Piaget's Cognitive Theory Of Child 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.

Jean Piaget has introduced theories on child development from 1896-1980. He is the the most cited and most influential on cognitive development. Piaget is the foundation of current child developmental in psychology. His inspiration came from observing children’s as he even used his own. His development of the cognitive deployment focused on mental process, remembering, believing and reasoning. To help explain his theory, Piaget’s came up with Stage-bound cognitive development. “Stage-bound is the development progresses through a series of stages as a result of assimilating (using the environment for already-learned activities)and accommodating (changing behaviors—and mental structure—in the face of environmental demands)” (Lefrancois, G. R. 2012). Piaget’s stage theory makes up four components, Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operations, and Formal operations. With these components a teacher or educator can designs its class room and better understand the deployment a child goes through. Once the knowledge of the theories is understood the teacher can teach the child the correct development that they are in. It’s important to know the characteristics of the development a child is going trough because all different age group have their own development stages.

Piaget was a Swiss Psychologist and is most famous for his work and research on cognitive development. He put forward the Theory of Cognitive Development and key elements in this theory include the formation of “Schemas” and “organisation”. A “schema” is an individuals thoughts and beliefs about an object or event and “organisation” refers to the ability of the child to put stages of each period (eg. Sensori-Motor Period) into a logical order (Miller,

Piaget believed there were four stages in a child’s cognitive development and sub stages within these stages. These stages have been the object of debate since Piaget introduced them and are still continuously debated. All of the stages are very concrete and large scale. They don’t account for children at a particular age who are behind or ahead. Piaget underestimated the capability of children to do particular things earlier than he predicted. However, Piaget overestimated the ability of younger children to understand the words used by adults and the implications of their actions. Piaget’s stages help schools to understand that children develop in different ways and hopefully provide schools with different, more stimulating ways to educate students. The four stages have provided a basis for child development, spurred other child psychologists into proving his theories incorrect and created the first step in the understanding of cognitive development.

To discuss the evidence for Piaget’s proposed step-wise sequence of mental development during childhood .The first discussion is that Piaget’s focus on stages of cognitive development has had a major impact on education. This is because many educational programs are now building upon the belief that children should be taught at their level of development which they are developmentally prepared

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Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher, was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland on August 9, 1896. After working with Alfred Binet in his children’s intelligence tests, Piaget developed an interest in the development of children He is widely known for his epistemological studies regarding children and formulating the Cognitive Theory of Development. Piaget self-identifies as a genetic epistemologist; “What

The cognitive development theory refers to the ability to learn through thinking and reasoning. Theorist Jean Piaget developed the stages of cognitive developmental according to age and how individuals learn through their environment and senses. These stages are from infant to teenage years. The first stage of Piaget’s Stages of Development is called Sensorimotor, which are ages 0-2. It describes how babies learn through their environment. The Next stages is preoperational for ages two through seven. During this stage, a child uses his or her own logic to express thinking. From the seven to eleven years of age, a child is in the Concrete Operational stage, where he or she will use hands-on experience to develop knowledge. The final stage is Formal Operational. Between the ages of eleven and fifteen, an adolescent develops a more abstract form of knowledge. One of the main differences between these stages is object permanence. Piaget designed these stages in a rigid format. This theory does not allow individual experience and background to be considered. In conclusion, a weakness of this theory is that is doesn’t mention how culture impacts learning. A strength of this theory is that it acts as a guide for educators to provide variation while lesson planning.

Jean Piaget developed a theory about the cognitive development in childhood. He was convinced that the development of thinking is a linear and an universal development that occurs in four major stages. Each stage is characterised by a certain type of thinking. After resolving each stage you think qualitatively differently than in the stage before.

Jean Piaget: has influenced early childhood education by focusing on the developmental psychology aspect to understand the development in children (Ailwood, Boyd & Theobald 2016, p. 52). Piaget’s theory has led to research in cognition in the early years (Goswami 2001) that supports and challenges Piaget’s ideas and becomes a basis for the creation of new theories (Berk & Meyers 2016, p. 213). Piaget theory has also influenced the teaching and planning styles as educators may use ‘Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development’ as a structure in an educational setting to support development (Berk & Meyers 2016, p. 213).

Several years ago, an insightful and profound man, Jean Piaget, established a theory of cognitive growth during childhood. This theory was viewed as a major model for understanding the intricate steps of mental development from the thinking to understanding for a child. This theory also gave rise to the mentality that cognitive processes during childhood are not minuscule versions of adults but rather an irrational yet unique process with its own rules. Even though Piaget’s theory seems quite reasonable and logical, under the light of recent speculation his theory has been widely challenged. However, Piaget’s theory holds great impact in today’s psychology.

Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is well-known and provides a basic understanding of the cognitive process and how children

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development, he was an employee at the Binet Institute for the Development of French versions of the questions on intelligence tests, and he became interested because of the provision of the kids for the wrong answers to questions that require logical thinking.

Piaget 's theory of cognitive development, that he developed in 1936, explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world (McLeod). He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment (McLeod). “What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could spell or solve problems, but was more interested in was the way in which concepts such as the very idea of number, time, etc.” (McLeod). Before Piaget’s work, the common belief was that children are just less capable thinkers than adults. Piaget showed that young children think in very different ways when compared to adults.