteristic of the child in the
concrete operational period. Second, the preoperational child is characterized by
lack of reversibility in thought, while the child in the concrete operations period
has no such limitation. Third, the preoperational child is dominated by his
perceptions, which are inconstant, while the child in the concrete operations
stage is freed from perceptual domination and simultaneously develops con-
stancy in perception. Finally, the preoperational child lacks conservation, while
the child in the subsequent stage has mastered the early forms of conservation, if
not all of them
What does all of this mean to educators of the preoperational child? The
implications are many and profound. The most obvious of all appears to be the
most devastating; that is, our present educational system is attempting to
158 lois P. Macomber

educate the preoperational child as if he were functioning at the concrete

operational level or even above.
While we have shared Piaget's position on the importance of early childhood
and the critical nature of this period to future development, we have not shared
his insights. Working from our basic assumption that children think, perceive,
and learn as we do, even the most child-centered of us have innocently fallen
into the trap of expecting children in the preoperational stage to think logically.
Thus, we have established educational systems, curricula, and teaching strategies
that interfere with rather than facilitate learning in the preoperational child.
What is the answer to this situation, which has serious implications both for
the young child and for the early childhood education profession? Piaget has not
been explicit on this point, although he has cited examples in which experi-
mental stimulation appears to have facilitated learning. Two opposing views have
been advanced to date. Bereiter has removed himself from the field of early
childhood education and has taken the position that education before the age of
8 is a waste of both time and money. Furth and Elkind, on the other hand, have
called for the abandonment of schools for learning in favor of schools for
thinking. A third, more moderate approach can be proposed that incorporates
Piaget's implications for education. Schools can and should develop thinking as
well as learning. Let us keep our schools for learning and redefme the learning
tasks expected of children so that they are consistent with the child's abilities
and limitations as pointed out by Piaget. With new insights into the preopera-
tional child, traditional expectations can be discarded in favor of developmental
and learning tasks that are more realistic.
There are several reasons for advocating this approach. First, Piaget has
emphasized the importance of the slow learning of the early years to all later
intellectual achievement. Second, Piaget has stressed that efforts to force chil-
dren through stages, or efforts to force them to work at levels above their own,
result in delaying normal progress through the stage. Thus, patience in the early
years is rewarded by more efficient and rapid learning in later years. Third, such
an approach demonstrates respect for the child as a thinker and a learner,
providing him with the opportunity to experience success in school. The latter,
of course, is vital to his healthy emotional development. Fourth, such an
approach places the emphasis in education where it belongs, that is, on under-
standing and not on memorization used as a mechanism to cope with an
incomprehensible system. In Piaget's terms, it is emphasizing the cognitive
structures that are reflected in the cognitive content, rather than attempting to
teach cognitive content or the behavior with the expectation that cognitive
structures will follow. Finally, the educational process would provide less frus-
tration and more satisfaction to teachers and parents, as well as to children, than
it does at present.
Such an approach would call for changes in curriculum, instructional strate-
gies, facilities, and equipment. Furthermore, it would place demands for change
Some Implications of Jean Piaget's Theory 159

on administrators, teachers, and parents alike. Some of the changes necessary

would be minor, but others would be difficult and painful as we develop a
program that is in the best interest of the preoperational child. However painful,
we must make the effort if we wish to help and not hinder the young child in
the learning-to-Iearn process.
What changes are necessary in curriculum if we are to adjust the curriculum
to the thinking and learning modes of the preoperational child? While we cannot
cover each area, some desirable changes in the areas of language and arithmetic
can be pointed out. In the language area, more time would be allotted to
conversation, utilizing an aural-oral approach in an effort to tune the child in to
new words and correct grammatical structure. However, emphasis would be
placed upon the function and not the structure of the language. Since language is
cognitive content or behavior used to express either thoughts or knowledge that
exist in the cognitive structures, it would be taught neither for the purpose of
inducing thought nor as an end in itself. As Piaget indicates, language is
necessary but not a sufficient condition to thought. Thus, there would be less
emphasis on early acquisition of reading and more emphasis on building the
foundations for comprehension necessary to success when formal reading is
introduced.
Arithmetic would also depart from the traditional approach. Time would be
spent on the development of number concepts until the child had a firm grasp of
those, since the curriculum designer would be cognizant of this as an initial step
on the way to number conservation. Then, and only then, would addition be
introduced as an arithmetic process, since arithmetic processes have no meaning
to the child prior to the development of the number concepts. After the child
has developed competency in addition, he would then be introduced to multipli-
cation, a shortcut to addition that does not require the reversal in thought
inherent in the subtraction process.
Other curricular changes would involve culling-out all instructional materials
calling for inductive or deductive reasoning. That would rule out most pro-
grammed instruction, since existing programs are largely deductive. In place of
these, the teacher would spend more time in helping children develop readiness
by providing exposure to varied and sequenced activities on the experience
continuum. Within the parameters of safety, much more freedom would be
allotted to children to move, explore, and discover than at present. In Piaget's
terms, children would be freed to "reinvent knowledge." In educational terms,
each child would be developing a large portion of his own curriculum out of the
many experiences available to him. While the latter may sound revolutionary, it
is not, for in reality that is what actually occurs in every classroom today. No
matter what a teacher makes available, a child learns what he is ready to learn
and what is of interest to him.
Not only would there be changes in the curriculum but there would be
changes in the classroom itself. Classrooms would be comprised of much open
160 Lois P. Macomber

space for the movement essential to cognitive development. Experience corners

where children could explore with water, sand, and other natural materials
would be available. In the era of the open classroom none of the above sounds
radical. However, there would be one major departure from the ideal classroom
as most of us have visualized it. Because of the child's perceptual inconstancy
and his attention to the dominant stimuli, the number of extraneous stimuli
would be reduced substantially. There would be few, if any, pictures on the wall.
There would be no gaily colored bulletin boards constructed by the teacher to
distract the child. These can be placed at eye level in hallways, where they can
be enjoyed by children without interfering with the learning process. The colors
in the classroom would be subdued and restful, rather than the primary colors in
use today. At the same time, the classrooms would be free of unnecessary
clutter. In short, classrooms would be organized to facilitate learning in the
preoperational child instead of being organized to be aesthetically appealing to
adults, who have already achieved perceptual constancy.
There would be changes in the role of the teacher as well as in his
knowledge. Instead of reinforcing right answers, he would be asking "Why?" in
an attempt to determine the thought processes utilized by the child conversing
with him. His role would be that of the facilitating adult and not that of the
group leader. In fact, whatever groups exist would be ever changing, comprised
of a few children spontaneously drawn together by a mutual interest or activity.
However, the teacher would be able to recognize stages of growth by cognitive
content and would constantly be diagnosing where a child was and what kinds of
activities the child would need in order to progress. Based upon his diagnosis and
prescription, the teacher would determine what instructional strategies would be
most effective with the child in question. Thus, the teacher's diagnostic, pre-
scriptive, and evaluative skills would enable him to individualize instruction in
the true sense and relieve him of our current dilemma of giving lip service and
little more to individualization. The teacher's objective would be to help each
child to think and to learn as much as he could within the limits imposed upon
him by his preoperational state. The teacher would not be bound to a series of
behavioral objectives to be applied to all children. Rather, he would have faith in
his own ability and the sequential nature of children's development.
Based upon an understanding of the preoperational child, the teacher would
make more judicious selections of educational toys and materials. Cognizant of
the child's problem in sorting out stimuli, the teacher would order equipment
that emphasized the dominant stimulus to be considered by the child. If color is
the stimulus to be considered, the size and shape of the objects to be compared
would remain constant. If seriation is to be considered, the shape and color of
the objects would remain constant. If equipment appealing to adults but of little
educational value to children has been provided-for example, a toy in which
variations of color and size have been combined-the teacher would not hesitate
to repaint it all one color to aid a child in learning about size.
Some Implications of Jean Piagefs Theory 161

Just as new activities are called for, some of the activities carried out by
teachers now would be eliminated because of their increased understanding of
the preoperational child. While a teacher would continue to enjoy the humor in
a preoperational explanation, he would not attempt to give the child a correct
explanation. Rather, he would counter with an appropriate question or puzzle
that would help the child to discover the fallacy of his thinking through the
development of disequilibrium. The teacher would not spend a lot of time
emphasizing the importance of sharing or of trying to get one child to under-
stand another's feelings. He would know that understanding of these concepts is
impossible to the preoperational child because of his egocentric thought. The
teacher would recognize that, at best, his explanation could only serve to tune
the child in to elaborative language. If sharing remained a value at this age level,
the teacher would know that he can best accomplish it by providing a model for
imitation. Through imitation and eventually through logical thought, the child
will learn to share and will understand the meaning of sharing. The teacher
would know that labeling a child as selftsh accomplishes nothing positive, for the
only sharing that occurs at this stage occurs as a result of conditioning rather
than as a result of understanding. Once again, the latter emphasized cognitive
content at the expense of the development of cognitive structures. The teacher
would recognize the nature of magical thought and fmd no need to label that
either. Rather, he would ask a simple, reality-based question in an effort to help
the child to think through the situation. Often the question will be to little avail,
but the teacher would know that it is the best that he can do to cope with
magical thought. Of course, recognizing the child's tenuous hold on reality, the
teacher would not engage in fantasy with the child in the preoperational stage.
Rather, he would help the child to anchor reality by remaining reality-oriented
himself.
However, no matter how skillful a teacher becomes in working with the
preoperational child, he can never function independently of the administration
and of the parents of the children. Thus, he would have the task of helping
administrators understand what he knows about the preoperational child. The
teacher and the administrator would then unite in educating parents and the
community on the need for change in the educational program. Emphasis would
be placed upon the psychological basis for the change, including an understand-
ing of the enigma of the preoperational child. This type of sharing would enable
parents, teachers, and administrators to work cooperatively in behalf of the
young child, a particularly important point because of the influence of early
development on all later development.
There is one place where the administrator, of necessity, would stand alone.
If he has recognized the need for an education program for parents on the nature
of the preoperational child, he has an advantage. However, he would be in the
position of having to do some additional educating if he carries Piaget's theory
to its logical conclusion. First of all, he would know that early learning takes
162 Lois P. Macomber

time and, further, is reconstructed through time. Thus, to evaluate the achieve-
ment or intelligence of the preoperational child in a formal fashion would be in
large part a waste of time and money. He would know that learning cannot be
measured before it takes place. He also would know that early learning is a slow
process, requiring a great deal of time for consolidation. Upon consolidation,
learning can fmally be expressed as cognitive content, usually measured in the
realm of language skills. Standardized tests that look at the product or cognitive
content, not the process, provide little valid information during the preopera-
tional period. Thus, it would be the administrator's role to convince his board
members to discard formal testing programs as evidence of achievement in young
children.
However, the school system would be left with another task, evaluation of
the early childhood education program Just as tests of individual children
during the preoperational period would reveal little valid information, tests of
the children in the program would reveal little that is valid about the program
itself. Early childhood education programs cannot be evaluated for effectiveness
based upon the performance of its participants in the preoperational stage alone.
Thus, longitudinal studies would be necessary, studies that reveal how children
reconstruct their preoperational learnings upon becoming operational. Such is
the challenge to the administrators and the school system. It is quite a challenge,
indeed, when one looks at the contemporary push for statistical results shOwing
immediate gains-before the child's learning can become operational.
In conclusion, what has been reported as some implications of Piaget's
theory for education affects each of us, without regard to our specific roles. It is
proposed that we recognize the critical nature of early childhood in relationship
to later cognitive development and accept the challenges of Piaget in behalf of
the preoperational child.

References

Fransworth, P. R. (Ed). Annual review of psychology. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews,
Inc. 1965.
Hapgood, M. The open classroom: Protect it from its friends. Saturday Review, September
18,1971,66-75.
Piaget, J. Autobiography. In E. G. Boring, (Eds.), A history of psychology in autobiography,
Vol. 4. Worcester, Mass.: Clarke University Press, 1952. (a)
Piaget J. The origins of intelligence in children. New York: Norton, 1952. (b)
Piaget, J. [The construction of reality in the child] (M. Cook,trans.). New York: Basic
Books, 1954.
Piaget, J. The language and thought of the child. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books,
World Publishing Co., 1955.
Piaget, J. [Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood] (C. Cattegno & F. M. Hodgson, trans.).
New York: Norton, 1962.
Piaget, J. The psychology of intelligence. Patterson, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1963.
Some Implications of Jean Piagefs Theory 163

Piaget, J. The child's conception of the world. Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1967.
Piaget, J. Mechanisms of perception. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. [The Psychology of the Child) (H. Weaver, trans.). New York:
Basic Books, 1969.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B.Mental imagery in the child. New York: Basic Books, 1971.
Ripple, R. E., & Rockcastle, V. N. (Eds.). Piaget rediscovered. Ithaca, N.Y.: School of
Education, Cornell University Press, 1964.

Also several speeches in 1970-1971 including those of Jean Piaget, Barbel Inhelder, David
Elkind, and Hans Furth at Temple University and carl Bereiter at Johns Hopkins University.
 CHAPTER 12

Piaget's Theory Applied to a

Social Studies Curriculum
Barbara Z. Presseisen

Research for Better Schools, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Curriculum development, like many areas of education, has undergone several

major transformations in the 20th century. Before I get to the main topic of this
paper-the application of Piaget's theory to the social studies curriculum-it is
important to look first at curriculum development itself. I propose that an
examination of the changes and emphases of the development of curriculum
during this century will lead to the best understanding of the importance and
application of Piaget's theory.
What is curriculum? For years this question was answered simply and
directly. Curriculum is the content of learning. Proponents of this view are
interested in the what of education rather than how it is conveyed. They often
focus on the disciplines of knowledge as the central concern of the curriculum.
"What knowledge is of most worth?" asked Spencer in 1854 (Spencer, 1963, pp.
21-76). Many educators are still asking that question today, and their response
is often the 3 Rs, a curriculum that includes no social studies at all!
There is also a broader and more comprehensive approach to content-
centered curriculum than the very limited 3R view. Advocates of basic skills
learning are closely related to the 3R approach to education, but their delinea-
tion of knowledge is more extensive. The basic skills approach can include in the
schoo1's program four major areas of subject matter: language arts, mathematics,
social studies, and science. Implicit in this view of knowledge is the need for a
balanced and more generalized view of the world. And more important is their
focus within subject matter on the capabilities necessary to a balanced and
generalized view. This approach reminds us of the development of curriculum in

