Investigating Cognitive Thinking Processes and the Age at Which They Develop

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 was a psychologist who looked at a child’s developing their reasoning skills. Piaget carried out detailed observations of them and as his work started taking shape on how our understanding a child’s intellectual skills and as a result of this he has made changes in education. Piaget understood that cognitive developments occurred in stages, his research concentrated on how children learn and start to gain an understanding of their stage of development to be able to learn new concepts. He identified a four-stage process of cognitive development all the way through childhood. He stated that every child would go through each stage but not at the same time, but he also said that some children would sometimes never reach the later stages.

The sensorimotor stage infants develop their schemas through sensory and motor activities. Followed by the preoperational stage where children begin to think symbolically using words, to represent concepts. Next concrete operational stage children display many important thinking skills, like ability to think logically. Finally, formal operational stage young adolescences formulate their operations by abstract and hypothetical thinking. Piaget’s theory provides ample and insightful perspectives, so it remains the central factor of contemporary

Jean Piaget is known for his theories in cognitive development theory. His theory is based on the idea that children constantly construct knowledge as they explore and mold their environment. There are four stages in Piaget’s theory, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operations, the stages also corresponds with how old the child is. Not every child will be in the stage that matches the child’s age because some children are exceptional. Piaget’s theory is based on the cognitive development of how the average child shows their learned behavior through performed tasks. As I went through the first interview, I realized that how the children came to develop their answers was what’s important about the assignment. each child with the Piagetian Task Kit, I started to realize The Piagetian Task Kit helped me examine and see where each child was at in their cognitive development level.

Piaget was a Swiss Psychologist and is most famous for his work and research on cognitive development. He put forward the Theory of Cognitive Development and key elements in this theory include the formation of “Schemas” and “organisation”. A “schema” is an individuals thoughts and beliefs about an object or event and “organisation” refers to the ability of the child to put stages of each period (eg. Sensori-Motor Period) into a logical order (Miller,

Experiments highlighted one of the major flaws in Piagets work – he failed to take notice of the context of the tasks he gives to children. He concentrated on a few tasks which often led to an under-estimation of the

This is one of the most reoccurring criticism that Piaget’s theory faces. (Lourenco, 1996) This is mostly based on the fact that researchers believe that the children competence were not really revealed because Piaget’s experiments did not include the necessary controlling factors as they have implicated in their studies. Some of these controlling factors are questions with better clarity, scoring criteria’s and instructions. But I agree with this because I believe that if you are going to try to justify a concept that is based on the development of a child there be a scoring criteria, and there should be a certain age limit for that concept. For instance Piaget did a formal operational thought experiment where children of various ages were to balance a scale by hooking weights on the scales are. For them to pass all the children had to do was notice that the weight’s heaviness and its distance from the center in the end affected the balance. Children who were three to five years old could not comprehend this concept, however children who were seven could balance the scale. And for the children who had reached the age of ten they thought about the locations but this is because they trial and error, not logical thinking. (Berger, 2010, p. 334) Such a test that is meant to see if a child can accomplish such a task should be for a child who is much more developed such as in the age range of six to eight not a young child who is merely just three or five. Another reason why I feel that Piaget underestimated a child competence is because it has been stated that some children with intellectual disabilities have “a persistent failure of normal synapse pruning”, this causes it to be difficult for them to think. (Berger, 2010, p. 96) In addition a group of researchers redid Piaget’s construction of the object concept and the

Researchers also claim that Piaget’s unsuccessful efforts to teach children developmentally advanced concepts is false. “Researchers have found that in some circumstances, children often learn advanced concepts with brief instruction. All of this research has led up to the belief that children may be more competent that Piaget gives them credit for, especially in their practical knowledge.”

For some back round information, I am doing service learning at an elementary school and the teacher I am assisting asked me to help out some of the kids who aren't exactly understanding the school work. I didn't want to use this initially until I noticed some key things from Piaget’s observations. These observations aren't exactly everything Piaget would have liked, but its a few things I noticed that were similar to his own. I had to study two kids for this because I didn't get a good chance to study one.

The essay is going to introduce short overviews of Piaget (1926) and Vygotsky’s (1978) theories to indicate their different approaches when considering cognitive development. Piaget (1926) developed a constructivist theory which is the basis for the other cognitive development theories that followed. He proposed the definition of schema which refers to children’s construction of shaping their thought and actions through the set of cognitive processes as assimilation, disequilibriums and accommodation. When encountering new experiences, children try to interpret them in terms of known cognitive schemas. In case of failing, they need to adjust their interpretation to the reality (Schaffter & Kipp,8th ed). Based on his assumptions, Piaget (1926) proposed that child as a lone individual progress through four main stages of cognitive development. On the other hand, Vygotsky (1978) presented sociocultural theory. Vygotsky (1978) concentrated on the social interaction between child and adult considering

According to Miller (2016), Jean Piaget studied the development of intelligence in children and proposed a philosophy centered on four preset phases of mental growth. His theory of cognitive development is comprised of Sensorimotor Period (birth to about age 2), Preoperational Period (ages 2-7), Concrete Operations (ages 7-11) and Formal Operations (ages 11-15) (Robbins et al., 2012). Moreover, he determined that children cognitive development was learned through their interactions and object of their surround settings and their logic of thinking would differentiate from stage to stage towards adulthood. For this specific case study, stage three of Concrete Operations is only going to be used to analyze cognitive behavior.

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is one the most widely accepted, his four stages of development are age based.

Several years ago, an insightful and profound man, Jean Piaget, established a theory of cognitive growth during childhood. This theory was viewed as a major model for understanding the intricate steps of mental development from the thinking to understanding for a child. This theory also gave rise to the mentality that cognitive processes during childhood are not minuscule versions of adults but rather an irrational yet unique process with its own rules. Even though Piaget’s theory seems quite reasonable and logical, under the light of recent speculation his theory has been widely challenged. However, Piaget’s theory holds great impact in today’s psychology.

A logical early education has a great impact on an individual’s life. In comparison, these two theories in the laboratory survey of the control experiment emphasized that the scientific query method was similar.(Aldenir Araújo 2012).I have a 4 years old niece, her illogical thinking is reflected in life through experiment. In her classification ability, she cannot understand that an object can be divided into a variety of ways. For example, she calls all plants with leaves “trees,” or all people with short hair “boy.” In contrast, however in Early Childhood, Adolescence and Their Significance,Piaget focused on cognitive development through psychological processes, which depends on asking questions and solving problem. Erikson focused on personality development; thus he draws conclusions no only questions but observation and clinical methods.

On November 6th 2017 I had the pleasure to observe Johnny a two-year-old boy that attends Land of Learning preschool in Sycamore, Illinois. I have worked with Johnny a lot this year because I work in this classroom as an assistant teacher. While observing Johnny I realized all the detail that Piaget explains in his theory is very accurate. Jean Piaget was a psychologist that was very know for his observations in child development and the study of human intelligence. Piaget concluded with four stages of cognitive development. The two stages that I am going to talk about in this paper is the Sensorimotor stage and the Preoperational stage.