Accelerated Cognitive Development—Piaget’s Conservation Concept

Abstract

Piaget’s ideas have significantly influenced education and psychology, particularly the concept of conservation, which he had proposed as being acquired during the concrete operational stage. However, research conducted after Piaget found that children under the age of 6 are unable to understand his concept of conservation. However, more recent studies have found that three-year-olds may be able to acquire this concept, even when tested using the same tasks. But, this study addresses the issues of “fixity” and “reliability” for the concept of conservation. Then, the robustness (fixity and reliability) of Piaget’s concept of conservation (numbers/length) was examined by observing a four-year-old child who demonstrated the possible acquisition of this concept at the age 3, in this study. It was found that the child was able to robustly maintain the concept. Therefore, the study shows the possibility of accelerated cognitive development for Piaget’s concept of conservation. The reason may be that younger children have higher intelligence than those in previous generations. And, the grounds may be that of the influence of gene-environment interaction.