165
166 Barbara Z. Presseisen

ancient times when the trivium, including grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, was
joined with the quadrivium, consisting of geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and
the theory of music, to form the first basis of higher education (Castle, 1964, p.
59). The essential capabilities of learning in Caesar's world may have been
present in this ancient program, but alas, there was still no social studies in that
curriculum.
For educators chiefly concerned with children, the content approach to
curriculum as the 3Rs, or as basic skills, is obviously inadequate. Almost from
the outset of the 20th century, the writings of John Dewey countered the lack
of the learner's role in the content conception of schooling. Learning can occur,
said Dewey (1938, p. 20), only when the child is actively involved in the process
of education. The curriculum is the vehicle of the learning experience; it is a
means to a much greater end than mere static knowledge. Content is still
important, but in Dewey's view, the real challenge of the school's program is to
stimulate children's active involvement within their educational experience. Such
involvement has both cognitive and affective dimensions.
The battle between the content people and the child-centered curriculum is
probably the literature on which many of us were trained. While that battle was
being waged, however, some very interesting developments were occurring in
education that were bound to influence both curriculum and curriculum makers.
First, the emergence of the technology of multimedia instruction revolutionized
the availability and dispersal of audio and visual information. One could argue
the pros and cons lof utilizing television or fllms or cassette tape in the
classroom. Nevertheless, one must admit that the various modern means of
conveying imagery and sound today do influence the ways that students think,
and these must be considered in decisions about curriculum and instruction.
Secondly, the educatonal world has become increasingly sensitive to the
variation of both abilities and the styles of learning that characterize school
populations. Once we began to study intelligence, as well as measure it, we had
to ask what we were going to do about it in making curricular provisions. We
began to raise questions, too, about the arbitrary organization of the school,
about how we nailed down learning responses much as we had bolted desks in
exact rows and ratios. Furthermore, our instructional designs had to reflect
something about how we assess results en route, if only to determine if we are
doing what we claim to be doing and if we do it conSistently.
And thirdly, education has become very self-conscious about its own sociol-
ogy. What roles do we want students and teachers to fulfill in what types of
environment? Do we want alternate systems, and, if so, what classroom
management plans are needed to make these alternatives possible? The develop-
ment of open classrooms made it necessary to train open-classroom teachers; it
also created the demand for open-classroom curricula. In many cases, we must
first decide what that means before such a curriculum can actually be designed.
What does all this suggest to educators who want to fmd out about applying
Piaget's fertile theory to the social studies area of the school's curriculum? It
Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies Curriculum 167

suggests that there are some key elements in curriculum development that must
be accounted for in such an application. These elements, in fact, may become
the criteria for evaluating the success of such an application. We will list them
briefly:
1. Content. What is the significance of information in the curriculum, either
as basic subject matter or the more formal disciplines of knowledge?
2. Process. What is the significance of the child's learning processes, both
cognitive and affective, in the curriculum, and how are these provided
for?
3. Instructional design. What is the sequence of instructional events in the
curriculum and how are concerns such as technology, intelligence, and
assessment related to this design?
4. Management plan. How is the design to be implemented in the class-
room, and of what consequence is this implementation to the behavioral
expectations of both teachers and students?
5. Evaluation. What can be learned about the effectiveness of this curricu-
lum in terms of validity and reliability of data, on what populations, and
under what conditions?
Having considered these questions, we can now more fruitfully turn to
Piaget's theory and examine it as a basis for curriculum development in the
social studies. One can also examine his particular thoughts on social education
per se, an area Piaget has only recently begun to write about extensively. Finally,
an actual social studies program under development is described that purports to
apply Piaget's theory to its overall curricular organization. Included is a descrip-
tion of the application of the program, the constraints placed on the actual
testing of the program, and some tentative results of that testing.
It is well known that for a long time Piaget shied away from stating
educational principles and suggested that it was the responsibility of professional
educators to fmd out if there were seeds of pedagogical wisdom in his work.
Some of the earlier discussions about Piaget, such as Hunt's (1961) and Bruner's
(1960), were thus trail blazers in educational theory. More recently, Piaget
(1973) has begun to speak on educational topics, and to a certain extent, he has
removed the guesswork for the educator and the editor alike.
Every educator should be aware of certain basic assumptions that Piaget
suggests as the hallmarks of child development. Four main principles can be
cited from the extensive writings of Piaget. These principles are stated in many
different ways in different contexts, but they are the foundation of much of the
work of the Genevan school.
First, Piaget proposes that the growth of intelligence in all children is
essentially the result of the development of mental structures that rest on basic
skills rather than on inherited abilities. To Piaget (1970b), these mental struc-
tures develop as the child's mental organization becomes a more complex and
more efficient representation of the reality that the child has experienced. like
168 Barbara Z. Presseisen

the progressivists and Dewey, who were mentioned earlier, Piaget has a special
understanding of the role of experience in learning. This understanding is tied to
his conception of action in the building of mental structures. This point brings
us to the second basic assumption of Piaget's theory.
According to Piaget (1976), intellectual skills develop as a result of the
child's continuous interaction or exchange with his environment. One of Piaget's
favored notions is that of operation, to act upon the objects one observes and
studies. If the goal of education is to encourage creative rather than imitative
minds, then the child must operate or act himself. It is only by internalizing such
direct operations, says Piaget (1964), that the child learns to think. Knowledge is
thus derived both from objects themselves and from actions performed on
objects. The roots of thought are in doing for Piaget as they were for Dewey.
But the structures of thought, according to the Swiss psychologist, develop
because the child does certain things at certain significant or critical moments in
the sequence of his learning. The individual child learns in terms of his past
history or experiences, as well as in terms of his present or current capabilities.
This notion serves to introduce the third major assumption of Piaget's genetic
theory.
Piaget maintains that the structures of intellect develop or advance through a
sequence of related stages, which produce qualitative changes in the way chil-
dren think and operate upon their environment. With his well-known collabo-
rator, Barbel Inhelder, Piaget maintains that the order of the occurrence of these
mental stages is fixed and regular. Although children reach a given stage at
differing rates, Genevan research (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969, p. 153) suggests that
the order of the succession of stages is constant and that the time variation can
be used as a factor in cross-cultural or specialized studies. Certainly, Piaget and
Inhelder argue that it is the operations underlying the stage that should be
studied and not the mere chronological age of the child involved.
One of the more interesting implications of the stage aspect of Piaget's
theory is that one becomes more aware of the dynamism in children's thought.
A child's mind is not clearly black or explicitly white. Transitional stages are
periods of normal disruption, as the child learns new ways to structure his world
and to clarify his understanding. A child may not function on the same level or
at the same stage across all areas of his intellectual life, perhaps because his
experience is more limited in one than in another. He may even vacillate within a
given area over a period of time. Piaget (1967, p. 121) encourages us to watch
the child's performance over time, to look for the more reversible operations and
the growing understanding and complexity of various conservations.
Three main aspects of Piaget's theory have been noted so far-structure,
operation, and stage-as important factors of child development. There is one
more that seems very significant to his theory and important to education as
well. That is the prinCiple of motivation for learning, as Piaget sees it. The
important adaptive nature of human intellect is what is underlined here. Piaget
Piaget's Theoty Applied to a Social Studies Curriculum 169

(1967, p. 8) sees all mental life as tending progressively to assimilate the

surrounding environment. In other words, children are naturally curious: they
are inherently motivated to explore and master their surroundings. As they
satisfy their inquisitiveness, their activity lessens, they accommodate the new
information, and they are momentarily quiescent-that is, until something else
taps that curiosity. This built-in drive for learning may be sustained, encouraged,
and directed by a responsive environment, or it may be dulled by an unrespon-
sive one. The school may be a critical factor in this exchange. It seems likely that
an educational environment that fosters learning motivated by fear or that
encourages accomplishment because of external rewards may well stifle the
child's natural drive for competence. On analyzing learning via Piagetian theory,
Elkind (1974, pp. 1-10) goes one step further. He maintains that the child's
drive for competence includes fundamental aesthetic propensities; that is, the
child has a desire and a talent to express this curiosity in ways that are
aesthetically pleasing and gratifying. Certainly, that creative aspect will influence
the social organization of the school, if not color the social exchange in all
education. It is to Piaget's view on socialization to which we now tum.
To many educators, Piaget's theory of child development is essentially a
cognitive theory. He is concerned with logical operations, with teaching children
to think. That is, of course, very true. But what of the affective and social sides
of human behavior? Piaget and Inhelder (1969 p. 117) accept as commonplace
knowledge that cognitive and affective or social development are inseparable and
parallel. Piaget shows direct relationships between the preoperational child and
precooperative behavior on the part of the 5- to 7-year-old, who often speaks in
monologues with himself. The logical development of the child is directly
influenced by the relationship between the child and the adult, an exchange that
is the source of educational and verbal transmission of cultural elements. His
cognitive progression is similarly influenced by social relations with his peers,
other children, and playmates with whom a continuous and constructive process
of reciprocal socialization parallels the give and take of cognitive interaction.
A case in point, which illustrates the significance of social exchange on child
development, is the development of moral reasoning, a topiC on which Piaget
wrote extensively as early as 1935 (Piaget, 1965). Essentially, he showed that
the child's social exchanges in real life-particularly in instances involving rules,
such as games, or in family interactions-give rise to a process of structuration
that leads from a state of relative lack of coordination to a state of coordination
of points of view and cooperation in action and communication. To quote
Piaget,
A child of four or five, for example, is often not aware that he is himself
the brother or sister of his brother or sister. This lack of perspective affects the
logic of relations as well as the awareness of self. When he reaches the level of
operations, he will by that very fact be capable of cooperation-and it is
impossible to separate cause from effect in this integrated process. (piaget &
Inhelder, 1969, p. 129)
170 Barbara Z. Presseisen

In other words, according to Piaget, social interactions are the stuff of much of
the child's intellectual process-building. One does not think in a vacuum. An
operation can be an action on people as much as an action on things. With the
development of language, the potential of social exchange via verbal communica-
tion is endless and presents to the child a whole new basis of reality. It is such a
reality that is the foundation of the child's moral being as well as his unique
intellectual development. Piaget's view of knowledge is also influenced by his
position on a single logic underlying the child's cognitive, affective, and social
development. Piaget depicts knowledge as a molar entity, synonymous with
conceptual wholes. Such a position enables Piaget (1970a) to deal with inter-
disciplinary relationships among various subject matters. The division of com-
partmentalized subject fields within knowledge is a scholarly convenience,
according to Piaget, perhaps a requisite for productive research, but by no means
an intellectual necessity. Piaget is impressed more by the parallel structures or
patterns that cut across the various disciplines of knowledge than with frag-
mentary conceptualizations of adult thought (Presseisen, 1971). He seeks to
build understanding of the common mechanism of an area of knowledge through
general problems of that area that get at basic operations. In particular, he looks
for self-regulating devices within a system that permits a researcher to under-
stand the underlying operations or transformations in the total system (Piaget,
1970a).
Piaget can become very philosophical and esoteric as far as educational
practitioners are concerned. However, as far as knowledge in the school is
concerned, according to Piaget, the social sciences are of particular importance
to learning in an interdiSciplinary way. The human branches of science, he says,
are of special structural value because of their strong linguistic tradition (piaget,
1973). It is a linguistic tradition akin to that of Levi-Strauss and Chomsky, in
which underlying structures, like behavioral patterns, are acquired by external
transmission through what Piaget calls "multiple and differentiated social inter-
actions" (Piaget, 1973, p. 115). But it should be emphasized that what Piaget
seeks to teach through interdiSciplinary social science is not merely information
about social institutions. He sees the social sciences as the focus for the full
development of the child's personality and his respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms, as well.
In one of his most recent writings, Piaget (1973, pp. 89-91) charges the
school with producing not only a fully operational thinker but a fully respon-
sible human being, too. The social education that the child receives requires not
only that he learn the laws of logic but that he voluntarily subject himself to a
system of mutual norms that, in effect, subordinate his liberty in respect of
others. There is a great similarity here between Piaget's viewpoint and that of
John Dewey in Democracy and Education and of the progressivist position as a
whole, as pointed out in Overton's (1972, pp. 88-115) article on Piaget and
progressivism. On the one hand, Piaget stresses that the content of social
Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies Curriculum 171

information must be appropriate to the thought structures of the learner at his

stage of development. On the other hand, he also says that the progressivists'
emphasis on a curriculum for doing is sound in terms of their assertions about
motivation for learning, the self-direction of the student, and freedom in the
classroom.
But Piaget goes beyond Dewey in what he expects of the school. The
operations involved in the learning of social sciences demand collaboration and
exchange between the student and his classmates. A real formation of the tools
of intellect, sa)S Piaget (1973, p. 93), requires a collective atmosphere of active
and experimental investigation, as well as discussion in common. In terms of
moral education, Piaget maintains that if a student is intellectually passive, he
will also not know how to be free ethically. For the Genevan theorist, the
cognitive development of reciprocity and intellect are correlative aspects of the
social development of independence and personality.
Thus, in the social studies, Piaget suggests that what is significant is not the
particular answer a student gives to a query in the subject matter, but the
structure of the question he is striving to answer. And equally important is how
the student goes about creating an answer in terms of consultation and col-
laboration on the topic with his own peers. In social science learning, there is
room for mutual stimulation and mutual control, as well as for the exercise of a
critical spirit. When social education includes these elements, according to
Piaget, we shall be creating men and women "who are capable of doing new
things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done-men who are
creative, inventive, and discoverers" (Duckworth, 1964, p. 5).
We now tum to a social studies curriculum that is actively trying to put
Piaget's theory into practice. The curriculum to be described in the next portion
of this discussion is developmental. There is no guarantee that it works. Several
prominent experts in Piagetian research serve as consultants to the project, but
the overall analysis takes much time and a long evaluation, and we hasten to
suggest that the reader be very wary of anyone who offers an instant Piagetian
curriculum. Instead, we propose that the key elements of curriculum develop-
ment that we discussed earlier be brought to bear on such a program.
The social studies program described here is known as SEARCH, an acronym
for the Social Encounter And Research Curriculum for Humanization. The
primary goal of the SEARCH curriculum is to individualize the learning of social
education: to provide for each child's individual differences while he learns
social studies and to give each student a larger measure of individual control over
his acquisition of social information. There are several contingencies that follow
from this objective. First, providing for different ability levels or competencies
requires diagnostic evaluation measures as well as flexible schedules of instruc-
tion. Second, to assume control over one's learning implies possibilities of choice
and self-correction. Certainly a self-contained classroom or a strictly textbook-
bound instructional sequence would poorly serve individualization as described.
172 Barbara Z. Presseisen

What basic assumptions underlie SEARCH? The first two letters of the
acronym represent the ideal way a student should meet social phenomena: a
Social Encounter, a natural relationship neither contrived so much that it has no
reality about it nor imposed from such a limited disciplinary point of view that
it has no meaning for the learner.
The second SEARCH cornerstone concerns the processes involved in the
mastery of social studies knowledge. These processes should be built upon
cognitive operations and social perspectives that are appropriate and available to
the learner. This aspect of SEARCH strives to make it possible for the student to
operate upon the material in the Piagetian sense. When the student is so actively
involved, he is engaged in a Research Curriculum-and two more letters have
been added to the SEARCH acronym.
Lastly, the basic characteristics of SEARCH require that the learning be
Humanistically inspired. The cognitive material must be related to the affective
development of the leamer, so that he finds in his studies a reflection of the
experience of all humankind. This position implies there is no real social learning
unless the child can integrate experience of the calssroom into his own social
reality. In a larger sense, it means that the gap between explanations of reality
resting on the social science disciplines and reality itself must be bridged by a
larger human and more personal description of the workings of living social
institutions. So much for the meaning of the SEARCH acronym. Now let us
examine the curricular structure of the actual program.
SEARCH is conceived as a basic social education program, currently with a
K-12 range. With design and development comes a fairly extensive tryout or
field test of the material and an evaluation scheme to monitor and assess the
effects of the material. SEARCH also claims to be developmental in that it
strives to apply Piaget's theory to the organization and the development of the
classroom materials. This is achieved in part by the assignment of developmental
levels to the 13 years of education. There are four such levels identified in the
program, each level parallels the child's chronological advancement.
The primary focus of a SEARCH developmental level is what children do:
how they operate or perceive a particular set of circumstances on both cognitive
and social dimensions. Drawing from Piaget's stage theory, the SEARCH levels
are roughly related to the child's age and his grade at school. Level A consists of
"kindergarten and first and second grade," but the real concern is the nongraded
one, a concern with the preoperational cognitive dimension and the precoopera-
tive social orientation of self-action. The material at this level is conceived in
terms of how the child sees it; in fact, pre operations is seen as a grand experience
in observation development. At Level B, "third grade through sixth," if one is
forced to relate to such a distinction, SEARCH material is focused on the child
as the concrete operator with the first awareness of both self and others in his
social world.
Piaget's Theoty Applied to a Social Studies Cumculum 173

SEARCH DEVELOPMENTAL LEVELS

COGNITIVE OPERATIONS SOCIAL ORIENTATION

Ideational Relations
Forma 1 Operati ons LEVEL D AGES 15 - 18 (values, ideas on
the human condition)

Transition t2.. til:l:L LEVEL C AGES 12 - 14 Inter-group Relations

Formal Operations

Interpersonal Relations
Concrete O~erati ons LEVEL B AGES 8 - 11
(self and group activity)

Personal Relations
Pre-o~erationa1 LEVEL A AGES5-7
T ought (self action)

FIGURE 1. Cognitive and affective processes in SEARCH.

