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Piaget Cognitive Development

Decent Essays

Jean Piaget’s work focuses on cognitive development and what contributes to it. He examined the relationship between individual factors and social factors in moral affect, personality and intellectual development. “Piaget believed that children form social schemas just like they form schemas to understand the world” (DeVries, 1997). According to Piaget’s developmental theory, children play an active role in their own development through action and problem solving. Learning is both formal and informal. An important part of Piaget’s work is the focus on how play impacts cognitive development. “Play is most important between the ages of three and six” (Halpenny & Pettersen, 2013). According to Piaget, there are four stages of cognitive development. They are the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational …show more content…

The preoperational stage occurs from age two to age seven. This stage is characterized by a shift to a more symbolic view of the world. The preoperational stage is broken into two substages. The symbolic function sub stage takes place from two to four years of age. The main areas of development in this sub stage are symbolic representation, egocentrism, animism and centration. Part of developing a symbolic representation is developing the capacity for pretend play. “In pretend play objects are used symbolically for something in life” (Halpenny & Pettersen, 2013). The second part of the preoperational stage is the intuitive thought sub stage that takes place when a child is between the ages of four and seven (Halpenny & Pettersen, 2013). This is where Child D should be functioning based on his chronological age. “This stage is characterized by a pursuit of logical reasoning, classification, sensation and conservation” (Halpenny & Pettersen, 2013). Characteristics of this stage were not easily observed with the student. It is possible that he is functioning in this sub stage in some or all areas and it was not presented in the observation

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