皮亞傑的理論
Piaget's theory: The process of cognitive development

Adaptation is how a child handles new information that is different from what the child already knows. It involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment.

It consists of two activities, assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation is to use existing scheme to interpret the external world. For example, a child has seen an orange before and knows what an orange is.

When the child sees an orange again, he is able to name it, orange. He is using his existing scheme 'orange' to name the object.

Another concept is accommodation. it means we create new schemes or adjust the old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking cannot explain the environment completely.

For example, when you give a grapefruit to the child and ask him to name it. He will name it as 'orange'. it is because he only has orange scheme but does not have the grapefruit scheme.

So, he use his existing scheme orange to name this grapefruit.

However, when he cuts the orange, he realizes that the inside of this 'orange' is different from the real orange. He knows that this is not an orange. An adult tells him this is called grapefruit although it looks like orange.

Accommodation starts and the child creates new scheme. Grapefruit is the new scheme.

In this sense, when we interpret new information, we use existing scheme to understand it. When we assimilate successfully, we are in the state of equilibrium.

Yet, when we cannot assimilate the information, we are in disequilibrium state. We need the process of accommodation to reach equilibrium.