How Does Piaget 's Stage Theory Account For Children 's Cognitive Development?

Swiss biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget 1896-1980 is renowned for constructing a highly influential model of child development and learning (Professional Development through Distance Education). Piaget’s theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds cognitive structures–in other words, mental “maps,” schemes, or networked concepts for understanding and responding to physical experiences within his or her environment. Piaget further attested that a child’s cognitive structure increases in sophistication with development, moving from a few innate reflexes such as crying and sucking to highly complex mental activities. Piaget’s theory identifies four developmental stages and the processes by which children progress through them. Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought are Sensorimotor stage birth to age two, a Pre-operational stage from age two to age seven, Concrete operational stage from age seven to age eleven, and Formal operational stage age eleven and up or adolescence and adulthood.

name a few. A problem with his theory is that it proposes a single linear sequence that holds

Children develop cognition through two main stages that Jean Piaget theorized. The stages run from birth and infancy to school age children. Sensorimotor is the first stage and goes from birth to about the age of two. This stage implies that the children learn about the environment they live in and they learn this through the reflexes and movements they produce. They also learn that they are separate people from their parents and they can say goodbye to them and know they will come back. The second stage is called the preoperational stage. During this stage of development, children will learn how to incorporate symbols to represent objects. This is also the beginning of learning the alphabet and speech. The child is still very much egocentric at this point in time, but with the help of understanding educators, the child will grow appropriately onto the next stages of development. Finally, the children need to develop emotionally/socially.

Effectively, the stages of infant cognitive development can be viewed and explained simply. According to Piaget there are four stages of cognitive development that range from the ages of birth through adulthood. Today we will only focus on two of these stages as they pertain to the ages of birth through the ages of 24 months or two years old. The first stage is the sensorimotor stage which includes and defines the ages from birth to about 18 months of age. This stage is quickly described and defined by the infant only being aware of what’s immediately in front of them, and only interacting with those people, objects or sounds (http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development Piaget Stages of Development. ©2005-2015 WebMD, LLC). Looking at Piaget’s studies even at the earliest moments of life an infant utilizes the power of their brains in the forms of basic awareness’s and communication attempts. The second

The second sub-stage is primary circular reactions that occur around one to four months of age. In this stage infants start to organize schemes for sensory and motor activities, actions are voluntarily repeated, but the infant actions are still centered on bodily experiences and instinct satisfaction. The third sub-stage is when the baby starts to focus on the external world and secondary circular reactions; this happens around four to eight months. Babies also develop schemes for repeating actions with interesting effects on things and people in the world during this sub-stage. The fourth sub-stage is coordinating the secondary circular reactions around eight to twelve months. In this stage infants can organize a series of mental structures for various actions and develop intentionality of behavior, they can separate schemes for means and ends, and facilitate the accomplishment of simple goals. The fifth sub-stage is when the external-oriented attention generates and tertiary circular reactions, this is from twelve to eighteen months. Around this time infants grow into toddlers and they seek discovery of new information about how things and people work. The final/sixth sub-stage is pretty important and several development milestones occur, this is eighteen to twenty four months. In this sub-stage object permanence is acquired and toddlers understand objects continue to exist independent from self-generated actions and sensory experiences. (Petrill,

Piaget believed there were four stages in a child’s cognitive development and sub stages within these stages. These stages have been the object of debate since Piaget introduced them and are still continuously debated. All of the stages are very concrete and large scale. They don’t account for children at a particular age who are behind or ahead. Piaget underestimated the capability of children to do particular things earlier than he predicted. However, Piaget overestimated the ability of younger children to understand the words used by adults and the implications of their actions. Piaget’s stages help schools to understand that children develop in different ways and hopefully provide schools with different, more stimulating ways to educate students. The four stages have provided a basis for child development, spurred other child psychologists into proving his theories incorrect and created the first step in the understanding of cognitive development.

Intellectual development relates to this stage because at this stage children learn about the power that the mind has. They learn how to smile and make eye contact. They realise who the main people in their lives are. As they see these people all the time their mind remembers each person and knows that they are the main people that will be taking part in his/her life.

The first concept that I can relate to is Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Jean Piaget came up with this concept about how a child’s brain develops throughout their life. There are four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The two stages I can specifically relate to are the sensorimotor and preoperational stages. I have a three year old cousin who I have babysat for since she was only a few months old. The first part of her life I observed her during the sensorimotor stage. This stage is from birth to two years old and the child experiences the world through their senses. During this stage she would love looking at brightly colored objects and she loved listening to music. She would often put things in her mouth as a way of trying to figure out what it was. I also noticed that she didn’t have object permanence because whenever I left the room she would cry thinking I wasn’t there anymore. Over the past year I have watched

It is believed that development in children consists of 4 different stages, during which they start to develop certain abilities which then benefit them in later life. These stages are called the Sensorimotor stage, the Pre-operational stage, the Concrete Operational stage and the Formal Operational stage.[ Gross, R. (2005). The science of mind and behaviour. Hodder Arnold.]

Preoperational stage (ages two to seven). Beginning with the child’s learning to speak, this stage sees an increase in children’s playing and pretending, primarily through symbolic play and manipulating symbols. Children in this stage continue to have difficulty seeing things from different points of view. The two substages of the preoperational stage are the symbolic function substage and the intuitive thought substage.

In the sensorimotor stage the child discovers the environment through physical actions such as sucking, grabbing, shaking and pushing. During these first two years of life children realize objects still exist, even if it is out of view. This concept is known as object permanence. Children in the preoperational stage develop language skills, but may only grasp an idea with repeated exposure. As Piaget describes in the next stage, children draw on knowledge that is based on real life situations to provide more logical explanations and predictions. Lastly, in the formal operational stage children use higher levels of thinking and present abstract ideas.

The early stage is the most critical time for development of a child. From birth to the age of three, a child 's mind is like a sponge, soaking up everything whilst using all their senses. From ages three to five, a child is still

For this assignment, I will be researching Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Swiss biologist Jean Piaget theorized that children’s cognitive processes develop in series consisting of four stages which are, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

The second stage is the conscious absorbent mind that occurs between ages three to six. During this age, the child consciously selects experiences to focus. For example, when a child chooses to manipulate geometric solids, color tablets, sound cylinders, and tactile tablets, etc.

As discussed in the 2015 journal, Developmental Review, by Carey, Zaitchik, and Bascandziev: Theories of development: In dialog with Jean Piaget. “Piaget held that developmental changes in domain general cognitive architecture constrained the conceptual content that could be mastered by children of different ages.” Piaget’s cognitive theory is divided into four stages: The first stage occurs from birth to 2 years of age and is referred to as the sensorimotor stage. In the sensorimotor stage children develop the ability to form mental representations, such as object permanence, such as playing peek-a-boo. The second stage is known as the preoperational stage, which occurs form about age 2 – 7. Mental tasks in this stage are usually simpler than that of an older child, for example the concept of size or weight is not understood without physical representation of the concept. Thoughts of a child are often egocentric in this stage. The third stage of Piaget’s cognitive theory is the concrete operational stage, occurring from about age 7 – 11. During the operational stage, the child attaches concepts to concrete situations, such as the concepts of time or space, although simplified and concrete, not abstract. The final stage