The Importance Of Sensory Experience For Learning : Jean Piaget 's Theory Of Intellectual Development

The theorist, Jean Piaget, was most interested in the development of children’s intellectual organization. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development begins with the sensorimotor stage. Sensorimotor intelligence is thinking by observing objects and acting in response to them. Throughout the stages the child understands that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen which is referred to as object permanence. When a child exhibits a behavior that creates an experience that leads to repetition of the behavior this is known as a circular reaction. (Berk, 2010)

Jean Piaget, was a trained biologist who was employed at the Binet Institute, where his main job was to develop a French version of an intelligence test. Piaget was very interested in the reason why children would give wrong answers to questions which called for some type of logical thinking. It was believed by Piaget that these wrong answers showed some very drastic differences between the way children and adults both thought ( McLeod, 2015), this is where his theory of Cognitive Development came in, Piaget’s work is described as being the origins of thinking or genetic epistemology (McLeod, 2015), Genetics is where one studies the origins of something. Epistemology discusses the categories of thinking, basically, it shows the properties of structural intelligence. Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory branched off into three different branches, the first one being Schema, the Adaption Process that allow transitions from one stage to another, and finally the four Stages of Development

Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage greatly contributes to the cognitive development in children. The main area in the preoperational stage is make-believe play. Piaget believed that when children have make-believe playtime they are exercising and enhancing newly required representational schemes. Make-believe play is very important in children’s development because it gives a child the opportunity to engage in problem-solving, communication, and empathy. Make-believe play also encourages imagination and creativity.

There are many great cognitive theorists, but the one that comes to mind is a development psychologist by the name of Jean Piaget. One of his prized declaration was in 1934, where he declared that education is capable of saving our society from collapsing whether its violent or gradual. Piaget had a key effect on education and psychology, and because of that effect he made many contributions to learning and to cognition. One of most important contribution was a model that was made by Piaget. This model was so popular and beneficial that up until today it is still used.

Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel in Switzerland in 1896. In 1923 he became a Professor of psychology, Sociology, and philosophical sciences at Neuchatel University. Piaget was given the role of director of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva in 1921. He married a psychologist and in 1923 they had two daughters and a son. He then went onto become Professor of child psychology in 1929, he also founded and became director of the Institute for Educational science in 1956. When he only 10 years old he published a short paper about a sighting of an albino sparrow. He was then offered a post a Neuchatel’s natural history museum although he did not take this offer and carried on with his studies. Piaget moved to Paris some years later and began working on standardised tests at the Albert Binet Laboratory School. By doing these tests he found that some of the answers given by children of the similar ages did not match up. Due to these findings, he then started to explore the subject of children’s reasoning. Most of his work was done on his 3 children and this has caused some controversy as it has been criticised for not being an appropriate sample for the purposes of scientific research. (Shirley Allen, Peter Gordon, 2011).

In this childhood developmental study, a comparative analysis of the theories of Lee Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Howard Gardner will be evaluated through the lens of experiential learning. Through Vygotsky’s realization of the childhood learning through “hands-on” experience (experiential learning), the cultural and socioeconomic factors defines the progress a child makes in the individual progression towards growth in the educational system. Piaget beheld similar views on experiential learning in the context of the family unit as an extension of social and educational progress through adaptation and guidance. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (TMI) also expands upon Vygotsky and Piaget’s premise of experiential learning by understanding the different forms of adaptation in the differing modes of thinking (spatial, visual, verbal, etc.) that educators can utilize in teaching the child. In essence, a comparative analysis of the childhood developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Gardner define similar methods of experiential learning in the context of childhood development.

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.

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.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Freudian psychology was changed with the initiation of the empirical methods to study the human behavior. Psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget empirically verified, moving towards the cognitive development theory to provide the new perspective to the individual in getting awareness about the developmental stages of the children. Just like Freud, Piaget thought that human development could only be described in stages. On the other hand, Piaget did not believe the learning and growth are linked with the repressed sexuality that Freud empathized. Piaget has given the cognitive developmental theory by having the experiment of the children, adolescents and young adults to

Since the 20th century, the development of psychology is constantly expanding. Erikson and Piaget are two of the ealier well known theorist, both being significant in the field. Their belief 's are outlined in Piaget 's Cognitive Development Theory and Erikson 's Psychosocial Development Theory. These theories, both similar and different, have a certain significance as the stages are outlined.Erikson and Piaget were similar in their careers and made huge progressions in child development and education. With the same goals in my, their theories still had many key distinctions. Erikson used broad life points to identify his stages. His theory concentrated on the entire development process in life through eight stages. His belief was that the environment interacts with a person, which influences their development. The progression of stages depend on how one handles encounters of crisis and success. Erikson believed the ego develops as it solves social problems. Piaget 's theory of cognitive development is based on a person 's thought process. The infancy through adolescence, broken down emphasizes earlier stages prior to age twelve. These two psychologists differ on the aspect of time, only slightly overlapping in the infant years.

When we are born we have a different mindset then when we are at adult age. We view

A major part of Piaget’s theory focuses around the idea of schemas; a set of linked mental representations used to make sense of the world. According to Piaget (1952), we are born with a small set of schemas such as looking, and a process of organization for developing new schemas. Organization focuses around assimilation, where information corresponds with the pre-existing schema and is absorbed, and accommodation, where new information is presented and a schema is altered to deal more effectively with a situation. Piaget saw assimilation best facilitated through play, however believed that it did not lead to any significant learning, just practicing (Piaget, 1962).

A central theme in developmental psychology is the question of how development can be conceptualized. One approach is to divide development into different stages. For example Freud (..) and Piaget (2003, 2000, 1985) described development as a qualitatively distinct series of stages. But there has been criticism about stage-based approaches in terms of how it is able to take on account the individual differences between children in development. The focus of this essay is on Piaget’s theory because it is one of the most influential theories. Furthermore, this essay will evaluate whether Piaget’s theory is able to account for individual differences in cognitive development. The main focus will be the development of children.

The first stage of Piaget’s development theory is the sensorimotor stage which takes place in children most commonly 0 to 2 years old. In this stage, thought is developed through direct physical interactions with the environment. Three major cognitive leaps in this stage are the development of early schemes, the development of goal-oriented behavior, and the development of object permanence. During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of them. They focus on what they

Piaget proposed that as human beings grow they create schemas; the cognitive framework that assists in information process and interpretation, schemas improve with age for instance love, grammar, betrayal amongst others. The child will constantly strive for cognitive equilibrium between the environment and the thought processes which are giving new things to think about, if the new things do not match the existing schema then a state of disequilibrium is produced, Piaget suggested that people adapt to new experience through assimilation and accommodation (Jack Butler). When visually perceiving new objects a child will try to assimilate the information to see if it fits into the existing schemata. If the new object does not