📦 Assimilation
New information fits the existing schema. The schema does not change. The child calls a cow "doggy".
Piaget's Cognitive Theory of Language Development » Schemas: Assimilation and Accommodation
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Cambridge spec: 6.4.1
- Piaget's view that thinking develops first and language follows it
- What a schema is and why it matters for language
- Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema
- Accommodation: changing a schema when new information does not fit
🔒 Unlock Full Course Content
Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseThinking first, language second
Jean Piaget was a psychologist who studied how children think. His cognitive theory of language development says that a child's thinking develops first, and language follows it. A child cannot use a word properly until they have first understood the idea behind it.
For example, a toddler can only say the word "more" in a useful way once they understand that things can be added or repeated. The idea comes first. The word comes after.
This is different from the learning theory (language comes from copying and rewards) and from Chomsky's theory (language is built in). For Piaget, language grows out of a child's developing mind.
Key terms:
- Schema: a mental framework of knowledge. It is an organised set of ideas about something, built from experience.
- Assimilation: incorporating new information into an existing schema, without changing the schema.
- Accommodation: changing an existing schema to incorporate new information.
You may remember schemas from the lesson Schemas in Perception. Here we use the same idea for language.
Schemas and language
A child builds schemas about the world, such as a schema for "dog". It might hold ideas like "has four legs", "has fur" and "makes a noise". The word "doggy" is then linked to that schema.
When a child meets something new, they use their schemas to make sense of it and to choose a word for it. Piaget said this happens in two ways: assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation
In assimilation, the child takes in new information and fits it into a schema they already have. The schema stays the same.
Example: "doggy"
A toddler has a "doggy" schema. Then they see a cow, a horse and a cat. All of them have four legs, so the child calls every one "doggy".
The child has fitted the new animals into the existing schema. The schema has not changed, so the child uses the same word for all of them.
This is why young children often use one word too widely. They are not being silly. They are using the only schema they have.
Accommodation
Sometimes the new information does not fit. Then the child has to change their schema. This is accommodation.
Example: learning that a cat is not a dog
The child points at a cat and says "doggy". A parent says, "No, that's a cat. Cats say meow." The child now sees that not every four-legged animal is a dog.
The child changes the "doggy" schema, and makes a new schema for "cat" with its own word. Their language becomes more accurate.
🔄 Accommodation
New information does not fit. The schema does change. The child learns a cat is not a dog and gets a new word.
How the two work together
- The child uses a schema and a word, and assimilates new things into it.
- When the word does not match what they meet, they accommodate and change the schema.
- Their thinking has grown, and so their language grows with it.
This shows Piaget's main point. The language only changes because the thinking changed first.
Common mistakes
- Mixing up the two terms. Assimilation = the schema stays the same. Accommodation = the schema changes.
- Saying language comes first. In Piaget's theory, thinking comes first and language follows.
- Saying calling a cow "doggy" is accommodation. It is assimilation, because the schema has not changed.
- Forgetting to quote the example. Always use the child's words in a scenario question.
Exam-style question
(a) What is meant by the term schema? [1 mark]
(b) Two-year-old Maya has a schema for "ball". She calls an orange and a balloon "ball". Later her dad tells her a balloon is not a ball, and she starts to say "balloon". Use the ideas of assimilation and accommodation to explain Maya's language. [4 marks]
Model answer
(a) A schema is a mental framework of knowledge (1).
(b) Calling the orange and the balloon "ball" is assimilation (1), because Maya fitted new objects into her existing ball schema without changing it (1). Learning that a balloon is not a ball and saying "balloon" is accommodation (1), because she changed her schema to include the new information (1).
Exam tip
In (b), use both key terms and say what happened to the schema each time. "Not changed" earns the assimilation mark and "changed" earns the accommodation mark.