SEARCH has made a conscious decision to be interdisciplinary in its con-

tent. The several disciplines usually associated with social studies-history, geo-
graphy, economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, and psychology-
have to be interrelated in some way if their conceptual organization is to be
made available to the student. SEARCH has developed five [unctions to do this
task. These five Psychosocial functions are the recurring themes of social
existence and, at the same time, are both integrating factors and advanced
organizers of content Figure 2 shows how the SEARCH functions are related to
general social themes in the world order and to various disciplines of knowledge
from which their content can be derived. It should be noted that there is no
mutually exclusive relationship between a SEARCH function and the specific
disciplines. Specific concepts may appear in various functions' materials but be
viewed differently because of the underlying theme served by that function. The
L'lterrelated concerns of social existence do not obliterate the unique focus of
each of the several functions.
The specific units of study in SEARCH are built around the five psycho-
social functions. The content chart of Level A units shows how the material is
being developed for the 5- to 7-year-old.
The SEARCH functions, in the column on the left, are expressed in personal
terms in Level A material. Two units of study in each function have been
selected for each stage, or a year's program of SEARCH. Thus, 10 SEARCH
units are considered, on the average, to be a year's program of social education.
The average child completes a SEARCH unit in about 4* hours of classroom
activity. Let us look at the units of Stage I to get some feeling for what the
kindergartener's experience is in SEARCH.
 FUNCTIONS AS ADVANCED ORGANIZERS OF CONTENT

SEARCH FUNCTIONS GENERAL THEME RELATED DISCIPLIN~S

SELF-REALIZING Persona 1i ty Psychology, Sociology,

Anthropology

GOVERNING Order Political Science,

Ethics, Law

PRODUCING AND CONSUMING Value Economi cs, Sociology

GOODS ~ND SERVICES

UTILIZING ENVIRONMENTS Cosmos Geography; Political

Science, Economics

INTERPRETING AND Culture History, Anthropology,

GENERATING IDE~S Religion, Aesthetics,
~ND EVENTS Psychology

FIGURE 2. The organization of content in SEARCH.

SCOPE AND SEQUENCE OF SEARCH UN ITS FOR GRADES K. 1 AND 2

LEVEL A
FUNCTION STAGE I STAGE II STAGE III
SELF"REALIZING <D I HAVE A BODY Q) I HAVE SENSES ® I HAVE AN IDENTITY
CD ® I HAVE AN APPEARANCE <D I HAVE FEELINGS ® I HAVE A FAMILY
P.".olUt( CItaluteWW.ti.u

GOVERNING <D I CARE FOR MYSELF o I CARE FOR MY

CLASSROOM
® I FOLLOW RULES
CD ®I CARE FOK MY HOM£ <D I CARE FOR MY DOG @ I FOLLOW LAWS AND
CUSTOMS
P... onal.R.. po",,~

PRODUCING AND CONSUMING <D ITHINGS

USE MY DAY TO DO o I PRODUCE SERVICES CD I PAY FOR THINGS
CD ® I CONSUHE
PRODUCE AND o I CONSUME OTHER @ I SHOP IN A
PVtoonat ECOMIltf{ PEOPLE'S GOODS MARKETPLACE
AND SERV1CES

UTILIZING ENVIROHHEHTS Q) I HAVE SURROUNDINGS G) I MEET PEOPLE IN MY

® I s:r:OU::r~~F MY
CD o I TRAVEL IN MY o
SURROUNDINGS
I MAP MY SURROUNDINGS ® ISURROUNDINGS
USE TOOLS IN MY
P.".onal. EooloSY SURROUNDINGS

INTERPRETING AND G~ERATING CD I GROW AND CHANGE cD I KNOW SPEClAi. DAYS ® I KNOW SPECIAL TlHES
(0
P."..nal._... And
o I SEE THE SEASONS
CHANGE
<D I KNOW SPECIAL PLACES ® I KNOW SPECIAL PEOPL
Ackieuemen.t

FIGURE 3. Unit content in primary grades.

Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies Curriculum 175

The first function developed in SEARCH is "Self-Realizing." "Self-

Realizing" or S Units seek to build an understanding of the interactive elements
of identity and personality in social organization. They seek to make the child
more aware of himself within the larger community. There are specific concepts
in every SEARCH unit, each linked with a student objective. These concepts are
often drawn from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, or anthropology.
But one should remember that these must be seen as the student sees them and
can relate to them. So Unit SI is "I Have a Body," and 82 is "I Have an
Appearance," both under the S or "Self-Realizing" function at Level A, "Per-
sonal Characteristics."
The second function in SEARCH is "Governing," and it seeks to bring about
the recognition and development of the skills and concepts leading toward
orderly social interaction. The discipline of political science and related fields
such as ethics or law underlie this content organizer. There is a great deal of
interest, in the post-Watergate world, in the workings and importance of the law.
SEARCH begins the awareness of responsibility from the very basic notion of
taking care of oneself as in Unit G1, "I Care for Myself." Keeping both fantasy
and reality in the Level A child's world, SEARCH introduces both human and
animal characters in the story sequences. Unit G1, "I Care for Myself," stars Mr.
Sam Safety and Ms. Debby Dare. In G2, "I Care for My Home," an industrious
beaver named Billy tells the story. Level A units are named from the child's
point of view; thus all the A units begin with 1. At Level B, the unit names start
with We.
The third SEARCH function has to do with "Producing and Consuming,"
obviously introducing the child to basic economic dimensions and to the world
of work. In Unit PI, "I Use My Day to Do Things," Level A children are
introduced to the use of time as a valued commodity. The main character is an
American Indian named Stanley Crow. This is followed by Pl, "I Produce and
Consume," a unit in which two young girls named Patty Production and Connie
Consumption explain the rudiments of basic economic life and exchange to the
students.
Only the Stage I or kindergarten units of Level A have been reviewed here. It
is suggested that the units be kept in sequence-that is, I should be taught before
2-but any of the functions could be studied at any time.
The fourth function, U, is for "Utilizing Environments," those materials in
SEARCH that stress ecological and geographical concepts. The main SEARCH
character in Unit UI, "I Have Surroundings," is Greta Mae Grasshopper, who
introduces to children the basic aspects of the environment around them. Greta
Mae is followed by two other SEARCH characters off to learn about various
forms of transportation in Unit U2, "I Travel in My Surroundings." These
characters are Manuel Ramirez and Charlotte Bronowski. The reader can see that
there is more than a Sesame Street interest in character generation in SEARCH.
Ethnic variety and concerns about racial or sexual bias are necessary elements of
176 Barbara Z. Presseisen

a social studies program today: these are imbedded in SEARCH materials and
characters, even for kindergarten students.
The fifth and last SEARCH Function is "Interpreting and Generating Ideas
and Events," the I Units. These are the cultural units of SEARCH, stemming
from history, anthropology, and psychology and concentrating on man's creative
achievements. In Unit 1, the main character is an ll-year-old girl, Penelope
Jones, who with her time machine tells about "I Grow and Change." Penelope
introduces the concepts of time and growth to kindergarteners by comparing
herself with her 6-year-old sister. And fmally, there is one of SEARCH's favorite
characters, Owlice the Owl, in Unit 12, "I See the Seasons Change." I Units
introduce the concept of time to students much as U Units introduce the
concept of space. These are two important social studies concepts, as well as
basic Piagetian building blocks.
SEARCH has been developed as a multimedia program. The child's per-
ceptual needs demand something graphic and stimulating, but we believe that
material must come alive for conceptual reasons, too. The manipulative quality
of operating on those things that one studies has brought puzzles and games into
SEARCH instruction, as well as traditional materials of the primary classroom :
paints, clay, crayons, scissors, and paste. Teachers in our training program are
encouraged to use multimedia to extend the ideas in the basic content. These
materials are also actually employed in our instruction.
There is also the concern that SEARCH serve individualized needs. If the
program was to be useful to various students at differing times and to be
available at the student's optimum rate, it was necessary to develop an instruc-
tional plan for all units of SEARCH.
The SEARCH flowchart of the sequence of instructional events in every unit
is called the SEARCH Map. It is one of the first things taught to kindergarten
children and they are instructed, without having to read words, to follow the
symbols on the instruction chart.
The first thing that happens in a SEARCH unit is that the child is diag-
nostically tested for the unit, hence the UD diamond on the left for "Unit
Diagnostic." 0 stands for "Orientation," the circle, and is mainly a motivational
or introductory group session, followed by the three main instructional phases
of the unit: E for "Encounter," R for "Research," and A for "Action." There
are double ERA activities in SEARCH because we premise a choice on the

FIGURE 4. The SEARCH map.

Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies CUIIiculurn 177

student's part between fairly equivalent kinds of lessons. The difference in E

activities one and two in Level A units is in alternative media, such as using a
book instead of a slide tape presentation. Action is divided, too, between
Production and Demonstration, which will be discussed later. Finally, the child
is tested again to find out what he has accomplished in the unit and to compare
his performance to his record before instruction. In the field test of SEARCH,
these tests are used with a control classroom to see how comparable students
perform on the instruments without any actual instruction in SEARCH.
Once a child has selected his unit of study-and the teacher determines what
units are available-the very first thing he must do is to take a test to fmd out
what he knows about that unit. He therefore takes a Unit Diagnostic. There are
three subtests in a Unit Diagnostic. The first test examines the child in terms of
his fluency in language, which is an evocative measure. That means the child
must show that he has the necessary language for understanding the unit
available to him; he does so by performance. The language test of the Unit
Diagnostic requires individual administration, and it must be given first so as not
to contaminate the second test. The teacher records the student's language
responses and limits his or her own intervention or probing during the examina-
tion.
The second sub test of the Unit Diagnostic is an Image Test. SEARCH
maintains that the child must learn the appropriate imagery of the particular
content of a unit in order to work productively with the unit. Therefore, a
pretest is given to fmd out what the child can show that he can do with respect
to the imagery. Performance is sometimes the test, but more often it is a written
choice. Since language must be used to convey our requests to the child, that
test is given first, to see that we do not teach with the test itself.
The Language and Image Tests are really pretests for SEARCH Encounter
activities, which seek to teach the nessary language and imagery for completing
the unit. The third subtest, Research, strives to examine the child in terms of the
more manipulative processes of a research activity. The child might be asked to
use Encounter information to work out a particular problem. The Image and
Research subtests are usually organized to be small-group or individual tests, and
the child most often responds to them in a written manner.
Following the Unit Diagnostic on the SEARCH Map is the Orientation
session, the circle, which is primarily a motivational lesson for the student. It
strives to introduce the child to the unit. The teacher uses material in a larger
group setting and the group is composed of children starting a unit that they
have just commonly selected. In orientation, a particular piece of motivating
material-a poster or a picture-might spur discussion. Language exchange is
important, and the child has a chance to express what he knows about the topic
before instruction begins.
There is no reading in Level A SEARCH materials. The first- or second-grade
nonreader in social studies is not penalized because he cannot read at grade level.
178 Barbara Z. Presseisen

Cassette tapes and graphics are used to carry information to the student.
Teachers have often been seen to relate SEARCH materials to their language
programs, and they provide key words and ideas in a literal way. This kind of
relationship is a natural one to build in Orientation. It often helps us to see what
frame of reference the child brings to our program.
Mter Orientation, the child either goes on to the Encounter or Research
activities as his firet instructional event. This is determined by the results of the
Unit Diagnostic. If the child shows strong enough ability in the Language and
Image subtests, he can skip Encounter and go directly to Research. But if his
Language and/or Image work needs further development, he studies the En-
counter materials.
Encounter activities usually mean working alone and using a tape with
graphics or manipulative material. Sometimes a student uses headsets in En-
counter so that he can concentrate on the image and language task. We have to
make sure the child knows what we are talking about visually and linguistically
before going on to the next place on the SEARCH Map, "Research." In both
Encounter and Research activities the child has a choice between two equivalent
lessons. As mentioned earlier, in Level A units only the media differ in these
activities. In the first classroom tryout, large class groups elected to complete
activities RI or R2. When the fully individualized system is implemented, this
choice will just be part of the individual student's sequence through the
SEARCH Map.
Research activities strive to apply the Encounter concepts in relatively closed
problem situations, to make the child apply the information in his quest for a
resolution to the problem. Games or puzzles are very common in Research tasks,
and they facilitate making the child operate on objects as he thinks about the
concepts in question. Research usually involves a partner relationship in the
game or puzzle, and the children are conSciously encouraged to share and talk
about their tasks. Research is also self-correcting: if your puzzle does not work
or your game does not have a winner you may not have done the task correctly.
In Level A materials, many of the classic card games of pre operations are used:
War, Fish, Old Maid. Simplified Monopoly is found to be effective with the 5- to
7-year old. The most important aspect of the Research activity is the child's
working with materials as he resolves the problem-grouping, sorting, comparing,
contrasting-preferably with every sense that can be employed. Obviously, the
more cognitively active we can make the child in his completion of the Research
task, the better our chances to influence his mental structure about the problem.
The third major instructional phase of SEARCH is the Action activity. There
are actually two subdivisions of Action, "Production" and "Demonstration." In
general, Action aims at the child's applying SEARCH's ideas and concepts to his
world, to the social reality that the child knows and lives. There are two
activities that produce something from which he can choose. Again, the choice is
made on the basis of alternate media. Mter producing a picture or a diorama or
a clay model, the child demonstrates his application to his peers and talks about
Piaget's The<ny Applied to a SOcial Studies Curriculum 179

it. Then they share their products and compare their several views of the
assigned task.
Action Production first requires some planning of what the child has decided
to do. Some children work alone here, some work with friends; that is their
choice or the teacher's decision. The novelty of media challenges the child to
represent the concepts he has studied in ways that relate to what he knows in his
world. Piaget might suggest that every child should reinvent the social phe-
nomena he is studying. That is not a terribly practical goal in some learning
situations. In SEARCH, we maintain that at least we can have him reconstruct
the phenomena. A first-grader's first map of his own home may be an ap-
propriate Action product of reconstruction.
The second Action activity is one of demonstrating, in a large group, what
the child has learned or made. Action Demonstration is the chance to perform
knowledge in a larger social unit, as in having children act out the actual pieces
of furniture on their home or school map. One of our outside evaluators
suggested that this activity be moved up to the Orientation session because the
motivating influence was so effective. This will be considered in our revision of
that particular unit.
The fmal activity on the SEARCH Map is the Unit Measure, the posttest that
examines what has been gained in the unit. The three subtests are repeated,
except where Encounter Image and Language were judged competent earlier.
Students who showed initial competence do not require retesting. Where defi-
ciencies in either Encounter or Research are found, the student can be recycled
to the alternate activity, R2 if he has done Rl, to help him work further on that
particular aspect of the learning.
There are many difficulties in the gathering of information in a develop-
mental classroom. A great deal goes on and it takes several staff people to
monitor it adequately. A rather extensive evaluation plan has been devised that
will not be elaborated upon here. Rather, let us close with just a reminder of our
main objectives in SEARCH:
1. Has the content of social studies been represented so that it is meaning-
ful to the child and so that he can use it?
2. Has the material been developed so that it is appropriate in terms of the
processes the child must use to work out the basic social studies con-
cepts?
3. Has an instructional system been developed that organizes the material
into an effective program for the individual to follow, with the options
and provisions he needs?
If so, then we have a basic social education program that is worthy of being
called Piagetian.
To return to the criteria of curriculum development in the first part of this
paper, some very general conclusions might be stated about applying Piagetian
theory to a social studies curriculum.
180 Barbara Z. Presseisen

First, conceptual knowledge of social studies is important to basic learning

but moreso in interdisciplinary ways than as a strict discipline of knowledge.
Expression of the concepts must always be paralleled to the child's cognitive
organization and the ways he perceives the material conveying these concepts.
Second, the child's learning processes, both cognitive and affective or social,
must be integrated with the stages of development that the students in a
program currently manifest. There is more to find out in this area-particularly
about students in special education or about students with any learning disability-
than curriculum developers realize. For example, problems of imagery
and language must be tackled. We must fmd out more about bilingualism and
socialization in the schools, as well.
Third, the role of multimedia is a very important area to tackle in curriculum
development. It has been found that in K-3 classrooms, it is "the stuff' that
students and teachers really want. A real challenge is how to make the manipula-
tive, graphic, and audio material best relate to the cognitive processes and stages,
so that the student operates most freely.
Fourth, it has been found that the management plan is about as good as the
teacher education program, and that needs to be developed with the teacher's
developmental level and attitude about about teaching as a basic consideration.
We would like to see different ways of developing teachers' expertise related to
SEARCH-and to Piagetian theory-but that goal is far outside our current work
scope.
Last, in terms of evaluation, much more extensive data are needed. SEARCH
is made in a craft workshop. No matter how good a population the elementary
school we use affords our evaluation staff, a much broader-based and larger N is
needed if we are to say that any results are valid. It was said that developing a
Piaget-based curriculum is an extensive task and a complex one; we would not
want to be discouraging, for it is both challenging and rewarding.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Originally presented at a conference on the application of Piaget to Curricu-

lum for Exceptional Children (December 1975) and published here with the
permission of the Texas Education Agency and Research for Better Schools, Inc.

