Encyclopedia of Human Development

Accommodation

Contributors: Jill Englebright Fox

Edited by: Neil J. Salkind
Book Title: Encyclopedia of Human Development
Chapter Title: "Accommodation"
Pub. Date: 2005
Access Date: July 30, 2017
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks
Print ISBN: 9781412904759
Online ISBN: 9781412952484
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412952484.n4
Print page: 9
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According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children's thinking occurs as they

begin to adapt to their environment in increasingly satisfactory ways. Schemes are the
techniques that children employ during adaptation. Schemes are patterns of actions that
children transfer or generalize by repeating them under similar circumstances or to meet
recurring needs. Schemes can be simple or complex patterns of action. An infant, for
example, employs a simple eating scheme in turning toward, latching onto, and sucking a
nipple that brushes his or her cheek.

An adult follows a much more complicated scheme for eating as he or she sits at a table,
spreads a napkin in the lap, and uses a knife and fork to consume food. Schemes are
reflexive for infants. As children grow and acquire additional sensorimotor abilities, their
reflexive schemes are enlarged and enhanced. When they encounter a need or a new
stimulus in the environment, children inventory their existing schemes to determine which
might be used to meet the current need or explore the stimulus. If a match between the need
or stimulus and a previously developed scheme is found, adaptation has occurred. If,
however, children cannot identify a match, they attempt to achieve adaptation through either
assimilation or accommodation.

During assimilation, children achieve adaptation by acting on the environment or objects in

the environment to make them fit into existing schemes. Eventually, however, children will
encounter a need or a stimulus that cannot be assimilated. They may respond in one of two
ways. At the encounter, children may completely ignore or pass by the event without
registering it, such as when an adult shows a child a more efficient way to use a tool but the
child reverts back to the previous method without attempting what was modeled. A second
response may occur when children are dissatisfied with their continued efforts to achieve a
match between their existing schemes and an environmental stimulus. Children may use new
information from the environment to adjust or modify existing schemes and meet their needs.
Adjusting or modifying schemes to meet new needs is called accommodation.

For example, a young child may have an established scheme in which he or she calls any
large item with wheels a car. The child points at a large wheeled item with a box on the back
and says car! The child's father responds, No, that's a truck! The child repeats, Truck!
and proceeds to identify another similar vehicle in the same way, indicating that he or she has
modified or accommodated the scheme based on the new information.

In Piaget's theory, assimilation and accommodation are processes of change. Children

change or transform the environment to fit their existing schemes during assimilation, and
they change their schemes to accept new environmental information during accommodation.
Children and adults use both processes interchangeably and concurrently. Although play is
basically assimilation, or the dominance of assimilation over accommodation, accommodation
becomes dominant when children imitate another's actions or roles or during periods of
intense learning and development.

Jill EnglebrightFox
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412952484.n4
See also

Assimilation

Further Readings and References

Berk, L. E.(1991). Child development (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

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Copyright 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc.

T h e C o n s t r u c t i o n o f R e a l i t y i n t h e C h i l d. R e t r i e v e d from
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/piaget2.htm
Forman, G. E. and Kuschner, D. S.(1983). Piaget for teaching children. Washington, DC:
NAEYC.
Piaget, J.(1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: W. W. Norton.
Piaget, J.(1966). Psychology of intelligence. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.
P i a g e t ' s T h e o r y o f C o g n i t i v e D e v e l o p m e n t. R e t r i e v e d from
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html
Thomas, R. M.(2000). Comparing theories of child development (5th ed.). Stanford, CT:
Wadsworth.

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