Piaget's Theories Of Child Development

As an early childhood education major, I heavily studied Piaget’s theories. As a result, the developmental model resonates with me the most. The developmental model encompasses the theory that every child undergoes the same stages of development. In my personal belief, every child goes through the same stages, but at different rates. Therefore, my classroom should reflect the developmental stages of all my students. Also, the developmental model concentrates on a child’s schema and how he or she processes new knowledge: assimilation or accommodation. When assimilating, a child fits new information into previous existing knowledge. For example, if a child’s parent teaches he or she that their beagle is a dog, and the child then realizes that golden

According to Piaget (1957), cognitive development was a continuous restructuring of mental processes due to varied situations and experiencing the world and maturing biologically. His view of cognitive development would have us look inside a child’s head and glimpse the inborn process of change that thinking goes through. “He was mainly interested in the biological influences on “how we come to know’” (Huitt and Hummel, 2003). Piaget’s views helps us to have appropriate expectations about children’s mental abilities during different periods of development, especially in terms of logical-mathematical intelligence, and that it was our ability as humans to think abstractly that differentiated us (Science and Cognitive Development). There are three elements of Piaget’s cognitive development theory: schemas, the adaptation process and stages of development. Schemas are basically mental templates of knowledge that individuals use to help make sense of the world around them. The adaptation process which allows for the transition from one stage to another, including assimilation, accommodation and equilibrium and the stages of development in which each child must pass through.

As with stage four, this stage is characterized by a means/ends differentiation. The infants are no longer restricted to the application of previously established schemata to obtain a goal. They can make the necessary alterations to their schemata to solve problems; this reflects a process of active experimentation. These differences in cognition coincide with improved locomotive abilities as the child becomes more physically active. In this stage, causal inferences are still unavailable to the infant - it must see an action occur before it has any understanding of the causal relationship.

Piaget had 4 different stages to his Cognitive-Development theory. His ideas included the stages sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The main idea of Piaget’s theory was to explain that a childs reasoning develops in four different stages. His theory helped explain how children of different ages start to think and view the world for themselves.

Although Piaget is many things, he is especially known for his groundbreaking work in child development psychology. He described his work as genetic epistemology, since genetic means the scientific study of where things come from and epistemology is about the basic categories of thinking. Ultimately, Piaget’s theory was known as, the developmental stage theory.

Although in the next decades since Piaget’s theory of cognitive development became widely known, other researchers have contested some of his principles, claiming that children’s progress through the four stages of development is more irregular and less constant than Piaget believed. They found that children do not always reach the different stages at the age levels he specified, and that their entry into some of the stages is more gradual than was first though, for example, infants

After doing this exercise, I was surprised that I scored the same for behavior, attachment, and ecological; cognitive was my highest scoring. Piaget’s cognitive theory of development is probably one of the theories that I am most familiar with, so it came as no surprise that this was my highest scoring. I have always believed that development is one of the most influential factors in child development. There are four stages that children progress through in this theory: sensorimotor (0-2 years), preoperational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years), and formal operations (11+ years). Every child goes through these stages. For example, in sensorimotor babies learn to grasp object. I thought I would have scored higher in behavior because

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.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development consists of four stages, these stages include the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage. When a person transitions from stage to stage they go through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium.

One of the sponge is divided into four pieces while the other one is in original shape

Piaget’s Development Theory consists of four stages that that every human goes through from birth to adulthood. The four stages include: the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. The sensorimotor stage begins at birth and usually lasts up to two years of age. At this stage infants begin to participate and discover different sounds, see and touch their surroundings and various objects that catch their attention. By one month, an infant has learned reflexes such as to suck and grasp for nutrition (Santrock 178). By 18 to 24 months of age an infant masters object permanence, where the infant comes to find out that even though an object may be hidden behind another or disappears, they will continue to search because of their understanding that the object continues to exist despite not being visible (Santrock 179).

This essay is concerned with the Concrete Operational Stage of Piaget’s development theory, which he described as “a major turning point in a child’s cognitive development as it is the beginning of logical thought processes” (Piaget, 1954). This typically occurs between seven and eleven years of age. It will describe the developmental tests used to evidence development and evaluate the strengths and weakness of the theory in relation to the stage and tests used.

Piaget’s theory is based on the cognitive development that humans go through in life. The cognitive theory describes and explains the development of thought processes and mental states. Piaget established that children go through a series of stages. These stages are Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational. In the Sensorimotor stage, children begin to associate their sense with objects and they are able to manipulate objects. In the Preoperational stage, children begin to learn from playing around with other children

Numerous papers have been written on Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Theory. Most fall short of helping others understand what exactly Jean Piaget means when it comes to the three basic components to Piaget’s Cognitive Theory. These two articles I have chosen to use in this paper, give the best explanation on his theory. This paper will go into detail on the key concepts of Piaget’s Cognitive Theory and hopefully help others understand in its simplest form.

The first theorist to study cognitive development was Jean Piaget. Piaget studied that all children go through the same 4 stages, even if it happens at different times. Erik Erikson believed that the sociocultural elements that we experience can affect our personality, therefore we need to get through every step of his theory of Psychosocial development. The following is going to describe the stages each of these men made and how I see it throughout my life.