References

Bruner, J. The process of education. New York: Vintage Books, 1960.

Castle, E. B. Ancient education and today. Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1964.
Dewey, J. Experience and education. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1938.
Dewey, J. Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
Piaget's Theory Applied to a Social Studies Cumculurn 181

Duckworth, E. Piaget rediscovered. In R. E. Ripple & V. N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget

rediscovered. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1964.
Elkind, D. Piaget and British primary education. Educational Psychologist, 1974, 2(1),
1-10.
Hunt, J. MeV. Intelligence and experience. New York: Ronald Press, 1961.
Overton, W. F. Piaget's theory of intellectual development ana progressive education. InA
new look at progressive education. Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, 1972.
Piaget, J. Development and learning. In R. E. Ripple & V. N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget
rediscovered. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1964.
Piaget, J. The moral judgment of the child. New York: The Free Press, 1965.
Piaget, J. Six psychological studies. New York: Ranaom House, 1967.
Piaget, J. Main trends in inter-disciplinary research. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970. (a)
Piaget, J. Structuralism. New York: Basic Books, 1970. (b)
Piaget, J. To understand is to invent. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973.
Piaget, J. Le role de l'action dans la formation de la pensee. Philadelphia: The Jean Piaget
Society, 1976.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. [The Psychology of the Child] (H. Weaver, trans.). New York:
Basic Books, 1969.
Presseisen, B. Z. Piaget's conception of structure: Implications for curriculum. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia, 1971.
Spencer, H. Education: Intellectual, moral and physical. Patterson, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams,
1963.
 CHAPTER 13

The Application of Piagetian Learning

Theory to a Science Curriculum Project
Marilyn H. Appel
Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of Piagetian theory to the
development of an individualized science program. From this seemingly simple
sentence emerge several very complex issues: the nature of science, the nature of
science teaching, the nature of individualization, the process of curriculum
development, and the nature of Piagetian theory. It is possible in this discussion
merely to touch upon these issues and to show how an attempt to resolve the
problems has resulted in a Personalized Approach to Science Education (PASE),
a K-8 science program based on the developmental theory of Jean Piaget.
In order to provide a framework for a common understanding of efforts in
the development of the science curriculum over the past 50 years, Merrill (1971)
described three stages in the evolution of science programs. Stage I may be
described briefly as fact-centered: characterized by textbooks and teacher
lecture/demonstration methods. Stage II has a process-structure focus. This stage
is discussed in detail in a later section of this paper. Stage III is difficult to
describe, for we are just beginning to enter this stage. In an attempt to offer
some parameters for this stage, Menjll suggested that the science curricula of
Stage III will be individualized in terms of instruction and interdisciplinary in
terms of science content.
Most of us are familiar with Stage I; it is the way many of us learned science.
We had textbooks; we read each chapter carefully and answered the questions at
the end of each chapter; and if we felt so inclined, we did "extra credit" reports.
We had exams regularly, and to study for them we memorized the bits and
pieces of information contained in the text. But science educators, along with
183
184 Marilyn H. Appel

the American people, were shaken to their loots when the Russians achieved a
successful space mission before we did. Suddenly, the public focused its atten-
tion on the ways in which science was taught, and the federal government
poured funds into programs to improve science education.
This focus on science education over the past 20 years (since Sputnik) has
resulted in a number of science programs designed for use by elementary and
secondary school children. These programs vary in content, format, teaching
strategy, and price. Many programs retain the traditional textbook, the tradi-
tional content, and the traditional teacher-oriented approach to instruction.
Some have been updated by the addition of a chapter on space travel, computer
technology, environmental science, or other "modem" subjects. Many programs
take a "new" approach by including some of the more recent advances in
scientific knowledge; others incorporate teaching strategies that psychological
and educational research have indicated as promising. The latter programs tend
to be characterized by the use of equipment kits, stressing the manipulation of
concrete materials, the "inquiry" method, and/or the "discovery" approach.
With aid provided by various federal agencies, many new elementary science
programs have emerged, which characterize Stage II in the evolution of science
instruction. The most notable survivors are "Science-A Process Approach"
(SAPA) , the "Elementary Science Study" (ESS), and the "Science Curriculum
Improvement Study" (SCIS). A discussion of science curricula would not be
complete without some comparison of each of these programs, for each has a
different philosophical orientation and a different psychological base.
The "Elementary Science Study" (ESS) may be described as a nonse-
quenced, activity-oriented program developed primarily to provide children with
stimuli to explore natural phenomena and to help children develop favorable
attitudes toward science (Rogers & Voelker, 1970). ESS units are organized
around natural phenomena that have been shown to be of interest to children.
Major emphasis is placed upon getting children involved in exploring, not
necessarily in order to learn specific concepts in science but rather to encourage
them to ask questions and to find their own answers.
The AAAS sponsored program, entitled "Science-A Process Approach"
(SAPA) , takes off in quite a different direction. In the foreword to the teachers'
guide, SAPA is described as emphasizing the development of competence in
"skills basic to further learning" (SAPA, 1965). Each of the processes within the
program is hierarchically arranged, and behavioral objectives are carefully de-
filled. The processes have become very familiar; they include, among others:
observing, recognizing and using number relations, measuring, recognizing and
using space-time relations, classifying, communicating, inferring, and predicting.
The third major survivor of the elementary science reform movement of the
sixties is the "Science Curriculum Improvement Study" (SCIS), established in
1962 by Robert Karplus, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of
California, Berkeley. The major emphasis in ESS is on the exploration of natural
Application of Piagetian Learning Theory 185

phenomena, and the major emphasis in SAPA is on the acquisition of the basic
processes of science. The SCIS program is said to stress "the concepts and
phenomena, with process learnings an implicit by-product of the children's
experimentation, discussion, and analyses" (Karplus & Thier, 1967, p. 8). SCIS
has also been described as a laboratory-centered program built around the major
goals of understanding science principles, developing inquiry skills, and de-
veloping favorable attitudes toward science (Thomson & Voelker, 1970). In
order to produce a science program to help develop children's thinking and
inquiry skills, the authors of SCIS believe that the two most significant factors
that must be attended to are provision for "active physical and mental explora-
tion of reality, and social interaction with parents, teachers, and peers." For
those familiar with Piagetian developmental theory, these notions are not new,
and indeed, the authors of SCIS were greatly influenced by Piaget. Throughout
the program, they attempted to adhere to Piaget's basic notions concerning
cognitive development.
Further evidence of the Piagetian influence may be found in what SCIS
terms the "instructional cycle" built into the program. Briefly, the cycle is built
on three phases, which are entitled "Exploration," "Invention," and "Dis-
covery." In the exploration phase, children are permitted to "act on" the objects
in any way they wish. The teacher then "invents" the terminology in the second
phase. In the third part of the instructional cycle, the discovery phase, children
apply the knowledge gained in exploration and invention to new situations. The
point is made that children explore natural phenomena that are "different" from
the ones they are familiar with, so that they will have operational meaning.
Otherwise, children would merely be learning new names for familiar experi-
ences (Karplus & Thier, 1967, pp. 37-42).
In the discussion thus far, an attempt has been made to provide the reader
with some background in terms of where science was (Stage I) and where science
is today (Stage II). Stage II was described in terms of the three major science
programs, which have, in fact, changed science teaching on the elementary level
for a good proportion of schoolchildren. Although each program stems from a
different philosophical base-ESS emphasizing natural phenomena, SAPA
emphasizing the processes of science, and SCIS emphasizing the conceptual
structure of science-they are all similar in that they stress "hands-on" activities.
The impetus for this stress on the hands-on nature of these newer programs was
due in large measure to the research on learning performed by Piaget and his
collaborators in Geneva. The next portion of the discussion focuses directly on
Piaget's notions about science teaching and on the application of Piagetian
theory to an individualized program in science for the elementary school. This
individualized program, based on Piagetian theory, will hopefully be the har-
binger for Stage III in the evolution of science programs.
In describing a curriculum development effort, one might focus on at least
three elements of a program: the goals of a program, the science content used in
186 Marilyn H. Appel

the attempt to achieve these goals, and the instructional strategies consistent not
only with the goals but also with the content that is to be learned. One may view
these three elements in terms of a very simple model (Figure 1): an equilateral
triangle with the term goals at the vertex angle, content at one of the base
angles, and instructional strategies at the other base angle. One may superimpose
Piagetian theory on this model, determine what Piaget has to say about each of
these elements, and then apply the design to the development of a science
curriculum.
First, let us look at what might be the goals of science instruction. The most
popular goal of science teaching to emerge from the curriculum reform move-
ment of the sixties is termed scientific literacy. ScieJ)tific literacy has been
defmed in a number of ways, but perhaps it is more easily understood by means
of the following explanation. The fact that Russia had won the first round in the
effort to explore outer space had shown the American public that for the most
part, we had not been prepared to cope with new and unexpected fmdings. In
other words, we were not Scientifically literate citizens. Our legislators had not
made the judgments that would have allowed us to reach outer space first. The
public felt that the problem was the result of an educational deficiency,
particularly in the area of science. The problem could therefore be resolved if
the curriculum were to provide students with knowledge and experiences so that
they might understand, at least to some degree, the scientific work being done
by others, even if they themselves did not become scientists. Scientific literacy
has also been defmed as the ability to look at a situation from the "scientific
point of view" or as a "functional understanding of natural phenomena"
(Karplus & Thier, 1967, p. 26). Scientifically literate adults would therefore be
able to understand to some degree the problems that scientists face in trying to

GOALS

INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT
STRATEGIES
FIGURE 1.
Application of Piagetian Learning Theory 187

solve the problems of energy and the environment, to evaluate alternatives on

the basis of available data, and to make judgments concerning proposed legisla-
tion based upon an intelligent appraisal of the specific situation and its long-term
ramifications. Piaget has also argued strongly for scientific literacy. He has stated
specifically that the major emphasis in science instruction should be the "under-
standing of certain basic phenomena through the combination of deductive
reasoning and the data of experience" (Piaget, 1973, p. 21). Thus, Piaget's
notions concerning the major goal of science instruction would appear to be
consistent with previous definitions of scientific literacy. He has included not
only the knowledge but also the scientific viewpoint.
The developer of a Stage III science program must make certain decisions
concerning the elements of the program. One of the decisions would have to be
in terms of program goals. There is no doubt that there are any number of goals
one might attempt to achieve through science instruction; however, those goals
that are chosen reflect the biases, the knowledge, and the value orientation of
the developer and are therefore based upon selected criteria. If the criteria were
determined by a taking into account of our present knowledge of Stage II
science instruction, as well as the teachings of Piaget, there is no question that
one of the major thrusts of any Stage III science program would be toward
helping children to become scientifically literate adults.
According to the triangular model described previously (Figure 1), once the
goal(s) has been chosen, what must now be determined is what to teach
(content) and how to teach it (instructional strategies). It would be foolish,
indeed, to assume that there are no alternatives; however, again, the knowledge
we have gained from F::tst efforts and the teachings of Piaget may be useful in
helping us determine the most appropriate content and instructional strategies.
The present state of knowledge in the area of science is fairly overwhelming.
Having children attempt to learn only about the major developments of the past
10 years would provide them with superficial knowledge and a superficial
understanding at best. One of the outcomes of the curriculum reform movement
of the sixties was the realization that we could not "cover" everything. We could
not continue to add chapters to the biology text or to add courses like
biochemistry or ecology to the already overloaded rosters of the elementary or
secondary school child.
Zaccharias was one of the first developers to attempt to change the focus of
the traditional science content. Within the program for which he was responsi-
ble, the Physical Science Study Commission (pSSC), a major effort was made to
restructure the content of the discipline by reducing the emphasis on facts and
placing the emphasis instead on a broader conceptual base. This became the
most recognizable characteristic of Stage II science programs: the stress on the
structure of the discipline. Both scientists and educators attempted to define the
major concepts of science in an effort to determine what content was most
appropriate for children to learn. Needless to say, there were almost as many
188 Marilyn H. Appel

structures to a discipline as there were scientists. However, out of their efforts

came the realization that science has not only a substantive structure or struc-
tures but a syntactical structure as well (Schwab, 1964, pp. 9-11). In other
words, there were broad conceptual schemes that could be defmed in a variety
of ways, and there was also a methodology to science. In Stage I, this metho-
dology was called the scientific method, and we memorized the steps. In Stage
II, the scientific processes were implicit or, as in the case of SAPA, explicit. In
the SAPA program, the processes became the content. There is no necessity to
belabor the issue. Briefly, we have learned from Stage II that the content of
science programs would focus on both structure and process.
Piaget is often reluctant to express his ideas concerning education, but in the
case of the content of science instruction, Piaget is very ex-plicit. He 20ints out
that: "it is obvious that if the teaching of the sciences is to adapt to the
conditions of scientific progress and form creative rather than imitative minds, it
should stress structuralism" (Piaget, 1973, p. 28). Piaget goes on to describe
structuralism in science for both the physical and the biological sciences as
follows: "physical structuralism with its indefmite extension of the attributes of
the systems to explanatory models representing the intersection of the objects
themselves; biological structuralism with its problems of equilibration or self-
regulation" (Piaget, 1973, p. 29). For Piaget, a structuralist approach to choos-
ing the content of science is insufficient for learning. It is also necessary to
cultivate the "experimental spirit" (piaget, 1973). The experimental spirit is
essentially providing enough flexibility within the program to allow children to
explore and experiment on their own terms, so that they may gain experience
and skill in the processes of science.
Thus, Piaget, as well as the Stage II scientists and educators, argues for a
process-structure focus for science instruction. In addition, it should be pointed
out that for Piaget, process and structure are not separate issues but are
interrelated and interacting.
In developing a science program, it is not only necessary to know what to
teach, but much consideration must be given to the order in which this content
is taught and the level or quality of understanding that is desired. The guiding
principle that emerges from Piaget's theory in regard to this aspect of curriculum
design is the concept of stage (Inhelder, 1953). According to Piaget, cognitive
development is sequential. Each child may develop at his own individual rate,
yet all children will pass through a regular sequence of stages in the developmental
process, each stage characterized by the nature of the mental operations in-
volved.
To the reader of Piagetian theory, the stages of cognitive development are
quite familiar. They have been described in the literature extenSively and have
been found, through hundreds of research efforts both here and abroad, to be a
valid description of the development of thinking. The important issue here,
however, is not the stages per se but how the knowledge of these stages can be
Application of Piagetian Learning Theory 189

