Stages Of Jean Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

Fisher-Price Jumperoo Rainforest is one of the toys from group A, the targeted age range of this toy is birth to 12 months. According to Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development, it should be in sensorimotor stage. At this stage the infant is only a purely natural creature, they have no real knowledge about the world, past or future. Infants can only touch and watch, they cannot be logical reasoning. At the end of this stage, there are two cognitive accomplishments infants should have mastered: Object Permanence and Goal directed behavior. First cognitive accomplishment is object permanence, it means infant will know someone or something is still existing even if they cannot see or touch. For example, you hide a toy in front of an infant,

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.

The cognitive developmental theory comes from the work and research done by Jean Piaget which we believe is an empiricist approach which goes hand and hand with Piaget’s constructive approach. Empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. The constructive approach is viewed as children discovering all knowledge about the world through their own learning and knowledge. According to Piaget, children pass through these stages at different times in their lives and cannot skip a stage which causes them to be seen as invariant.

Jean Piaget was a theorist that focused on individual’s mental processes (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.10). Piaget analyzed how children distinguish and mentally show the world and how there, logic, thinking and problem-solving ability is developed (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.10). Piaget believed that children’s cognitive processes develop in an orderly sequence (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.10). It has 4 stages such as, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and, formal operational (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.11). In this paper, I will discuss how Piaget developed his theory and how toys can meet each need during the 4 specific stages.

Q: Jean Piaget developed the Stages of Cognitive Development. Discuss the pros and cons of his theory.

The first stage of Jean Piaget’s Cognitive development is the Sensorimotor Period. This stage is the earliest of cognitive growth. The Sensorimotor stage happen within the first two years of a child’s life. During this stage children are only aware of what is in front of them. They primarily focus what is in their possession at the moment, what they can get into, and their physical environment.

Understanding that change in form does not mean change in quantity; they can mentally pour milk back and forth between glasses of different shapes. The fourth Piaget’s stage of cognitive development is formal operational stage. By age twelve, children’s reasoning expands from the purely concrete (involving actual experience) to encompass abstract thinking (involving imagined realities and symbols). However, recent research shows that young children are more capable and their development are more continuous than piaget believed. Today’s research also see formal logic as a smaller part of cognition than Piaget did.

Zac Flint Stages of Cognitive Development Jean Piaget was the first psychologist to systematically study the cognitive development of children. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based. Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption was that children are merely less competent thinkers than adults. He showed that young children think in very different ways compared to adults. To Piaget, cognitive development was a slow reorganization of mental processes as a result of growing older and environmental experience.

Jean Piaget born on August 9, 1896 in Switzerland. When Piaget was eleven years old he wrote a short notice on an albino sparrow. Piaget obtained his Ph.D. in natural science at the University of Neuchatel. During this period Piaget published two philosophical essays. In 1921 Piaget became the director of studies at the J.-J. Rousseau Institute in Geneva. In 1936 he did a systematic study on cognitive thinking which contributed to a theory of cognitive development. This cognitive development theory explains the nature and development of a child’s intelligence. Piaget explains how children acquire new information, and according to their age they adapt their internal world (schemas) to the outside world (new information). The children’s mental development is measured by four stages.

Piaget classified cognitive development into four distinct stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational. My role as a second grade classroom teacher involves educating students between the ages of 7 and 8. According to Piaget’s theory these student are in the initial years of the concrete operational stage (Boeree, 2006). Piaget suggests that these students are developing the schemas of conservation, reversible thinking, semiotic functions, classification, and seriation (Boeree, 2006). Classroom experience has informed me that frequently students begin second grade employing one-way logic and remain egocentric, which are schemas of the pre-operational stage. Therefore, my role remains that of a guide leading and supporting students as they compare these schemas to the real world, which creates tension, and subsequently assimilate or accommodate to create novel understandings. As Piaget stated, “We can classify education into 2 main categories: passive education, relying primarily on memory; and active education, relying on intelligent understanding and discovery. Our real problem is--what is the goal of education? Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds, capable of discovery from the preschool age on, throughout life?”(as quoted in

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.

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.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development Very briefly describe Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and explain what he meant by saying that young children are egocentric. Use experimental evidence to consider this claim. Cognitive development is what psychologists talk about when discussing a child’s intellectual growth. Jean Piaget (1896 to 1980), a Swiss psychologist developed a theory of cognitive development, which is still much discussed and critiqued today. Providing a firm building block to all work done in the study of child development and the concept that young children are egocentric.

​As children begin to develop cognitively, they go through many different stages that help them to emerge and progress with their learning. As we become more familiar with these stages, we are able to determine how and when a child progresses from one stage to another. Thanks to Jean Piaget’s study of cognitive development, he helps us to determine how knowledge grows throughout four major stages of development which includes sensorimotor period, preoperational period, concrete operational period, and formal operational period. He believes that knowledge is acquired through experiences and children’s own explorations. These various stages will help us to determine how knowledge increases throughout childhood by looking at a stacking cups toy. The cup toy includes eight different sizes of cups that include different colors and pictures on them.

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.