The Origin of Intelligence in the Child

Citation

Piaget, J. (1936). La naissance de l'intelligence chez l'enfant. English edition: The Origin of Intelligence in the Child (M. Cook, Trans.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The English edition consists of an introduction followed by six chapters, one for each of the six stages through which Piaget traces the development of sensorimotor intelligence in infancy. The chapters are grouped in two parts. The publisher's description states that the theses developed in the volume concern in particular the formation of sensorimotor schemata and the mechanism of mental assimilation.

Introduction

The contents note that another translation of the introductory chapter was published in David Rapaport's Organization and Pathology of Thought (Columbia University Press, 1951), and that the footnote commentary to that translation provides an introduction to Piaget's thinking and may serve as an introduction to the investigations in this volume. It is the place to start for readers who want orientation before the stage-by-stage chapters.

Chapter 1: The First Stage (Part 1: Elementary Sensorimotor Adaptations)

The first stage corresponds to the newborn's reflexes, which secondary accounts of the sensorimotor period date to roughly the first month of life. As the first of the six, the chapter begins the developmental sequence from inborn reflex activity.

Chapter 2: The Second Stage (Part 1: Elementary Sensorimotor Adaptations)

The second stage is usually summarised as the period of primary circular reactions, roughly one to four months, in which the infant repeats actions centred on its own body that were first discovered by chance. Together with Chapter 1, it makes up the part on elementary sensorimotor adaptations.

Chapter 3: The Third Stage (Part 2: The Intentional Sensorimotor Adaptations)

The third stage is usually summarised as the stage of secondary circular reactions, roughly four to eight months, in which the repeated action begins to involve an external object. The title of Part 2 labels the adaptations of stages three to six as intentional.

Chapter 4: The Fourth Stage (Part 2)

The fourth stage is usually summarised as the coordination of secondary schemata, roughly eight to twelve months, where familiar actions are combined as means toward a goal.

Chapter 5: The Fifth Stage (Part 2)

The fifth stage is usually summarised as the stage of tertiary circular reactions, roughly twelve to eighteen months, in which the infant varies actions to explore novelty and finds new means to ends.

Chapter 6: The Sixth Stage (Part 2)

The sixth stage is usually summarised as the transition to mental representation, roughly eighteen to twenty-four months, which closes the sensorimotor sequence and leads toward the representational thought that Piaget treats in his companion studies of the construction of reality and the formation of symbols.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Part 1

• Sensorimotor schemata: organised patterns of action whose formation, according to the publisher, is one of the two main theses of the volume.
• Mental assimilation: the mechanism by which new experience is incorporated into existing schemata, named in the publisher's description as the second thesis.
• Reflex activity: the inborn starting point of the sequence in the first stage.
• Primary circular reactions: repetition of actions centred on the infant's own body, associated in secondary accounts with the second stage.

Part 2

• Secondary circular reactions: repetition of actions that produce an effect on an external object, associated with the third stage.
• Coordination of schemata: the combining of familiar actions as means and ends, associated with the fourth stage.
• Tertiary circular reactions: experimentation with variations, associated with the fifth stage.
• Intentional adaptation: the heading under which Chapters 3 to 6 are grouped.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear architecture. The contents are organised around the sequence of six stages, grouped in two parts, so the structure of the book follows the developmental order. A reader can follow one thread from the first chapter to the last.
• A primary source for a widely taught account. The sensorimotor stages are standard material in introductions to development; this volume is the place where Piaget's own treatment of them can be read, which makes it useful for distinguishing his argument from textbook summaries.
• A focused scope. The publisher describes the volume as concerned with the formation of schemata and the mechanism of assimilation, rather than the whole of Piaget's theory, so the reading has a defined question.

Limitations

• An early primary text. The book dates from 1936, and readers who come from modern textbooks should expect the vocabulary and style of its period rather than a summary written for students.
• Not a survey of later research. Because it is a primary text from 1936, it cannot show how the stage account has since been tested, qualified or challenged. Miller's Theories of Developmental Psychology and the textbooks in this course supply that context.
• Several editions. The work has appeared in English from several publishers, including a Penguin paperback and the Routledge Selected Works volume, so page references and even the form of the title vary.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the developmental psychology course, this is the original source for the sensorimotor period and is aimed at readers who already have the general account. Usha Goswami's Child Psychology: A Very Short Introduction and the OpenStax Lifespan Development text give broad overviews of how children think and develop, and Shaffer and Kipp's Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence and Siegler, Saffran and Gershoff's How Children Develop are full-length textbooks that treat infancy among many other topics. Reading one of them first provides the framework within which Piaget's six stages make sense.

Erikson's Childhood and Society is a different kind of primary source, a psychoanalytic account of psychosocial stages across the life span, and makes a useful contrast with Piaget's cognitive focus. Patricia Miller's Theories of Developmental Psychology has a chapter devoted to Piaget's cognitive-stage theory and the neo-Piagetians and is the natural companion for judging what later research has changed.

How to Use This Book

The book is for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and anyone who wants Piaget's own account of the first two years of life rather than a summary. A general course in developmental psychology, with the basic idea of the sensorimotor stage, is the useful preparation; no specialist background is needed beyond that.

A practical reading plan:

• Start with the introduction, since it states the position on intelligence and adaptation that the later chapters apply. The commentary in Rapaport's volume mentioned in the contents is a further aid.
• Read the six chapters in order. They are one continuous argument, and each stage assumes the previous one.
• Keep a table of the six stages as you read, noting for each the characteristic behaviour, the schemata involved and the way assimilation is said to operate; compare it with a textbook summary afterwards.
• Pair it with a modern source. After finishing, read the Piaget chapter in Miller to see which claims have been revised, and the sections on infancy in a developmental textbook.
• Check the edition. Page references and titles differ between the Routledge and other English editions, so note which edition a course expects.