Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget 's theory of cognitive development

April 2008

Jean Piaget 's theory of cognitive development

Jean Piaget and his theory of the stages of cognitive development have made significant contributions to a wide cross-section of disciplines examining human develop , particularly educational psychology and applied developmental psychology . Though his original theory has undergone some amount of changes , the basic tenets are still applicable in understanding how humans develop progressively from birth to adulthood Several theorists have criticized Piaget 's theory and have proposed alternative approaches to explaining human development . Other

theorists have espoused Piaget 's theory with few modifications or additions to the original theory . Consequently his theory of cognitive development has had a tremendous impact on human development theorists

Piaget sought to describe how development occurs from the moment of birth unto adulthood and the cognitive changes that occur as physical development takes place , using his background in Biology and his knowledge of the way organisms behave relative to their environment Piaget 's theory was constructivist in nature proposing that each child is actively involved in constructing his own reality . This , Piaget argued , was facilitated via the interaction of the processes of adaptation , accommodation , assimilation and equilibration (Piaget 1971

Piaget believed that children passed through four stages of cognitive development from birth to adulthood . These are the sensorimotor preoperational , concrete operational and formal operational periods (Piaget , 1971 . He also gives an estimate as to the age at which each child will enter either stage . Wakefield (1996 ) points out , though , that the age range for each stage is only an average ' a child may enter a specific stage earlier or later than that estimated by Piaget . However each child , Piaget argues , must pass through each of these stages of development in the specified and no child can skip a particular stage (Piaget . It must also be noted here that his theory is necessarily universal as it examines only how all children will progress and does not seek to analyze individual differences among children

The sensorimotor period represents a child zero to two years . The main aspects of this stage Slavin (2000 ) summarizes is where infants learn about their surroundings by using their senses and motor skills Piaget (1971 ) believes that each child is born with some built in mechanisms and tendencies and these he labels as reflexes . Because a newborn child has not yet developed a concept of his environment , his initial response to this environment up to one month old is instinctive These reflexes are the basis through which the child acquires new perspectives and behaviors (schemes ) in an attempt to learn about and understand his environment

Wakefield (1996 ) comments that , even though a child is unable to perform some amount of logical thinking at this stage , there is still some attempt to understand his environment through the use of his sense perceptions and motor skills . From birth to one month children begin to establish schemes as they commence the processing of interacting with and understanding their environment...