helpful in determing the content hierarchy for science instruction for school-age
children.
The first stage of cognitive development, occurring in the first 2 years of a
child's life, is characterized by adaptation and the establishment of the concept
of object permanence. Object permanence or constancy is essential for later
learning. It allows the child to differentiate between himself and the reality that
exists externally. Another characteristic of this first stage is the development of
a primitive notion of causality and the discovery, through trial-and-error experi-
mentation, that specific actions produce specific results. Furthermore, the child
has learned to think symbolically, retaining mental images beyond his immediate
perception and anticipating events as well as the results of his actions. The child
then enters the preoperational period, characterized by increasing perceptual
development, in which he learns to use symbolic substitutes, such as language
and mental imagery, for the sensorimotor activities of the previous stage. The
behaviors characteristic of the preoperational period are symbolic game-
playing and imitation. Response patterns of children during this stage are
perceptually centered, and the child believes what he sees rather than what he
knows (Pulaski, 1971).
It is not until the child's thought can operate independently of what he sees
physically that he enters the period of concrete operations, or the third stage in
Piaget's developmental model. Piaget's descriptions of this period of concrete
operations have stimulated a great deal of research and are most important to
understand in terms of curriculum development. The major idea here is that the
child in this stage can now think logically about things he sees and need no
longer accept superficial appearances. However, these thought processes are
influenced by concrete experiences and direct action. It is the dynamic inter-
action of the child's actions and the thought processes that are brought to bear
on these experiences that help the child to develop and establish the concepts of
conservation during this period.
The child is not yet able to deal with abstractions, but as he gains experi-
ences in the concrete stage that reinforce the logical operations and permit him
to begin to predict on the basis of this data of experience, he enters the stage of
formal operations, or the fourth stage of cognitive development as described by
Piaget. The emerging adolescent begins to uncover the general laws and to
formulate representational models that can explain his observations.
It is clear that, for Piaget, development is consistent, continuous, and
sequential, each stage evolving out of the previous one and contributing to the
next. The essence of development is interaction, and the child is an active
explorer and discoverer, adjusting to what he perceives and modifying it to meet
his needs. The fundamental processes repeat themselves at every stage and within
every individual, but a child responds to an event according to his current stage
of cognitive development. Piaget explains it this way: "the child must pass
through a certain number of stages characterized by ideas which will later be
190 Marilyn H. Appel

judged erroneous but which appear necessary in order to reach the fmal correct
solution" (Piaget, 1973, p. 21).
The implications of the above statement are far-reaching, not only in terms
of curriculum development but also in terms of teacher training. The problems
of teacher training are in a subsequent section of this paper.
Thus far, in terms of the triangular model of curriculum design, we have
discussed a possible long-range goal and the content of a science program that
would be consistent with this goal. In attempts to describe the Piagetian
framework and the ways in which it can be related to curriculum design, it
becomes clear that in order to help children to become scientifically literate, the
curriculum must be structured in such a way as to provide for the development
of children's thinking. It is not possible to be scientifically literate, according to
the previous definition, at the level of preoperational thought, or even at the
level of concrete operations. In order to understand natural phenomena to the
degree where judgments can be made concerning the proposed actions of the
scientific community, or of the legislature, one should be functioning at the level
of formal operations. Thus, not only has Piaget provided us with a basis for
choosing science content and the sequencing of it, but also from his theory has
evolved another long-range goal: encouraging the development of formal opera-
tional thought.
Perhaps it is tautologous to mention cognitive development as a goal, for
scientific literacy and formal operational thinking are synergetic: one cannot
develop functional understanding of the basic scientific phenomena without the
full development of inferential or formal thought processes. It is interesting to
note that Piaget and Inhelder point out very clearly the convergence between the
understanding of the laws of natural science and hypotheticodeductive thinking
(Inhelder & Piaget, 1958).
However, teaching the structure of science, or the laws of natural science, or
sequencing the content according to what we know about the stages of cognitive
development, will not in themselves build inquiring minds. Here, we are ex-
amining the third angle of the model for curriculum design: the instructional
strategies that would be most appropriate for the goals and content previously
described.
Piaget's general prescription is a familiar one: "to know an object, to know
an event, is not simply to look at it and make a mental copy or image of it. To
know an object is to act upon it" (piaget, 1964, p. 177). Piaget goes on to speak
specifically of science teaching when he states that major emphasis must be
placed on the ''use of active methods which gave broad scope to the spontaneous
research of the child or adolescent and requires that every new truth to be
learned, be rediscovered or at least reconstructed by the student, and not simply
imparted to him" (Piaget, 1973, p. 15).
These statements have become the basis for the "discovery methods" or
"inquiry approaches" used by Stage II science programs. In addition, the
Application of Piagetian Learning TheoIY 191

production of kits of science materials along with deemphasizing the textbook

method came as the result of the teachings of Piaget and, in this country, Jerome
Bruner. Every national and local curriculum development effort from the sixties
to the present has placed a major emphasis on the hands-on approach to science
instruction. Even textbooks offer suggestions for the use of concrete materials.
States that in the past have permitted only textbooks are now beginning to
accept programs that have teacher's guides, student workbooklets, and science
kits. This is one aspect of the impact of learning theory on program development
and teaching.
Although this is a step in the right direction, Piaget warns us that:
acquisition or construction of fundamental ideas provided data which seem
decisively in favor of the active methods, and which require a much more
radical reform of intellectualleaming than many supporters themselves of the
active school image. (piaget, 1973, pp. 9-10)

It is the contention of this author that individualization of instruction is the

instructional strategy most appropriate to the promotion of cognitive develop-
ment and scientific literacy. Piaget confirms this in a number of ways, but he
also points out the danger of individualization when it is thought of merely as
"isolation" or "independent study."
Piaget not only stresses individual experience in experimentation but also
emphasizes the importance of social interactions and discussions in common.
The task of the instructional designer, therefore, is to reconcile individualized
instructional strategies and social interaction. It is a difficult but not impossible
task, provided that individualization is not viewed in its narrowest sense.
At this point the discussion of each aspect of the model for curriculum
design has led us to the follOwing conclusions concerning the elements of a Stage
III science program:

1. Goals. Scientific literacy-cognitive development.

2. Content. ProcesS-structure focus (sequence determined by Piaget's stages
of cognitive development).
3. Instruction. Individualized while providing social interaction.
A science program containing these elements would appear to fit Merrill's
description of a Stage III program. What follows is a description of a science
program that not only contains the elements described above but also has its
roots in Piagetian theory.
The "Personalized Approach to Science Education" (PASE) is an individ-
ualized science program for the primary and middle years that offers a field-
tested, uniquely designed product that enables the teacher to provide a
personalized program for each child. PASE includes personalized training for the
teacher, a classroom management system, lesson activity booklets for the pupil,
and keyed science materials designed to make personalized science a reality. In
192 Marilyn H. Appel

addition, PASE offers increased flexibility, for the program can be used by both
students and teachers in a variety of ways.
PASE is a program that has brought together advanced thinking in science
curriculum, in learning theory, and in instructional design and management
systems. It is the goal of this project to provide a sequential and developmental
program for the primary and middle years, organized in a system that facilitates
a personalized approach to learning. The system enables the learner to develop
and experience science concepts and processes in a completely individualized
way. Experience in the PASE program not only allows the learner to understand
what scientists face when they try to solve difficult problems of energy and the
environment, but it enables them, as citizens, to evaluate alternative solutions on
the basis of available data. Eventually, children who have experienced the PASE
system will be able to make judgments concerning proposed legislation based
upon intelligent appraisal of the specific situation and its long-term ramifica-
tions.
Figure 2 illustrates the goals of the program.
The PASE program provides opportunities for children to learn scientific
concepts in ways consistent with their own levels of cognitive development and
individual learning styles. The recommended individualized system aims to
promote the child's self-concept and self-management skills, with the recognition
that individualized learning does not mean learning in isolation.
The learner sometimes works alone, at other times works within small
groups, and at still other times receives instruction from the teacher in a directed
or demonstration lesson. The mode of instruction depends upon the activity the

GOALS
CHOICES.. .., SELF-CONF'IO
..... elic
-e,
"b
~c,
SCIENTI FIC ;r"
01-
Ability to assess
the consequences
LITERACY
Appreciation for 1-
~z
of changes in and ability to
ecosystems and use and apply
theoretical mo-
11... desire to parti-
cipate in pro-
grams dea ling
dels in science
as well as
C')

~ with environmen- other fields of

COGNITIVE endeavor.
"", tal improvement.
DEVELOPMENT
',b",
oQ.,~
Ss "
SeLF'-MANAGEMEM1 .' . ReSPONSIBILITY , ' •

FIGURE 2.
Application of Piagetian Learning Theoty 193

child has selected and the concept to be developed. Throughout the program,
the learner is offered alternatives for learning involving hands-on activities,
recording data, reading, listening to a tape recording, or interacting with peers
and/or the teacher.
The variety of ways in which PASE is individualized are described below:
1. Children are placed in the program at a level consistent with their own levels
of cognitive development.
2. Children progress at their own rates of speed.
3. Children are evaluated individually by means of a variety of problem-cen-
tered activities that they choose to complete.
4. Children choose the lessons they wish to do.
5. Children are rsponsible for picking up and returning all the materials they
use.
6. Children use different modes of instruction.
7. Children learn in a variety of social situations.
8. Children keep track of their own progress.
It is expected that science content that has a cognitively logical structure
should lead to the desired outcomes described previously. The PASE program
develops the concept of "system" in a spiraling fashion from its Simplest
component-the objects in a system and their attributes-to a more abstract
notion of the intersection of a variety of biological and physical systems and
their representational models. In the PASE program, the biological and physical
sciences are completely integrated.
Figure 3 demonstrates the conceptual framework of PASE along with the
appropriate stages of cognitive development and science processes.
A large variety of lessons have been provided to give each child many
opportunities to work with and experience a concept in the program. Each child
develops an understanding through many experiences with the same concept,
using many different activities, instructional media, and instructional techniques.
A particular child may do far less, in terms of numbers of lessons or activities,
yet gains an understanding of the same concept as the child who may need or
want to do many more lessons. The conceptual thrust is thus based upon the
acceptance of the individuality of the leamer, with many alternatives leading to
the same conceptual idea. The paths selected and the amount of time the child
utilizes to achieve an understanding of the given concept is a matter of personal
choice and teacher guidance.
The variety and the choice built into the PASE program make it necessary to
provide the teacher with a way to manage and to keep track of the diversity within
a single classroom, so that each child may indeed have a personalized program.
The management system has to take into account the children, as individuals,
and the materials with which they work. The PASE program provides a manage-
ment technique through the instructional cycle. Each concept in the program is
194 Marilyn H. Appel

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF PASE

SCIENCE SCIENCE COGNITIVE

CONCEPTS PROCESSES PROCESSES

Intersection of Self-regulation/ Formal

equ!.ibration operations

t
systems \

-I
+
Exp lana tory Variables
models
transition
Interdependence
I
t
Attributes of
systems
\ Concrete
operations
"systems
Interacting
Reversibility
Repr~uc I'b iIi ty t
Objects~

objects +
Properties
(Attributes)
trans Ition
pre-o~erational
FIGURE 3.

made up of activities that fit into three phases of an instructional cycle. Each
child, then, follows the instructional sequence for each of the concepts to be
learned at his own level of cognitive functioning.
Upon enterlllg the program at a concept consistent with his level of cognitive
development, the child begins with the "exploration" phase of the instructional
cycle. He chooses from a variety of exploration lessons according to his own
interests and motivation. These preliminary investigations allow the child to
become acquainted with the concept to be learned through a variety of concrete,
hands-on, open-ended activities. The second phase of the instructional cycle is
termed "reflection," in which the child experiences more structured, convergent
types of activities based upon a specific concept. Reflection lessons help the
child to develop an awareness of scientific phenomena and the language with
which to deal with them. The third phase of the instructional cycle is called
"investigation," which encompasses divergent, problem-centered activities. In-
vestigation activities are open-ended activities in which a child can apply and
extend the knowledge gained in the two previous phases of instruction.
A simple self-management device for each concept in the programs allows the
child to keep track of his choices and completed lessons and provides the teacher
with the basis for determining where the child is and how he is progressing
through the program. A unique feature of the management system is the
"self-management" unit for the children new to the program. In this unit, the
Application of Piagetian Learning TheolY 195

child learns how to work in the program and the kinds of things for which he is
responsible.
Figure 4 shows how a child progresses through the program.
Each unit is accompanied by a set of self-administered pre- and posttests that
help the teacher determine the child's need for the unit and/or the need for
further work in a particular unit. The management system also includes materials
storage, retrieval, and handling. Since the teacher's role is dependent upon
continual interactions with the children, it is necessary wifrJn a personalized
system to direct the teacher's efforts toward the child and to place increased
responsibility for care of materials in the hands of the child. For this reason each
child is responsible for the acquisition and replacement of the materials as
needed.
The hardware of the program is uniquely designed to avoid duplication
inherent in other kit programs. This is accomplished through the use of a core
kit containing the objects used repeatedly throughout the program to teach
several different concepts. Such a kit may serve as a supply center for several
teachers. This core kit contains such items as tumblers, vials, terrarium-
aquarium containers, bulbs, wires, and other nonconsumables.
Modular kits are also used in conjunction with the core kits and, for the
most part, are not used by several teachers at the same time. The modular kits
contain the materials used to teach specific subconcepts in the program, for
example, food chain-food web and energy transfer.

self-
management
..... placement
in a
unit .
~: explorat ion

I ref1 ect i on I
+
investigation

•
placement in I
appl ication
extension

.
a new unit I
9'
H.
exploration

I refl ect ion I

~
investigation
appl ication
extension
FIGURE 4.
196 Marilyn H. Appel

The concepts of the PASE program, while designed to be taught hier-

archically, can be taught independently. Thus, a school having a district-designed
science curriculum can use those modular kits that teach concepts contained
within their own programs.
For each concept in the program, a booklet of lessons is provided. In
addition, the lessons are easily identifiable as exploration, reflection, or investi-
gation activities. After placement in a specific concept in the program, the child
receives the corresponding booklet of lessons. He then chooses the lessons he
wishes to do (beginning with exploration and following the instructional cycle in
sequence), removes the chosen lesson from the booklet, gathers the necessary
materials, does the "experiment, records the results, and places the completed
lesson in an individual progress folder. Children progressing through the unit, to
reflections and investigations, continue to remove the chosen lessons appropriate
to the phase of the instructional cycle and to store completed lessons in the
personalized folder as a continuous record of work in that unit. The teacher can
pick up an individual child's folder at any time and determine individual progress
at a glance.
One of the most important factors heralding the successful implementation
of any instructional system is based on how the teacher sees, perceives, and
internalizes his or her role within the total framework of the program. Providing
a well-organized, realistic, expeditious approach to learning, the program aims to
give teachers not only the mind set of success but the skills to ensure it.
In order to adapt to this particular approach to instruction, teachers are
provided with a training program that reflects the personalized learning process
ofPASE. The program has several unique features:
1. It is a separate package.
2. It is self-instructional (Le., it needs no expert, highly paid consultant to
lead expensive workshops).
3. The teacher can choose to work through the program alone or with
others in the training.
4. It is self-paced.
5. Teachers experience every aspect of the PASE program that both teacher
and student might encounter.

The content of the teacher training package includes the following:

1. Pre- and postassessment activities.

2. The concept of a discussion of personalization.
3. The science content ofPASE.
4. Ways to manage a personalized instructional system.
5. The role of the teacher.
6. The use of paraprofessionals when available.
7. The role of the student.
Application of Piagetian Learning Theory 197

8. Hardware and software: how to set up a personalized learning environ-

ment.
9. Follow-up materials: diagnosis of problems before they arise.
10. Care and feeding techniques for living things.
The content and instructional strategies inherent in the teacher training pro-
gram ensure the successful implementation of the PASE program.
The PASE program, attempting to adhere to the notions of how children
learn as proposed by Piaget, has carefully sequenced the science content and has
devised the management system necessary to allow teachers to provide for the
individual child at his or her level of cognitive development.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Originally presented at a conference on the Application of Piaget to Cur-

riculum for Exceptional Children (December 1975) and published here with the
permission of the Texas Education Agency.

