Piaget 's Theory Of Cognitive Ability

Psychologist Jean Piaget was the first to make a study surrounding the theory of cognitive development. The interesting thing about Piaget’s way of studying was that he was more concerned about how children’s thoughts got to the answer in relation to their IQ rather than simply their ability to answer a question correctly.

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.

According to Piaget (1929, 1954, 1963), the process of adaptation helps us to understand how a child constructs his/her world. Taking Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development with particular focus on the Sensori-Motor stage of development, I am going to discuss how understanding this stage might influence me when working with a baby as a nursing student in the future.

Physical changes occur immediately after the birth of an infant, and happen over his or her lifespan, particularly from infancy to childhood. He or she first learns to roll over (typically by 3 months), then to sit (usually by 6 months), then to stand holding on (usually 6.5 months), then to creep and then to walk (usually by 12 months), and then to walk up steps (usually by 17 months). By one estimate, from 3 months to 15 months, new neural connections of an infant are formed in the infant’s brain, and old ones removed, at an astonishing rate of 100,000 per second (Rakic, 1995). However, changes in human occur not only during infancy, but also through their whole life, from infancy through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age

For centuries, child psychology has attempted to explain how children cultivate the ability to think- or their cognitive development. It wasn’t until Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and researcher, stepped into the scene that headway was achieved. Considered a true trailblazer for the field of study, Piaget spent over six decades observing and studying children. He understood that children didn’t think in the way adults do and spent countless hours with children- some hardly able to talk. The result? He developed a multiple stage theory to essentially categorize cognitive growth in a child from birth to adolescence. Amazingly, to this day, Piaget’s theory is still highly regarded in the field of psychology and child studies.

What are the major challenges to Piaget's theory of cognitive development and what aspects still have value?

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 as long as the child is ready they are able to reach a stage. In kindergarten, many of the stages of both sensorimotor and preoperational stage were easy to find. For instance, the teacher allowed the students to have a couple minutes of free time. Many of the students chose to go to the tree house play area and began playing house. This is an example of the sensorimotor stage

Adolescence is a time of several changes. During adolescence people learn to become more autonomous. They become less reliant on their parents and more on themselves. One way they become more autonomous is cognitively. Many psychologists who study moral development use Piaget’s theory on cognitive development. These studies emphasize the change in reasoning that is used in making moral decisions. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg did a lot of research on the development of moral reasoning and expanded Piaget’s theory (Steinberg, 2008). He believed that moral development occurs in three levels and within those levels there are two distinct stages.

Jean Piaget was born August 9,1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Before being the first person to make systematic study for cognitive development, he was a clinical psychologist. Piaget was known for his work and for being the founder for child development. He created the theory cognitive-developmental (Kohler, 2008). According to the book, cognitive-developmental theory is one that reflects the behaviors of multiple cognitive structures, the organized patterns of thinking, and the experience that that child experiences. (Bukatko, & Daehler, (2012). With this theory, he proved to he world that children thought differently compared to adults. Before his theory existed people assumed that children thought in the same manners as adults did.

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

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.

As introduced, the distinguished Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, is one of the most influential theorists in cognitive development. Author Barry J. Wadsworth (1996) wrote about Piaget’s vast contributions to the understanding of children’s intellectual development and though his initial interest was in biology, the idea that the development of children’s intelligence could be studied experimentally by examining their thinking and reasoning peaked his research interest into this field (p.6). Throughout his research, Piaget was more interested in the qualitative, not quantitative, characteristics of development. He was concerned with how a child came to understand the knowledge and material, not with how much the child knew (p. 7).

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development is a prominent theory in education that attempts to describe the methods of learning and construction of information (Ormrod, 2017). The reasoning this theory is prominent in educational theories is a base concept of constructivism. In the scope of science education (note: it relates to all educational fields) constructivism has been the center of a paradigm shift because students’ constructed ideas of concepts help to promote learning. Additionally, the use of interaction with the environment and the use of mental equilibrium, create additional positive uses within the scope of science education. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development also is stepwise, or it followed under the concept that children and adolescents follow a relatively step based pattern through stages of cognitive development (Ormrod, 2017). The steps help to give educators a general idea of the capacity of students through various age groups based on the present abilities of students. The sequence of stages in Piaget’s theory are the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operations stage, and the formal operations stage (Ormrod, 2017). These stages entail the abilities present in the student. The first stage of Piagetian Theory is the sensorimotor stage. This stage is where newborns

According to the Slavin, “Piaget’s theory of cognitive development proposes that a child’s intellect, or cognitive ability, progress through four distinct stages” (Pg. 25). The stages are Sensorimotor Stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete Operational Stage, and Formal Operational Stage. Savage would be in the Formal Operational Stage since he is 11-years-old. The text states, “with the formal operational stage comes the ability to deal with potential or hypothetical situations.” In the Formal Operational Stage, children’s thinking begins to form the characteristics of an adult. Savage exhibited these characteristics by being able to explain his future career goals. Savage developed a plan to be an athlete in the NBA and MLB at the same time. I think Savage is in the Formal Operation Stage because he was “able to think abstractly and to see possibilities beyond the here and now” (Salvin, 2017, pg. 29).

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.