Jean Piaget 's Theory Of Cognitive Development

At the centre of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and

Piaget believe that children are active thinkers. He recognized that the mind develops through a series of irreversible stages. He also acknowledged that a child’s maturing brain builds schemas that are constantly assimilating and accommodating to the world around them. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is split into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to nearly two years of age. At this stage, infants learn about the world around them by sensing it and interacting within it. It is also in this stage that the idea of object permanence develops, that is, the awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not being observed. In my personal life, I am certain that in this stage of development I would have enjoyed peek-a-boo, because if I didn’t see it, to my developing mind, it wasn’t there at all. The second stage, preoperational, lasts from two years of age to seven years of

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development proposes that the developmental process of a child is the result of their brains maturity, their nervous system, and environmental factors. He believes the foundation of a child's ability to learn is through discovery learning (Gordon & Browne, 2016). Piaget suggests that a child’s logic of thinking is different from that of an adults. Children’s cognitive performance is directly related to the stage of development that they are in currently. Additionally, these stages are divided into sub-stages to provide greater insight into a child’s cognitive growth process. The initial stages of development is considered a difficult point to try to determine a child’s developmental

For this paper I will be exploring Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, theorized that children progress through four key stages of cognitive development that change their understanding of the world. By observing his own children, Piaget came up with four different stages of intellectual development that included: the sensorimotor stage, which starts from birth to age two; the preoperational stage, starts from age two to about age seven; the concrete operational stage, starts from age seven to eleven; and final stage, the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and continues into adulthood. In this paper I will only be focusing on the

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist (Presnell, 1999), is famously known for his theory of cognitive development. His theories focused on the intellectual development of children throughout childhood. He discovered that children fundamentally think differently than adults think. He assumed that infants are born with “reflexes”. These reflexes help babies adapt to the environment (Huitt, 2003). There are four stages within Piaget’s theory which include the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operation stage. In the first stage, the achievement is to form a mental representation of an object, and

Jean Piaget was a field altering stage theorist born in 1896 of Swiss descent. He was a pioneer in the concept of cognitive development. Cognitive development is by definition the study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate, and remember. Piaget opened up and dissected the question, “how do children construct their worlds”. Piaget was the first person to present a comprehensive account of cognitive development. In the following essay I will dissect the complex and varying differences between a 3-year-old preschooler and a 9-year-old student in terms of the theories professed by Piaget. As a stage theorist Piaget focused on children’s development involving radical reorganization of thinking at specific common points. He dissected the

The first of Piaget’s stages to occur is the sensorimotor stage. This stage takes place from birth through age two. This stage focuses on the knowledge

Piaget’s four developmental stages stressed the importance of a child’s interaction with their environment. The first stage, the sensorimotor stage, encompasses the first two years of a child’s life where they use their senses to explore the world around them. The second stage, the preoperational stage, occurs between ages two and seven, where children develop symbolic thought. Symbolic thought is “a type of thinking in which symbols or internal images are used to represent objects, persons, and events that are not present” ("Symbolic Thought," n.d.). Again, children develop this type of thought through activities such as make-believe play, rather than social learning from others. The third stage, the concrete operational stage, occurs between ages seven and eleven where children begin to think logically and work things out in their head (McLeod, 2009). It is important to note that this only applies to physical, concrete concepts. Abstract thinking appears in the final stage, the formal operational stage, which occurs from age eleven into adulthood. In this stage, children and adults are able to think abstractly and use reasoning (“Jean Piaget,” 2015). All of these stages are based on humans, particularly children, interacting with their environment and theorizing about the world around them; “advancement through these levels occurs through the interaction of biological factors and experience, through a mechanism he called equilibrium" (“Jean Piaget,” 2015). Piaget paid no mind to the role of social interaction and the importance of learning from others in intellectual development and this is the key area where he differs from

There currently exists a great deal of literature based on child developmental psychology from a variety of great psychologists, notably Freud, Erikson, Bowlby, Bandura, Vygotsky, and many others. However, this paper will focus on the theories of Jean Piaget.

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.

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.

Jean Piaget is one of the most influential theorists in cognitive development and he argues that children pass through the same sequence of stages when it comes to this developmental domain. This paper will begin with a general overview of Jean Piaget’s beliefs when it comes to children’s cognitive development and the basics of his four stages. Next, an in depth look will be taken at each of the stages followed by defining the Piagetian ideas of adapting in the world through assimilation, accommodation, and disequilibrium that may results. These ideas will be accompanied by examples and significance to the classroom. I will conclude with a summary of all the points previously discussed.

Piaget argued that cognitive development involves both continuities and discontinuities. The three main sources of continuity are vital in driving development and work together from birth. The first process, assimilation, occurs when children integrate new information into their current knowledge (Santrock and Yussen, 1978). Secondly, accommodation is when children ‘adjust to new information’ and enhance their current knowledge in response to new experiences, as defined by

The first stage of Piaget’s development theory is the sensorimotor stage which takes place in children most commonly 0 to 2 years old. In this stage, thought is developed through direct physical interactions with the environment. Three major cognitive leaps in this stage are the development of early schemes, the development of goal-oriented behavior, and the development of object permanence. During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of them. They focus on what they