Jean Piaget's contribution to developmental psychology includes principles of:

Jean Piaget's contribution to developmental psychology is fundamentally linked to the concepts of equilibration, assimilation, accommodation, and schema formation. These terms describe how children develop cognitive abilities and understand the world around them as they grow.

Equilibration refers to the process by which children balance new information with their existing cognitive structures, enabling them to understand and adapt to their environment more effectively. Assimilation is the process of integrating new information into pre-existing schemas or frameworks, while accommodation involves changing those schemas when new information cannot be assimilated. Schema formation encompasses the mental structures that children develop to organize and interpret information—these schemas evolve as a child experiences life and learns new things.

Piaget emphasized that children go through distinct stages of cognitive development, reinforcing the importance of these principles in understanding how intelligence and reasoning develop over time. His theories highlight the active role of learners in their own development, showing how they construct knowledge through interactions with their environment.

Collectively, these concepts illustrate a comprehensive model of cognitive development that has significantly influenced educational practices and our understanding of how children learn.