Schemes and Practices: Piaget's Terms of Knowledge Adaptation

Piaget Views on Children's Abilities to Adapt

Piaget’s developmental model for children is based on adaptations they need to make to schemes in order to fit into and function within their environment. In order to understand Piaget’s theories on learning, the term scheme needs to be understood, a scheme is a basic set of experiences and knowledge that has been gained through personal experiences that define how things should be and act in the person’s environment. As the child interacts with their world and acquires more experiences these schemes are modified to make sense, or used to make sense of the new experience. (Bee and Boyd, 2004, 147). New information interacts with preexisting schemes through three processes: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. Each of these terms described a different way in which children acquire and process new information. When new information is modified to fit the preexisting scheme the process is defined as assimilation. (148). For example a child may approach a strange dog and pat it like he does with his own dog. However, when the strange dog barks loudly or bites the child, the child assimilates the new experience with strange dogs to include an addition to an existing dog scheme. Family dog is okay to pat and play with, but strange dogs are not all right to pat and play with.