Cognitive Theories of Human Development Essay

Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. Piaget’s work includes a detailed observational study of cognition in children. Piaget showed that young children think in different ways to adults. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent knowledge is based.

Jean Piaget is a key figure for development, focusing on cognitive constructivism – that being that we must learn from experience and development, building on knowledge that has already been developed. The strengths and weaknesses of Piaget 's cognitive development theory will be discussed.

Psychologist Jean Piaget developed the Piaget’s theory around the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Piaget’s theory implies that cognitive growth advances in different stages, influenced by an instinctive need to know basis. The four stages of Piaget’s theory are, sensorimotor (birth to about two years old), preoperational (average two to seven years old), concrete operational (seven to eleven years old), and formal operational stage (eleven to undetermined years old).

Piaget’s developmental stages are ways of normal intellectual development. There are four different stages. The stages start at infant age and work all the way up to adulthood. The stages include things like judgment, thought, and knowledge of infants, children, teens, and adults. These four stages were names after Jean Piaget a developmental biologist and psychologist. Piaget recorded intellectual abilities and developments of infants, children, and teens. The four different stages of Piaget’s developmental stages are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Sensorimotor is from birth up to twenty- four months of age. Preoperational which is toddlerhood includes from eighteen months old all the

Psychologist Jean Piaget was born August 9, 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. He was his parents first born child. Piaget continued his education through high school then attended the University of Neuchatel where he received his Ph. D in natural science, then study one semester at the University of Zurich in psychology. During his study of psychology, he became interesting in psychoanalysis which leads him to later study abnormal psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris. ("Jean Piaget." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 01 Oct. 2014.)

Jean Piaget was a Swiss biologist, philosopher, and psychologist best known for his work in the area of developmental psychology. Even though he divided cognitive growth and development into fixed stages we are focusing on the first two years. His first two years was described as the sensorimotor stage. This is when the child is interacting through physical actions such as sucking,

Unlike Piaget, who was of an academic background and didn’t apply his theories. Never the less, they both theories influenced education and empahsied the importance of assessment however Vygotsky wanted the observation of children and their abilities to be as valied as test scores.

Jean Piaget is a developmental psychologist who studied young children and analyzed their development at a young age. Piaget is well known for his four cognitive development stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, and formal operations; as mentioned by Siegler and Alibali (2004). Siegler and Alibali (2004) also stated that these four stages begin as soon as the child is born and it continues throughout their young adolescent years all the way to adulthood. Piaget conducted numerous research experiments towards young children in order to prove his hypothesis and drew conclusions for

Jean Piaget is best known for his theory that suggested children think differently than adults. His theory proposed that children’s cognitive development developed in

Piaget worked in a psychiatric lab in Zurich for a year where he studied the thoughts of Jung and Freud. Piaget also started teaching psychology in 1919 in Paris. This is where he started doing studies of intelligence testing with Simon-Benet Fame. Piaget felt that the “right-wrong” ways of intelligence testing was an unreliable source; instead he started interviewing school boys. He used psychiatric techniques to learn about adolescence reasoning (Boeree n.d.). Piaget researched in many places, such as, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute of Geneva in 1921 where he studied the mental capabilities of an infant in the first two years of life. This is where he would write and publish his first works on children phycology. During this time he met his soon to be wife, Valentine Chatenay. After his success of his first five books, in 1925 Piaget started teaching psychology at Neuchatel University (Presnell 1999). During this time he would become a father of two daughters and a son. He would use them as observational studies as they grew up (Boeree n.d.). Piaget continued to study and teach at numerous places, such as, Lausanne and Paris (Jean Piaget Biography n.d.). He ended up writing over sixty books and articles during his long career. Piaget past away in Geneva, Switzerland on the 16th of September 1980, over fifty years of excellent research that will shape the world of psychology and sociology for years to come (Boeree n.d.).

Jean Piaget is considered to be very influential in the field of developmental psychology. Piaget had many influences in his life which ultimately led him to create the Theory of Cognitive Development. His theory has multiple stages and components. The research done in the early 1900’s is still used today in many schools and homes. People from various cultures use his theory when it comes to child development. Although there are criticisms and alternatives to his theory, it is still largely used today around the world.

Jean Piaget is one of the pioneers to child development, he was an important factor in the growth, development and one of the most exciting research theorists in child development. A major force in child psychology, he studied both thought processes and how they change with age. He believed that children think in fundamentally different ways from adults.. Piaget’s belief is that all species inherit the basic tendency to organize their lives and adapt to the world that’s around them, no matter the age. Children develop schemas as a general way of thinking or interacting with ideas and objects in the environment. Children create and develop new schemas as they grow and experience new things. Piaget has identified four major stages of cognitive development which are: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operations, and formal operations. According to the text here are brief descriptions of each of Piaget’s stages:

Piaget’s theory also allowed us a way to accept and understand that children's cognitive behavior is intrinsically motivated. Social and other reinforcements do influence children's cognitive explorations but children learn because of the way they are built. In Piaget’s mind cognitive adapts to the environment through assimilation. Also accommodation is a type of biological adaptation (Flavell, 1996). According to Piaget in order to characterize cognitive development in humans we need to understand co-present in cognitive activity which is cognitive structure (Flavell, 1996). Piaget was the first psychologist to try explaining describing cognitive development. His argument is that intellectual advances are made through the equilibration process that has three steps: the first step is for the cognitive equilibrium to de at a low development level; then, cognitive disequilibrium has to be induced by discrepant or inassimilable phenomena and lastly cognitive equilibration has to be at a higher developmental level.

Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is well-known and provides a basic understanding of the cognitive process and how children

Jean Piaget, a cognitivist, believed children progressed through a series of four key stages of cognitive development. These four major stages, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational, are marked by shifts in how people understand the world. Although the stages correspond with an approximate age, Piaget’s stages are flexible in that if the child is ready they can reach a stage. Jean Piaget developed the Piagetian cognitive development theory. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development proposes that a child’s intellect, or cognitive ability, progresses through four distinct stages. The emergence of new abilities and ways of processing information characterize each stage. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.