Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

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.

The Piaget's stage theory of cognitive development is also known as the stage theory. It introduces that, in the expansion of our thinking, we act through an organized and certain sequence of steps. However, the theory focuses not only on compassionate how the children obtain knowledge, but likewise on the discernment of the substance of intelligence. According to the Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, there are two stages in the thinking pattern of a 3-year old preschooler and 9-year-old student. They are the preoperational stage for the 2 to 7 year old and the concrete operations stage for the 9 year old. The preoperational stage (three years old preschooler), this is where a new child can intellectually perform and signify to the objects and issues with the quarrel or the images, and they can act. The concrete operations (nine year old student), where a child is at the stage and deliver the ability to maintain, reserve their thinking, and analyze the objects in conditions of their many parts. However, they can also assume logically and understand comparison, but only about the concrete events.

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.

The initial phase of Piaget’s model, Sensory Motor, arises from the birth of the child up to around two years old. Throughout this time the infant is trying to recognize his/her new setting. This understanding is restricted to the child’s according to Gregory (Date) “sensory perceptions and motor activities” (P. 112) Infants and toddlers explore the world and know the world exist around them. They look to adults to set boundaries as they orally explore the world by placing objects in their mouths. Mentally exploring as they grow older.

Jean Piaget developed a systematic study of cognitive development. He conducted a theory that all children are born with a basic mental structure. He felt that their mental structure is genetically inherited and their learning evolved from subsequent learning and knowledge. Piaget’s theory is different from other theories and he was the first to study a child’s learning by using a systematic study of cognitive development. His theory was only concerning the learning of children, their development and not how they learn. He proposed stages of development marked more by qualitative differences than by a gradual increase in number and complexities of behavior or concepts. His goal for his theory was to explain the mechanisms a child uses from the infant stage to the growing child who develops into a thinking and reasoning individual when reasoning and using hypotheses. His theory was that cognitive development was how the brain reorganized mental processes over time due to biological maturation and the experiences they have in an environment. The three basic components to Piaget’s cognitive theory is schemas, adaption processes that allow the child to transition from one stage to another, and the four different stages of development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.

Piaget confirms “Each cognitive stage represents a fundamentally new psychological reorganization resulting from maturation of new functions and abilities” (as in Greene, 2009, p.144). The case Vignette describes Victors’ stages of development through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development as exhibited behavior that occurred during the sensorimotor, preoperational, as established areas. Victor experienced a normal birth. His baby stage and growth period were also normal. However, Piaget states “Progression from one stage to the next is a function of both biological maturation and the child’s experience and action in the environment” (as in Greene, 2009, p.145). Victor may have also experienced some difficulty understanding if and when his father would return to the family. Piaget states “reversibility is the ability to follow a line of reasoning back to where it started” (as in Greene, 2009, p. 146). During the concrete operational stage Victor may not have been able to separate his longing for his father from realizing that he was being provided for. Although his parents tried to keep him out of the details of their financial struggles he struggled to fit in. Piaget states “Development proceeds from logical thought to logical thought, when applied to concrete problems, objects or events” (as in Greene, 2009, p.146).

The sensorimotor stage takes place from birth through ages 18-24 months. During this stage, infants are aware of what is immediately in front of them. Since infants don’t

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

Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development represents children as explorers of the environment, trying to make sense of their world, and in doing this, they discover new things and adapt to this world they live in. There are three basic components to Piaget’s theory; adaptation, schemas, and stages of cognitive development. Adaptation refers to adjusting to the demands of the environment, through such things as coping with challenges, problem solving and improving their way of thinking. Assimilation (incorporating some outside event into one’s way of thinking), accommodation (changing or modifying an existing schema to make sense of new or different information) and disequilibrium (state of cognitive conflict occurring when one’s experience is contradicted by their way of thinking) are the processes that enable adaptation to occur. Schemas are the basic building blocks for thinking and organising information. According to Piaget, there are three types of schemas; behavioural (mental representations of physical actions), symbolic (language-based representations of objects and events) and operational (mental action or manipulation used to solve a problem or for logic reasoning). Piaget proposed that all children experience growth in cognitive development in a four-stage sequence; sensorimotor (infancy or 0-2 years), preoperational (preschool/early primary school or 2-7 years), concrete operational

The baby first develops ‘reflex acts’ (the first month of life) where the baby learns actions like sucking. In the beginning of my life I had things to suck on, such as my mother’s breasts, bottles and pacifiers. A baby then will move on to ‘primary circular reactions’ (one to four months old) when the baby demonstrates that it has control over it hands and legs. The baby will kick out her legs and find enjoyment in that action because she did it voluntarily. The ‘secondary circular reactions’ (four to eight months old) are the type of reactions we see when a baby holds an object, such as a rattle, he or she shakes the rattle to hear the sound and thus providing pleasure as the baby makes the noise him or herself. The next part of the development of the baby is the ‘co-ordinating secondary schemes’ (eight to twelve months old) which is when the baby not only shakes the rattle, but also will reach out to take the rattle because that is what the baby wants. The baby is making a connection with the rattle on the table that it wants, grabbing it and shaking it to produce a sound. The baby begins to explore the environment and starts to mimic behaviour of other individuals. The next part of development in this stage is ‘tertiary circular reaction’ (twelve to eighteen months). Here the baby starts to put things together for example making the cup tower instead of just knocking it down. The final development in this

Cognitive development is the development of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Historically, the cognitive development of children has been studied in a variety of ways. The oldest is through intelligence tests. An example of this is the Stanford Binet Intelligence Quotient test. IQ scoring is based on the concept of "mental age," according to which the scores of a child of average intelligence match his or her age. IQ tests are widely used in the United States, but they have been criticized for defining intelligence too narrowly. In contrast to the emphasis placed on a child's native abilities by intelligence testing, learning theory grew

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.

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

Still the child does not know to lift the experimenter’s cloth in order to reveal the toy. Even if the toy is within the child’s grasp, the child will react by looking around almost bedazzled and in some instances drop the toy. A stage three sensimotor infant was describe by Piaget as seeing the toy without “enduring life of its own” (Gleitman, et.al, 1999). Stage four children make what is known as the “A not B error” this mistake is made by infants aged eight months to a year old. Experimental evidence also explains this concept.

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.