References

Butts, D. Teaching science in the elementary school. New York: The Free Press, 1973.
Capie,W. R. Curriculum reviews: SAPA-II. Science and Children, 1975,12(4),28-29.
Inhelder, B. Criteria of stages in mental development. In J. M. Tanner & B. Inhelder (Eds.),
Discussions on child development, Vol. 1. New York: International University Press,
1953.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. [The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence: An
essay on the construction of formal operational structures]. (A. Parsons & S. Milgram,
. trans.). New York: Basic Books, 1958.
Karplus, R., & Thier, H. A new look at elementary school science. Chicago: Rand McNally,
1967.
Merrill, R. J. The science curriculum, the science teacher, and NSTA. The Science Teacher,
1971,38(5),36-39,66-67.
Piaget, J. Cognitive development in children: Development and learning. Journal of Re-
search in Science Teaching, 1964,2, 176-186.
Piaget, J. To understand is to invent: The future of education. New York: Grossman, 1973.
Pulaski, M. Understanding Piaget. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Rogers, R. E., & Voelker, A. M. Programs for improving science instruction in the
elementary school: Part I. ESS. Science and Children, 1970,7(5), 35-43.
Schwab, J. J. Problems, topics, and issues. In Education and the structure of knowledge.
Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
Science-A Process Approach, Foreword. Washington: AAAS, 1965.
Science teaching in elementary and junior high schools. Reprinted from Science, 1961,
133(3469),2019-2024.
Thomson, B. S., & Voelker, A. M. Programs for improving science instruction in the
elementary school: Part II. SCIS. Science and Children, 1970,7(8),29-37.
 Index

AAAS,184, 197 Action (cont'd)

Ability intentional, 39, 40
abstracting, 134 multicomponent, 74
inherited, 167 self-initiated, 70
language, 93 two-component, 70, 71
metalinguistic, 92 Active school image, 191
raasoning Activity
analytical, 143 classification, 130
Aborigines exploration, 196
Australian,121,123 figurative, 85
Abstraction hands-on, 185, 193, 194
physical, 54 investigation, 196
reflective, 54 learning, 146
Accommodation, 3,5, 15, 34,41,54, 127, open-ended, 194
152 presentational, 84
assimilation and, xii, 4, 7, 11, 22, 122, 137 reading-readiness, 121
concept of, 15 reasoning, 139, 142
successive, 137 reflection, 196
Accumulation, 28 self-directed, 137
information, 29 sensorimotor, 78, 85, 189
Achievement Actualization
co~itive, 67 phenotypical, 88
cteative, 176 Adaptation, 29, 53,152,189
internalized, 73 biological, 22
sensorimotor, 67,68 cognitive, 22
Acquisition nonovert, 73
of ideas, 191 Administrators, 161,162
knowledge, 28, 29 Adolescent, 189, 190
language, 94 Aesthetic propensities, 169
Action Aesthetics, 174
direct, 189 Affect, 152
imitative, 152 syncresis of, 87

199
200 Index

Age Assimilation-accommodation, 29
chronological (CA), 66, 69, 142, 144,168 Assimilation capacity
mental (MA), 36,41,66,142-144 zones of, 64
Almy, M., 21,30,123,137 Associations, 54, 65
American Indian, 175 Associativity, 67
Analysis Astronomy, 165
stage, 115 Attention, 33
Anatomy, 34 Attitude
Anderson, L., 88, 90, 136, 138 sensoritonic, 4
Anomaly Autoregulation, 127, 137
semantic, 107,112 organic, 22
Anthropology, 173-176 Awareness
Anticipation of self, 169
spontaneous, 133-134
Appearance Badger, E. D., 42, 46-49
cognition of, 84 Basic skills, 166, 167
of dreams, 84 Behavior, 55, 96,189
and reality (AR), 84, 85, 87 adult, 155
of things, 84-85, 87 adultlike,91
Appel, M. H., xiv, xv, 183 autogenic, 39
Approach categorical, 111
aural-oral, 159 classificatory, 124, 129
basic skills, 165 cognitive, 54
content, 166 and environment, 30
discovery, 184 examining, 70
hands-on, 191 exploratory, 39
inquiry, 190 foresightful, 73
personalized, 192 human, 169
3R,165 interpersonal, 67
structuralist, 188 language, 115
teacher-oriented, 184 linguistic, 92
A priori, 9 means, 71
innate, 18 precooperative, 169
internal, 18 problem-solving, 67, 68
AR judgments Behaviorism, 5
figurative, 86 Beilin, H., 137
Area verbal-rule instruction, 136
conservation of, 124 Bell, S. M., 67, 74
Aristotle, 33 Bellugi, U., 93, 95, 116
Arithmetic, 119,159,165 spontaneous speech, 94
Art, 119 Bereiter, C., 123, 137,158
Ashby, W. R., 12, 25, 28,30 Berlyne, D. E., 39,48
Assessment Bertalanffy,
conservation, 143 concept of equilibrium, 30
Piagetian, 142, 143 Bethon, G., 124, 138
reasoning, 140, 142 Bever, T. G., 95,116
Assimilation, 9, 13, 15, 28, 34, 41, 54,127, Bias
128,152 racial,175
and accommodation,xii,4, 7,11 ,22,122,137 social,175
reciprocal, xiii, 63 Bilingualism, 180
schemes of, 3,5,11 Binet, A., 36, 38
successive, 137 Biochemistry, 187
Index 201

Biology, 9,23,30,64 Children

Bims, B., 67,74 Genevan,124,126,127
Bloom, L., 116 holophrastic, 95
spontaneous speech, 94 Houk-Lo, 126, 127
Bradley, F.H., 85, 86, 89 kindergarten, 176
appearance and reality, 84 school
Braine, M. D. S., 85, 89, 116 elementary, 184
spontaneousspeech,94 secondary,184,187
Brown, R., 93, 95, 116 white
spontaneousspeech,94 preschool,124
tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon, 115 Chomsky, N., 95,100,110,113-116,122,
Bruner, J. S., 21,30,71,74,88,89,167, 137,170
180,191 fIXed core, 8
Bryant, P. E., 78, 89 Chronological advancement
Butts, D., 197 child's, 172
Chronological age (CA), 66, 144, 168
Caesar, 166 measures of
Canadian-Indian, 124 Piagetian, 142, 143
Capacity Chronological age (CA) intervals, 69
assimilation, 64 Circular reaction
language, 95 level of, 67,68
linguistic, 101 primary,38
memorial, 114 Class
Capie, W. R., 197 complementary, 129, 130, 132
Carmichael, L., 34,48 extension of, 130
Cassirer, E., 85, 89 intension of, 130
Castle, F. B., 166, 180 subordinate, 120
Categorization superordinate, 120
of sensory data, 152 Class extension, 140
Category, 9 Oass inclusion, 55,61,63,140
linguistic, 114 Class inclusion-animals, 140
Causality, 26,53,66, 67, 69,77,156,189 Class inclusion-beads, 141
cyclic, 25, 27 Oassification, 11, 83, 96,101,128,133-135,
linear, 25, 27 137,147
operational, 35, 36,72 hierarchical, 121
physical,123 lexical, 114
Cause and effect logical, 129, 130
confusion of, 155 elementary, 140
understanding of, 147 multiple, 120
Cazden, C., 116 in primitive societies, 121
spontaneousspeech,94 of sentences, 105,113
Central processes simultaneous, 144
representative, 37, 38, 44 Classroom, 120, 156
Centration, 25 ideal, 160
Character generation K-3,180
in SEARCH, 175 open, 160, 166
Child physical, xiv
preoperational, see Preoperational child primary, 176
preschool,131 self-contained, 171
school Cognition, 5, 10,137, 152
elementary, 187 of appearance and reality, 84
sensorimotor, 78,184 form of, 77
202 Index

Cognition (cant'd) Concept (cont'd)

of identity, 85 geographical, 175
of physical objects, 86-87 hierarchical, 47
postsensorimotor,79 moral,88
representational, 79 number, 159
sensorimotor, 78 personal, 89
Cognitive development, xi, xiii, xiv, 3, 7,9, physical, 87-89
10,11,21,29,30,53,54,64,78,87, presentational, 79
120,160,162,170,185,188 representational, 79
early, 65 science, 192
infant, 67 scientific, 192
of intellect, 171 social, 87-89
level of, 139, 192-194, 197 social studies, 176-179
stage of, 152, 189, 190, 191, 193 spatial, 126, 137
theory of, 22, 140 transformative,84
Cohen,L.B.,39,49 Conceptual wholes, 170
C6herence, 12 Conditioning, 54, 161
self-regulatory, 88 Configuration
Cohesion, 13 spatial, 13 3
Coincidence, 60 Conflict
Collaboration, 171 cognitive, 27
Collection perceptual, 136
graphic, 133, 136 Connections, 54
Combination Conservation, xii, 5, 10, 11, 25; 29,30,87,
of liquids, 141 147,168
Common property, 133, 134 of area, 124
Communication concepts of, 189
symbolic, 42 of continuous length, 58
Community, 175 of continuous quantities, 55
scientific, 190 of length, 26, 27,57,59
Compensation, 12, 29, 30, 62, 64, 72, of mass, 156
125 mass, 157
active, 27 of number , 125, 126, 136
logical,61 number, 156, 159
mobile, 27 numerical, 56, 57
partial, 61 of numerical quantity, 26, 27. 55
of perturbations, 53-54 of objects, 85
Competence, xii, 5,24,128 and production, 12
concept of, 23 of quantity, 86,93, 124, 126
development of, 184 of space, 124
drive for of substance, 6, 23, 140
child's, 169 of volume, 6, 124
juvenile, 93 of weight, 6, 124
language, 93 weight, 157
Competency, 171 Conservers, 10, 156
Competitive spirit, 128 of mass, 157
Complementary class, 129, 130, 132 of volume, 157
Comprehension, 159 of weight, 157
Compromise solution, 60-62 Consistency
Computer technology, 184 index of, 36
Concept Consolidation, 69, 162
conservation, 86 of achievements, 66, 67
ecological, 175 level of, 66
Index 203

Constancy Coupling
object, 189 syncretic, 79
in perception, 157 Cowley,J.J., 123, 138
perceptual, xiv, 160 Crabtree, W. B., 21, 30
Construction, 12, 35, 36, 54, 65, 68, 70, 72, Creation, 28
73,81,127 Creativity, 115
of ideas, 191 linguistic, 94, 101
of language, 8 Critical spirit, 171
number, 11 Culture, 174
object, xii, 34, 37, 38,4147, 67,72,73 Curriculum
of object relations, 35, 69 content-centered,165
stages of, 8 development of, xiv, 165
Constructive role, 54 developmental, 179
Consultation, 171 fIrst-grade, 119
Consuming natural, 126
producing and, 174, 175 open-classroom, 166
Content, xiv, 173, 186-188 Piagetian, 171
cognitive, 152, 158-162 Piagetian-based, xiv
curriculum, xiv science, xv, 183, 184,186,192,196
science, 183, 185, 190, 193, 197 SEARCH, 171
PASE,196 social studies, 165, 171, 179
traditional, 187 Curriculum development, 165, 166, 171,
Content hierarchy, 189 179,180,185,189,191
Continuity, 29 process of, 183
Contour science, xiv, xv
intonation, 98 in social studies, 167
Control Cybernetics, xii, 25, 26, 28
mutual, 171 Cycle
Co-occurrences instructional, 185, 193, 194, 196
of achievements, 65-67
Cooperation, 169
Coordination, xi, 8,10,11,16,39,40,58, Damon, W. V. B., 79, 83, 89
73,74,77,84,86 Data
of actions, 6, 7 of experience, 186, 189
compensatory, 25 sensory, 152
developmental Decentration, 137
structural, 83 Deficiency
eye-hand, 38 educational, 186
lack of, 169 Deformation
operational, 82 length, 86
of points of view, 169 quantifIcation, 85
of sensorimotor schemes, 38 quantity
of systems, xii continuous, 86
Core kit, 195 discontinuous, 86
Corman, H. H., 67, 74 shape, 85
Correction spatiotemporal,85
paraphrastic, 113 DeLemos, M. M., 123, 138
post hoc, 54,60 Deprivation
Correspondence stimulus, 153
numerical, 143 Design
one-to-one, 59,60 curriculum, xiv, xv, 188, 191
ordinal, 58 model of, 187,190
Cosmos, 174 instructional, xiv, 166,167,192
204 Index

Designer Discipline
curriculum, 159 social science, 172
instructional, 191 Discovery, 28,184,185,190
Development Disequilibrium, 87, 127, 152
affective,169,170, 172 development of, 161
behavioral, 37 interactive, 87
biological, 9 intrinsic, 87
child, 167-169 Disparity
concept of interactive, 88
hierarchical, 47 Displacement, 67
cognitive, see Cognitive development hidden, 38, 44-46
concrete operational, 69 invisible, 72, 73
curriculum, see Curriculum development spatiotemporal, 85
early, 161 thought, 122
embryological, 9, 24 visible, 70, 71
embryonic, 33 Double reversal, 127
emotional,158 Dreams, 84
epigenetic view of, 34 Duckworth, F., 171, 180
human, 18 Duration
infant, xiii, 68 preconception of, 79
intellectual, xii, 139, 170
language, 40, 96,97
and learning, 17 Early childhood,128, 158, 162
level of, 36, 37,42,44,46,47,71,73,142 Ecology, 187
logical, xiii, 135, 169 Economic life, 175
logicomathematical, 124, 127 Economics, 173, 174
mental, 54, 88 Education
object-concept, 67, 68, 70 childhood
observation, 172 early,47,119,128,158
perceptual,189 goal of, 168
preconceptual, 77 higher, 166
Psychological, see Psychological develop- moral,l71
ment open,121
rate of, 36,45,67-69 process of, 166
sensorimotor, xi, xii, 7, 8, 35 progressive, 121
social, 169,170,171 school
stage, 87,89 public, 119
structural, 89 science, 184
structural, 79 social,xiv, 167,171,173
Deviance spatial, 180
syntactic, 107, 112 Education program
Deviation childhood
self-regulatory, 170 early, 162
syntactic, 112 teacher's, 180
Device Educational program
self-management, 194 for parents, 161
self-regulating, 170 Educators, 166, 187, 188
Dewey,J.,120,160,168,170, 171,180 professional,167
learning by doing, 139 Egocentrism, 137
Dialectic, 165 Element
Differentiation, xi, 11, 13,58,63,65,87 cultural, 169
of actions and goals, 70, 71, 74 identity, 122
Index 205

Element (cant'd) Equilibrium (cant'd)

interactive, 175 attained, 12
neuter, 122 biological, 12, 13
Elkind, Do, 158, 163, 169, 181 cognitive, 12, 13
Embryogenesis concept of, 30
organic, 23 parts-whole, 28
Embryology, 5,33 physical, 12
mental, 23 progressive, 25
Emotion, 33 stable, 24
Empiricism, 28 state of, 8, 20, 21
classical, 3 Equipment kit, 184
Encounter Erikson, Eo Ho, 48
social,l72 trust, 40
Energy Ervin, So, 117
problems of, 187,192 spontaneous speech, 94
Energy transfer, 195 Escalona, So Ko, 67,74
Engelmann, So, 123, 137 Eskimo, 124
Environment, xiii, 15, 16, 18, 22-24, 36,37, ESS, xv, 146,148, 184,185,197
40,41,54,64,85,87,124,130,137, Ethics, 174, 175
139,151,152,166,168,169,174,175 Evaluation
aboriginal, 123 curriculum, xiv
action-oriented, 142 Evaluation measure
behavior and, 30 diagnostic, 171
cultural, 123 Evaluation plan, 179
deviant, 105 Events
educational, xiv, 169 instructional, 176
learning, 137 Exchange
personalized, 197 language, 177
persona1,77 social, 169
physical, xi, 3, 5, 21, 77, 84 Existence
problems of, 187,192 social, 173
school,120 Experience
social, 22, 77,84 acquired,3
Epigenesis, 33 conception of, 34
Epistemology, vii, 17,34 concrete, 189
developmental, 53, 54 data of, 186, 189
Equality educational, 166
numerical, 60 and equilibration, 127
Equilibration, xi, xiii, 3,4,9,10,11,15-17, external, 6, 7
19,20~0,34,41,77,87,89, 137,152, of objects, 3
188 learning, 166
biological, 19 mathematics, 129
concept of, vii, xi, xii, 17, 18, 21, 22, 26 science, 129
experience and, 127 linguistic, 9
internal, 15, 16 logicomathematical, 6, 7,16
kinetic,24 physical, 3, 19
mobile, 27 role of, 41,168
progressive, 22, 23, 25-27,29 social, 9, 16, 19
of subsystems, 11 Experiment
Equilibria, 17 conservation, 140
EquilIbrium, 5, 7, 8, 11-13, 19-21,24-30,53, learning, 54, 55
64,137,152 Le Chatelier-Braun, 13
206 Index

