The Concepts of Assimilation, Accommodation, and Conservation Essay

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In the field of developmental psychology, Jean Piaget’s contribution in understanding how children develop has been significant. This essay examines the concepts of assimilation, accommodation, and conservation that form part of Piaget’s overall theory of Cognitive Development that has been accepted as a cornerstone for understanding child psychology.

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory holds that there are four stages of development namely the sensorimotor period(0-2 years), preoperational period(2-7 years), concrete operational period(7-11 years), and the formal operational period(11 years onwards). In the first period, the child responds by using congenital reflexes. It is from the preoperational period that processes of assimilation, accommodation, and conservation begins.

Assimilation is the taking in of information that is consistent with what the individual already knows. In the words of Piaget, “Intelligence is assimilation to the extent that it incorporates all the given data of experience within its framework (6)”. For example, a child knows what a milk bottle is when he sees it based on his previous experience of having been fed by a bottle. So when he sees a bottle he assimilates the fact.

When a new object, say, for example, a cup is introduced in his visual field for which he has no previous experience to bank upon, the boy does not recognize it. However, by trial and error, the boy tries to accommodate this new object to his environment. He may try and adapt the way he uses his lips to make use of the cup. According to Locke and Ciechalski, “accommodation is the process by which a child adjusts to new information or internalizes stimuli that do not fit any of the frameworks already possessed”(14). This process of assimilation and accommodation is practiced throughout a human’s life albeit, at more complex levels of interaction with the environment.

The child’s ability to understand that quantity of something remains the same even if the appearance is altered is called Conservation (Holyoak and Morrison 618). When water is poured from a tall thin glass into a short wide-based glass, the younger children may perceive that the quantity has changed, but the older children rightly perceive that no change has taken place and the quantity of water has remained the same. This is a typical example of conservation.

In conclusion, it can be reiterated that Piaget’s concepts of assimilation, accommodation, and conservation offer an easy logical explanation for childhood learning processes. A child assimilates knowledge by repetitive action or reoccurrence of an action or an object. When a new object or action is introduced into the environment, the child learns to accommodate that information, and as a child’s logical thinking process grows he learns to conserve facts. These processes of assimilation, accommodation, and conservation remain operative throughout a person’s life albeit at more complex levels.

Works Cited

Holyoak, Keith James and Robert G Morrison. The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Locke, Don C and Joseph C Ciechalski. Psychological Techniques for Teachers. Lanham: Taylor & Francis, 1995.

Piaget, Jean. The Origin of Intelligence in the Child: Jean Piaget: Selected Works. Translated by Margaret Cook. Florence, KY: Routledge, 1998.

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