Schema, Accommodation & Assimilation

Let’s talk about schema, accommodation and assimilation. This is some basic intro to psych information that will help you understand how a child’s mind works. Let’s say we have a pretend family. This family has a young child and they go to the park and they see a dog. The child interacts with and experiences the dog, he learns that it has four legs and ears and fur. The schema in this scenario is dog, this child is learning what a dog is.

The next weekend, this family is driving through the countryside and they pass a field full of cows. The child looks out the window and says “dogs!” What he’s done by assuming that a cow is a dog is called assimilation. Because this animal has met the same criteria he knows a dog has, it has become a dog. It’s assimilated or joined the idea of a dog in his mind.

The parents pause and explain why this animal is actually a cow and how they’re different. Now the child understands why they’re two separate species. Cows live on farms, they make milk and say moo. This is called accommodation, he’s accommodated this new concept by creating a whole different category for it in his mind. 

Here is one more example. A child sees their grandfather every weekend. He has white hair and she calls him grandpa. One day, she’s outside while her mom is gardening and a neighbor walks by, an older man with white hair. She says, “Grandpa!” and points at him. She’s too young to know that the role and title of grandpa doesn’t belong to every aging male with white hair. She’s assimilated that identifying attribute into the category of grandpa. Her mom explains that this is not grandpa, this is Mr. Jones from down the street. She shows her a photo of her real grandpa and says, “This is your grandpa.” Accommodation!