Experimental spirit, 188 Functions (cont '4)

Experimentation cognitive, 11, 22, 28,30,152
trial-and-error,189 metalinguistic, 99,114
Exploration, 195 psychosocial, 173
physical, 185 SEARCH, 173, 174, 176
Extension, 195 self-realizing, 175
of class, 130 Furth, H., xi, xii, 19-21, 25-27,30,158,163
class, 140
of environment, 29
logical, 61 Gaiter, J. 1.,68,74
skills of, 133 Gallagher, J. McC., xi, xii, 27
Galton, F., 48
Factor mental inheritance, 36
affective, 17 Game
cognitive, 17 Herefordshire Farm, 145
conservation Game-playing
Piagetian,143 symbolic, 189
motivating, 17 Geer, S., 101, 114, 116
performance Gelman, R., 93, 116
academic, 144 Generalization, 59
recognitive, 39 acquired, 39
Fantasy Geneva, 9, 10,41,69, 124, 129. 134,140,185
and reality, 156, 175 Genevan, 124, 151,171
Feedback, xii, 12,54,82, 87 Geography, 173, 174
visual Geometry, 165
direct, 73 Gesell, A., 38
Feedforward,87 pre determinism, 34
Figuration, 77, 84, 86, 87, 89 Ginsburg, H., 115, 116
accommodatory,87 Gleitman, H., xiii, 92,100,101,114,116
Filiation Gleitman, L. R., xiii, 92, 95, 96,100,101,
developmental, xiii, 77, 87 108, 114, 116, 117
structural, 84 Globality, 82
Fisted-swiping, 38 Golden, M., 67, 74
Fixed core, 8 Goodnow,J., 124, 138
Flamer, G. B., 84, 89 Goodwin, X. S., 23, 31
Flavell, S. H., 21, 30 Governing, 174, 175
Flexibility, 134, 144, 188, 192 Grammar, 116, 165
of thought, 141 generative, 95
Following rules of, 93, 114
visual, 42 transformatioual-generative, 113
Ford, M. P., 84, 89 universal, 122
Foresight, 133, 134 Grammaticality
Fransworth, P. R., 162 judgments of, 94
Fraser, C., 93, 94,116 sense of, 94
Freedom, 171 Grammaticalness
Frustration, 158 judgments of, 91, 94, 97
distressful, 47 Green, B. F., 48
Functioning index of consistency, 36
biological, 29 Green, D. R., 84, 89
cognitive, 12, 23, 29 Greenberg, D., 39,48
metalinguistic, xiii, 91 Group
Functions Geneva, 140
biological, 121 mathematical, 122, 136
Index 207

Growth Imagery (cont'd)

cognitive, 120, 128, 137 problems of, 180
concept of, 176 reproductory, 146
intellectual, 121 symbolic, 141
logical, 124, 126 Imitation, 35, 39,44,47,69,71,72,131,
161, 189
Haan, N., 88, 89 gestural, 35, 42
Hapgood, M., 162 vocal, 35, 36, 38,42,47
Harlow, H. F., 48 Implication
learning set, 39 10gical,77
Hart, J. T., 115 Inclusion, 74
memory monitoring, 11 7 class, 55, 61, 63
Hebb, D.O., 48 concept,of,61
theory of pleasure, 39 operation of, 70
Heraclitis, 12 Inconstancy
Heredity, 9,36 perceptual,156
Herefordshire Farm Game, 145 Index
Hierarchy of consistency, 36
content, 189 Individuality
epigenetic, 48 of the learner, 193
Hill,A.A., 101, 117 Individualization, 160, 171, 191
Hindsight, 133, 134 of instruction, 191
History, 173, 174, 176 nature of, 183
Hodgins, A. A., 46, 49 Inducer, 23, 27
Homeorhesis, xii, 9, 24 Induction, xii, 24
Homeostasis, 9, 24 embryonic, 23
Horizontality Inductor, 5
perception of, 16 Inference
of water. 4. 11 practical,73
Hotvedt, 126 Influence
Houk-Lo, 124, 126, 127 social, xi, 71, 73
Human rights, 170 Information
Hunt, J. MeV., xi, xii, 34,41,48,49,67,68, audio, 166
74,75,167 encounter, 177
recognitive familiarity, 39 lexical,110
Hunt-Uzgiris scales, xii social,170-171
Hypothesis visual, 166
generative-transformational, 93 Information-processing
linguistic, 113
Ideas Inhelder, B., xii, 22, 26, 27,31,32,55,61,
acquisition of, 191 64,67,69,74,75,88,89,129,132,
Identity, 86, 175 133,135,138,140,141,14~151,
cognition of, 85 163,168,169,181,188,190,197
of objects, 85 class inc1usion"'<lnimals, 140
syncretic, 80 class inclusion-beads, 141
Illusion combination of liquids, 141
Miller-Lyer,10 rotation, 141
optical,10 Inheritance
Image, 179, 190 mental, 36
mental, 141, 144, 146, 189 Innateness, xi, 3,7, 16
Imagery, 166, 177 Innovation, 115
mental, 141, 147,189 Institution
measure of, 143 social, 170
208 Index

Instruction Intervention, 177

individualization of, 191 Invention, 185
multimedia,166 of knowledge, 137
programmed, 159 Inversion, 12, 69,73
science,184,185,189,190 Investigation, 194, 195
verbal-rule, 136 Isard, S., 91, 117
Integration, xi, xii, 3-5, 11, 13, 28, 60, 64,
87 Johnson, N. F., 95,117
progressive, 66 Judgments
Intellect, 34 AR,86
development of linguistic, 94
cognitive, 171 moral,83
human, 168 perceptual,10
structures of, 168 transitive, 78, 79
tools of, 171 Juvenile competence, 93
Intellectual life, 168
Intelligence, xi, xii, 9, 17, 18, 23, 26, 34, 36, Kant, E., 8, 17, 18,28
109,120,137,151-152,166,167 Karnes, M. B., 46, 49
development of, 33, 120, 126 Karplus, R., 148,184-186,197
growth of, 167 whirly-bird, 144, 145
logical, 121 Katz, J., 100, 117
organization of Keller, H., 40
hierarchical, 38 Kindergartners, 173, 176
origins of, 152 King, W. L., 85, 89
of preoperational child, 162 Kirk, R., 95, 116
sensorimotor, 8, 67-69, 73, 74 Kit
theory of, 18, 19, 23 core, 195
Intelligence quotient (IQ), 36, 41,142,144 equipment, 184
verbal modular, 195, 196
Wechsler, 143 science, 191
Intension Knowledge, 7,11,17,18,22,33,34,53,54,
of class, 130 84,92,100.101,113,115,152,159,
skills of, 133 160,168.170,179.194
Intentions, 39 conceptual, 87
Interaction development of, 29, 37
of achievements, 71 disciplines of, 165, 167, 170, 173, 180
cognitive, 169 empirical, 85
dynamic,189 factual,87
environmental, 46 genesis of, vii
family, 169 invention of, 137
infant-environment, 66 linguistic, 96
informational,41 logicomathematical, 54, 63
purposeful,142 organization of
social, 170, 185, 191 hierarchical,38
orderly, 175 personal, 101
subject-object, 85 perceptual, 38
Intercorrelation of physical world, 54,63
of achievements, 69 in the school, 170
Interpretation scientific, 184
semantic, 112 social,81
Intersection social studies, 172
of classes, 134, 141 static, 166
Index 209

Knowledge (cont'd) Learning (cont'd)

structure of, 123 intellectual, 191
theoretical,122 intentional, 115
Kofsky, E., 138 Ianguage,95,110, 122
test of classificatory logic, 129 level of, 152
Kohlberg, L., 84, 88, 89 process of, 140
Kuhn, D., 88, 89 product of, 140
Kuhn, D. Z., 88, 89 social,l72
of social education, 171
Labov, W., 92, 98, 99,117 social science, 171
Lackner, J. R., 95,116 of social sciences, 171
Lakoff, G., 113, 117 Learning set, 39
Landmark, xii, 39 motivational, 40
behavioral, 35-37,40-42,46,47 Learnings
sequential, 36 process, 185
successive, 38 Le ChlItelier,
developmental, 34, 35 moderation of original cause, 13
order of Lee, E., 126
sequential,42 Lemke, S.P., 79,90
of sensorimotor development, 35 Length
of sensorimotor intelligence, 68 conservation of, 26, 27,57,59
Langer, J., xiii, 27,31,77-79,84,85,87-90 continuous, 59
Language, 10, 33, 38, 92-94, 98,113-115, Lenneberg, E., 92, 117
132,179,189 Lesson
adult, 95,155 exploration, 194
construction of, 8 motivational, 177
development of, 170 Level
elaborative, 161 ability, 171
fluency in, 177 conceptual,132
knowledge of, 110 concrete operational, 158
and logic, 9 developmental, 172, 180
. natural, 122 maturational, 152
problems of, 180 perceptual, 132
of referents, 131 preoperatory, 61
structure of, 101 Levi-Strauss, c., 122, 138, 170
Language arts, 165 classification in primitive societies, 121
ability in 143 Liberty, 170
Laurendeau, M., 29, 32, 67, 75 Life
Lavatelli, C. S., xiii, xiv, 126, 135 economic, 175
Law, 174, 175 intellectual, 168
Learner, 171, 172 mental,169
individuality of, 193 Linguistics
language, 95 transformational, 113
Learning, 18,19,36,41,119,120, 147,151, Literacy
157-160,166,168,169,179,185 scientific, 186, 187,190-192
basic, 180 Locke,J.
basic skills, 165 conception of experience, 34
content of, 165 Logic, 9
and development, 17 of actions, 70
by doing, 139 classificatory, 129
early, 151, 161, 162 combinatorial,144
individualized, 192 combinatory, 141, 143, 144
210 Index

Logic (cont'{/) Mental age (MA), 36,41,66,142-144

and equilibrium, 25 Menyuk, P., 95,117
inherent, 121, 125 Mermelstein, E., 88, 90,124, 138
internal, 122 Merrill, R.J., 183, 191, 197
language and, 9 Metacognition,114
laws of, 170 in memory, 115
of relations, 169 Methods
Logical necessity, xii, 22, 24-27,29 active, 190,191
Longuet-Huggins, C., 30,31 clinical, 136
Lorenz, K., 8, 9 discovery, 190
Lowe, R. C., 138 empirical, 41
addition-subtraction, 136 inquiry, 184
lecture/demonstration, 183
scientific, 188
Maccoby, M., 124, 138 textbook, 190
Maclay, H., 101, 117 Meyer, E., 88, 90
Macomber, L. P., xiv Meyerson, E., 85, 90
Management plan, xiv, 180 Miller, G.A., 91,117
ourriculum, 166 Miller, W., 94,117
Mapping spontaneous speech, 94
one-to-one, 120 Mischel. T., 21,27,31
Material Mobility, 144
classroom, 172 level of, 38
cognitive, 172 Model
SEARCH, 175, 177, 178 assimilatory, 29
Mathematics, 165 copy, 29
Matrix cybernetic, 22, 29
organism-environment, 16 developmen tal
Matrix puzzle, 131 Piaget's, 189
Maturation, xi, 16, 19,21,36,137 dynamic, 53, 63
level of, 152 equilibration, 136
neuroanatomical explanatory, 77, 188
preprogrammed, 38 interaction
McCarthy, D., 40, 49, 138 assimilation-accommodation, 23
McNeill, D., 92, 117 language, 133
tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, 115 Piagetian, vii, xiv, xv
Measure process, 63, 64
concrete-level, 140 representa tional, 189
evocative, 177 structural, 53,64
Piagetian,142-144 Piagetian, 63
reasoning, 142 triangular, 187, 190
Mechanism Modes
cognitive, 29 learning, 159
equilibration, 122 representa tional, 193
regulatory, 16,24,28,29,54,61 Modiano, N., 124, 138
self-regulatory, xii, 9, 12, 30, 53 Modification
transition, 26, 55,59 of achievements, 71-73
Media, 179 Modular kits, 195, 196
alternative, 177 Moral being
instructional, 193 child's, 170
Memory, 95, 113, 115, 133, 134, 141 Morality
short-term, 143 conventional, 88
Memory monitoring, 115, 117 principled, 88
Index 211

Motivation, 34, 147,194 Operations (cont'd)

development of, 33 representational,78
internal,19 reversible, 168
for learning, 168, 171 spatial,11
Multimedia, 176, 180 Opper, S., 115, 116
Multiplicity Optimalization,12
of reflexes, 34 Order
Murray, F. B., 85, 90 sequential, 67
Murray,M., 123,138 serial,98
Music,166 Ordering, xii, 81,128,129,135
of achievements, 69
Nassefat, M., 66, 74 functional
Nativism, 34 intuitive, 83
Natural phenomena, 184-186, 190 preoperational,83
Natural science, 190 serial,7
Nervous system, 7, 9 Ordinality, 36
Nigerian, 124 Organization, 29, 66, 87,152
Nonconservation,25 of achievements, 65, 67,68,74
oflength,59 of actions, 72
Nonconservers, 9-10,157 of behavior, 37
Norms behavioral, 37, 39
mutual,170 cognitive, 180
reaction, 64 of components, 70
Novelty, 71 conceptual,173
Number, 128, 129, 135 curricular, 167
concept of, 93 of displacements, 67
conservation of, 125, 126, 136 hierarchical, 38
judgment of, 115 sequential, 48
of language, 94
Oakden, E. C., 82, 90 language, 99, 101
Object permanence, 42, 67, 69 sequential,36,37,47
concept of, 189 social, 169, 175
scale of, 38 structural, 72
Objectification Orientation
of causality, 67 social,173
Objectivity, 54 precooperative, 172
Ontogenesis, 84 spatial, 141
Operations value, 187
assimilatory, 87 Orthogenesis, 87
class inclusion, 55 Orthogonal solution, 143
cognitive, 11 Overton, W.F., 170, 181
combinatory, 122
concrete, 61,66,68,78,86,88,135,147,
153,173,189,190 Palmer, E. L., 27,31
direct, 168 Papual,123
formal, 84,88,153,173,189 Paraprofessionals, 196
level of, 190 Paraskevopoulos, 1., 41, 46, 49,67,68,74
period of, 66 Parmenides, 12
logical, 61,78,136,152,169, 189 PASE,183,191,193,196
logicomathematical, 11, 27 Patterning
mental,130 syntactic, 112, 190
logical,88 Patterns
ordering, 70 behavioral, 170
212 Index

Perception, 6, 10,33, 134, 157, 189 Piaget (cant 'd)

child's, 156 combination of liquids, 141
of horizontality, 16 developmental theory, 120
judgments of, 133 empirical method, 41
modes of, 154 interactionistic view, 34
syncresis of, 78 rotation, 141
Perchonock, E., 95, 117 stage analysis, 115
Period Piagetian, vii, xi, xii, xiv, xv, 22, 27,28,54,
concrete operational, 152, 154, 157 131,132,142,143,144,169,171,
concrete operations, 157 172,176,185
formal operational, 152 Pinard,A., 29,32,67,75
formal operations, 157 Plasticity, 68, 69, 74
preconceptual, 78, 82 of object eonstruction, 41
preoperational, 66, 152-154,162,189 in vocal imitation, 42
sensorimotor, xiii, 66-69, 74,152,153 Play
Permanence exploratory, 135
increasing, 38 self-directed, 176
of objects, 35, 67,85 symbolic, 73
object, 38,42,67,69,189 Pleasure, 39
Personality, 174, 175 Political science, 173-175
development of Pote, 1.,147,148
child's, 170 Pragmatics
social, ] 71 presentational,78
Personalization, 196 Pratt, R. J., 39,49
Perspective, 168, 172 Pre concept
Perturbation, 87 identity, 82, 83
compensation of, 53-54 personal, 77,79,83,86
Pfafflin, S. M., 114, 117 of personal identity, 83
Phase physical, 77, 79,80,81,83,86
consolidation, 67 of physical time, 83
discovery, 185 social,77,79,81,83,86
exploration, 185,194 of social identity, 83
instructional, 178 social-personal, 80, 81
pre conceptual, 34, 47 of time, 83
sensorimotor, 34, 38 Preconception
Phenomena of duration, 79
natural, 184-186, 190 of simultaneity, 79
scientific, 190, 194 of successivity, 79
social, 172, 179 Precorrection, xii, 12, 25, 30
Philosophy Predeterminism, 34
empiricist-positivist, 19 Predictability, 84
Kantian,18 Preformation, 48
Phonology, 93 Preformationism,33
Physics, 12, 13,28 Prehension, 67
Piaget, vii, xi, xii, 15,16,17-19,21-29,31, Preoperational child, xiv, 83, 120, 133, 154-
33,36,3840,47,49,57,61,64,66, 156,160,162,169
69,70-72,75,78,83-85,88-90,121- learning in, 158
123,127-129,132,133,135-139,141, nature of, 153, 157, 161
142,146,148,152-154,156-159,163, Preoperations
170,179,185,186,187, 189~91, intuitive, 78, 86
197 ordering, 81, 82, 83
class inclusion-animals, 140 representational, 78, 84
class inclusion-beads, 141 transductive, 78, 79
Index 213

Preorderings, 80 Program
temporal. 83 academic
Presburger, 13 preschool, 121
Preschool activity-oriented, 184
unstructured, 121 developmental, 192
Preschooler, 153 education, 162,180
Presseisen, B. Z., xiv, 27,32,170,181 social, 172, 179
Price-Williams, D. R., 124, 138 hereditary, 9
Prince, J. R., 123, 138 individualized
Probability, 25, 26, 53 in science, 185
Problems intervention, 144
conservation, 63 laboratory-centered,185
Procedures language, 178
reversibility, 136 multimedia, 176
Processes PASE, 192, 193, 196,197
affective, 173 Piagetian, 131,132
arithmetic, 159 preschool, 119, 135
central SAPA,187
representative, 37, 38, 64 science, 184, 185
cognitwe,22, 114,173, 180 indjvidualized, 183
connruction,60,62,63 K-8,183
development, 188 social studies, 167
of equilibration, 128 training, 42, 46,47, 196, 197
equilibration, 21 Programming
intellectual, 121, 146 genetic, 37, 151
interactive, 126, 142 hereditary, xi, 7,9,19,21
knowing, 153 Progress
language-learning, 92 ontogenetic, 77
learning, 153,160,167,180 Progression
personalized, 196 cognitive, 169
trial-and~rror, 23 Progressivism, 170
learning-to-learn, 159 Property
logical, 152 common, 133, 134
magical thought, 155 cOnIlgUrational
mental, 134 global, 82
metacognitive, 91, 114, 115 group, 123
perceptual, 155 semantic, 91
science, 192,193 syntactic, xiii, 91
scientific, 188 Proximity
symbolic, 42 configurational
thought, 140, 152-154, 160, global, 82
187 Pseudo-imitations, 47
forrual,190 vocal, 38
operational, 144 Pseudo-transitivity, 78
transitional, 35 PSSC,187
Process-building Psycholinguistics
intellectual, 170 developmental, 94
Process-structure focus, 188, 191 Psychological development, 10, 33, 36, 38,
Producing 40,47,48,54,66,74
and consuming, 174, 175 stages of, 34, 35
Production Psychology, vii, 18, 34, 173-176
conservation and, 12 developmental, 34, 54, 55
food, 146 experimental. 9
214 Index

Pulaski, M., 189, 197 Relationships

interdisciplinary, 170
Quadrivium, 165 regulating, 72
Quantification, 62 spatial, 67,121
conservation, 86, 93, 124,126 Religion, 174
logical,61 Repetition, 95, 147
Quantity, 140 Representa tions
numerical, 26, 27,55 mental, 122, 136
of reality, 167
3Rs, 165, 166 transductive, 79, 80
Reading, 119, 159, 192 Reproduction
Reality, 35,53,84,85,161,170, 172,189 verbal,146
fantasy and, 156, 175 Research, 176-179
grasp of, 156 conservation, 73
social, 172, 178 curriculum development
Reality-oriented,161 educational, 184
Reason, 9,140 Geneva, 168
Reasoning, 6, 88, 140 in learning, 185
assessment of, 142 psychological, 184
combinatorial,124 Responses
concrete, 143 operant, 39
deductive, 159 Restrictions
development of, 142 selectional, 11 0, 111
developmental,187 Reversibility, 8,12,25,29-30,67,85,88,
global,82 126,127,136,144
inductive, 159 empirical, 25
level of, 142 lack of,157
measures of, 143 operational, 26, 27
mental,169 practical, 72, 73
operational, 85, 86 in thought, 157
representational, 79 of thought, xiv, 143
successful, 139 of thought processes, 140
transductive, 78, 79,81 Rhetoric, 165
Reciprocity, 12, 63, 171 Ripple, R.E., 163
Reflection, 194,195 Rockcastle, V. N., 163
metalinguistic, 95, 115 Rogers, R.E., 184, 197
Reform movement Rotation, 126, 127,141
curriculum, 186, 187 Russia,186
science, 184 Russians, 184
Regression
in reasoning, 88 SAPA, xv, 184, 185, 188, 197
Regulation, 9,10,11,12,25,27,29,53 Savin, H., 95, 117
of action sequences, 73 Scales
of actions, 71,74 Hunt-Uzgiris, xii
operational, 29 ordinal, 34, 36, 38, 40-42, 47
outcome, 74 Uzgiris-Hunt, 42
Reinforcement, 19 Schemata
Relations sensorimotor, 128
ideational, 173 Scheme
intergroup, 173 action, 54
interpersonal, 173 classification, 122, 134
spatial, 126, 143, 144 conceptual, 188
Index 215

Scheme (cont ~ Sentences (cont 'eI)

evaluation, 172 telegraphic, 96, 98,112
differentiated,71 well-formed, 96, 98,100,112
numerical, 62 Sequence
ordinal,62 classification, 134
sensorimotor, 35, 38 instructional, 194
stimulus-response, 5 textbook-bound, 171
subordination, 128 Sequentiality
of thought, 148 inevitable, 36
School, 168, 170, 171 Serafica, F., 67,75
elementary, 185 Seriation, 7,11,83,140,160
Geneva, 136, 140,167 construction of, 8
for learning, 158 Series
organization of empirical,8
social,169 SeSllme Street, 128, 175
for thinking, 158 Shanks, B. L., 85, 89
Schwab, J. J., 188, 197 Sharing, 161
Science,xiv, xv, 121, 165, 180-184 Shatz, M., 93,116
biological, 188, 193 Shipley, E. F., xiii, 93, 95,96,100,101,
environmental,184 117
natural, 190 Shipley, T.E.,Jr., 93,117
nature of, 183 Shirley, M.M., 37,49
personalized,191 sequential organization in motor develop-
physical,188,193 ment,37
processes of, 185, 188 Shutman, L. S., 124, 138
social, see Social science Siegel, I. E., 124, 138
and technology, 18 Silberman,C.E.,119,130
Science kits, 191 Simon, T., 36,48
Scientific literacy, 186, 187, 190-192 Simpkins, K., 142, 143, 146, 148
Scientist, 188 Simultaneity, 79, 80
SClS, 184, 187 Simultaneous membership, 130, 134
SEARCH, 171,172,175,176,179,180, Sinclair, H., 10, 27, 32,55,61,64,88,89
195" logic and language, 9
Segmentation, 93 Skills
Self basic, 165-167
awareness of, 169 classification, 132
Self-action, 172, 173 classificatory, 98,147
Self-conservation, 29 of extension, 133
Self-constmction, 122 imagery, 147
Self-correction, 171 inquiry, 185
Self.<Jirection, 171 intellectual, 151, 168
Self~eali~,174,175 learning, 18, 162
Self-regulation, 9,10,17,22,23,25,26,30, metalinguistic, 92,113,114
188 reasoning,142
biological, 16 self-concept, 192
innate, 16 self-management, 192
internal, 16, 18 spatial, 126
Semantics, 105, 109, 110 thinking,
generative, 113 children's, 185
Sentences Skinner, B. F., 30, 32, 49
deviant,91,92,100,105,111,112,114 operant responses, 39
implausible,110 Sleator, M., 101, 117
216 Index

Slobin, D.L., 138 State

research on imitation, 131 equilibrial,87
Smedslund, J., 87,90 prelogical, 155
Smith,C. S., 95, 96,100,101,117 preoperational, 160
Smith, I. C., 138 Stein, W., 49
perceptual conflict, 136 intelligence quotient, 36
Social science Stephens, W.B., xiv, 26, 32, 139, 142, 143,
interdisciplinary, 170 146,148
Social sciences, xiv, 171 Stimulation, 171
Social studies, 119, 165-167,171,173,177 Stimulus
content of, 179 dominant, 160
knowledge of extraneous, 160
conceptual, 180 perceptual, 156
Socialization, 169, 180 Strategy
reciprocal, 169 instruction, 191
Socioeconomic status (SES), 46, 124, 126 reasoning, 154
Sociology, 166, 173-175 Strauss, S., 84, 88, 90
Sower, R., 147, 148 Structuralism, 28,30,122
Space, 66 biological, 188
concept of, 176 physical, 188
conservation of, 124 in science, 188
judgment of, 115 Structuration, 63, 65, 67,69,74
Spatialization, 67 of actions, 71
Speech, 95,98, 100 operational, 8
telegraphic, 96 process of, 169
Spencer, H., 165, 181 Structure
Spontaneous speech, 93, 94, 96, 101 algebraic, 122
Sputnik, 184 biological, 13, 121
Stability classification, 127
logical, 30 classificatory, 120, 121
Stage cognitive, 13
cognitive, 180 operational, 7
concepts of, 66, 188 conceptual, 128
concrete, 189 conservation, 126
concrete operational, 153, 157 curricular, 172
concrete operations, 157 of equilibration, 17
of construction, 8 figurative, 84
of development, 36, 171, 180 functional, 77 , 86-88
developmental, 69 grammatical, 100, 131, 159
of equilibria, 20 group, 12
fact-centered, 183 mathematical, 122, 123
formal, 53 hereditary, 8
formal operational, 154 innate, 9, 23
intermediary, 4 of intellect, 168
mental,168 of knowledge, 123
preformal,53 language, 92
preoperational, xiv, 81,153-155,158,161 linguistic, 93
representational logical, 122, 129
transductive,79 logicomathematical, 27, 29
sensorimotor, 67, 71, 87 mathematical, 122
succession of, 168 mental, 85, 120-123, 127-129, 137, 139,
transformative, 97,100 167,168,178
transitional, 168 number, 121, 127,135
Index 217

Structure (cont'd) Systems (cont'd)

operational, 8,10,11,79,84 open, 29, 30
organic PASE,192
hereditary, 16 physical, 193
parallel, 170 remediation
rational, 8 pupil, 142
semantic, 95,101 rule, 92
social, 121 school,162
spatial, 127 spatial, 4
subject teacher-training, 142
operational, 12 transformational
subjective, 16 self-regulatory, 122
syntactic, 95, 100, 101,111,113 Szeminska, A., 57, 61, 64
of thought, 122
thought, 139, 171 Tanner, J. M., 32
logical, 136 Tarski,13
Student Tasks
action-oriented,140 developmental, 158
kindergarten, 176 Genevan,123,124,126,129,137
Sturt, M., 82, 90 learning, 158
Sub categorization, 143 Piagetian, 126, 127, 143
Subclasses, 130, 133 Taxonomy, 121
Subschemes, 17 Taylor, J. L., 145, 148
Substance Teacher
concept of, 147 open-classroom, 166
Subsystems, 11 Teacher-oriented approach, 184
Successivity,79 Teacher training, 190
Supraclasses, 130 Teacher-training system, 142
Symbol Teaching role, 129
vocal, 38 Teaching strategy, 184
Symmetry, 132 Technique
Synchrony, 66, 67,73 instructional, 193
of structuration, 67 management, 193
Syncresis, 87 Technology, 166, 167
Syntax, 9,93, 105,109,110,112, 113 computer, 184
adult, 96 science and, 18
telegraphic, 96 Television, 166
Synthesis forms, 28 Teska, J. A., 46, 49
Systems Test
biological, 18, 193 image, 177
classificatory, 94 intelligence, 66,131
compensation, 22 language, 177
coordination of, xii Text
dynarnic,26 biology, 187
equilibrated, 28, 30 Textbook
equilibrating, 29 traditional, 184
feedback, 25 Theory
homeorhetic, 24 of cognitive development, 140
individualized, 192 cognitive, 169
instructional, 179, 196 developmental, 120, 183, 185
personalized, 196 structural, 77, 78
management, 192-195, 197 educational,167
classroom, 191 game,25
218 Index

Theory (cont 'cl) Training

Gestalt, 34 language, 10
learning, 191, 192 teacher, 190
linguistic, 100, 101 Transformation
maturation, 37 forms of, 37, 38
Piagetian, 179, 180, 185, 186,188,191 mental,135
of pleasure, 39 in object construction, 34
stimulus-response, 23 ordering, 83
transformational,116 Transition
Thier, H., 185, 186, 197 behavioral, 38
Thinking form of, 37
hypotheticodeductive, 190 Transitivity, 7, 8, 23, 57
logical, 125, 126 concrete operational, 78
operational logical,7
logical,9 transductive, 78
Thomson, B. S., 185, 197 Transmission
Thought educational,169
abstract, 93, 141, 143, 153 hereditary, 7
adult,170 social, 3, 152
animistic, xiv, 155, 157 verbal, 169
concrete, 140 Trivium, 165
concrete operational, 136 Tuddenham, R. D., 66, 75
deductive, 153 Turiel, E., 88, 90
egocentric, xiv, 154, 155, 157,161
figurative, xiii Uganda, 123
formal, 140, 141,143,157 Understanding, 139, 158, 161
measures of, 144 functional, 186
formal operational, 190 Unit
hypothetical,153 cultural, 176
inductive, 153, 154 ESS, 184
logical, 15 7 SEARCH,174-176
logical, 121-123, 136, 144, 154, 161 self-management, 194
logicomathematical, xiii, 23, 27 Uzgiris, 1. C., xiii, 34-36, 39, 42, 44, 47-49,
magical,xiv, 155-157, 161 66,68,.75
modes of, 154, 155
mythical, 121 Value, 174
operative, xiii Variability, 66, 68
organization of, 37 Variance
hierarchical, 38 genotypic, 45
prelogical, 154, 157 Variety
preoperational, 136, 153, 173, 190 ethnic, 175
in primitive cultures, 121 Voelker, A. M., 184, 185, 197
structures of, 168 Volume
transductive, 154, 157 concept of, 147
Tidswell, 145 conservation of, 6,124
Time conservers of, 157
concept of, 176
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, 115 Wachs, T. D., 67,75
Top-level reaching, 38 Waddington, C. H., xii,S, 9, 22-24,27,28,
Trabasso, T., 78, 89 32
Tradition Walford, R., 145, 148
linguistic, 170 Wall, A. J., 88, 90, 136, 138
Index 219

Wallach, L., 88, 90, 136, 138 Whirly-bird, 144, 145

Walton, J., 146,148 White, B.L., 38, 49
Water White, R. W., 128, 138
horizontality of, 4, 11 WISC, 142-144
Watson, I.B., 34, 39 Wohlwill, 1. F., 136, 138
Wei, T. T. D., 124, 138 Wolff, C. F., 33,49
Weight Wolff, P. H., 147, 148
concept of, 147 Wolfsohn, A., 83, 90
conservation of, 6, 124 Woodward, M., 67, 68, 75
conservers of, 157 Woodworth, R. S., 39,49
Weiss, P., 13, 22, 28, 32 WRAT,142-144
Weizman, F., 39,49
Welsh, C. A., 138 Yendovitskaya, T. V., 115, 117
Werner, H., 79, 85, 90 Zaccharias, 1.,187
Wetherford, M. J., 49 Ziff, P., 100, 117
Wexler, M., 145, 148 Zulu, 123