JEAN PIAGET'S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Megan Halfacre
Pensacola State College
DEP 2004 – Human Growth and Development
Jamie Russell, M.S.
March 3, 2017
Jean Piaget, a Swiss clinical psychologist, known for his pioneering work in child development, is one of the most significant figures in the study of child development. He established his cognitive developmental theory based on the idea that children vigorously build knowledge as they discover and influence the world around them. Piaget was attracted in the development of thinking and how it links to development all through childhood. Piaget’s theory of four stages of cognitive development, which was introduced around the mid-20th century, is one of the most well-known and widely-accepted theories in child cognitive development to this day. (Biography.com Editors, 2016)
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a broad theory about the disposition and development of humanoid intellect. While it is commonly known as a developmental stage theory, it also occupies with the nature of information itself and how people get to obtain, assemble, and use the knowledge gained. Piaget states, cognitive development is an evolving restructuring of mental developments as a result of organic maturing and experiences that are experienced in the specific situation. Children develop a perception of the world around them, and then they experience the differences of what they know and what they encounter in their surroundings. (Fischer, 1980)
Piaget also argues that the concept in which cognitive development is at the center of a human being and language is reliant on cognitive development. Piaget affirms that operative intelligence entraps how the world is understood and changes if understanding is unsuccessful. Piaget stated that there are five processes children use to build their knowledge of the world which are schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, and equilibration.
Schemas is a mental diagram that sorts out information. An example sucking is a scheme for a baby as well as observing and gripping; while older children's schemes are formulating and analytical. Assimilation describes how people monitor and alter to new material. It is the process of taking one's settings and new material and altering them into recent standing schemas. Assimilation happens when individuals are confronted with new or different information and refer to information learned earlier to get an understanding of it. Accommodation is the method of captivating one's environment and new material, and changing one's former existing schemas to adapt in the new information. Piaget supposes that it is through assimilation that accommodation is gained. Organization is the classifying or arranging of fundamentals into categories into a more efficiently operational cognitive system. Equilibration is the way children alter from one stage of thinking into the next. Shift happens as children experience a cognitive conflict when trying to understand the world around them. When the conflict is settled, they achieve a balance or equilibrium of thought. (Flavell, n.d.)
Piaget's four stages of cognitive development match with the age of the children. The stages consist of: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. (McLeod)
The sensorimotor stage ensues from birth to age 2. This stage is depicted by the idea that infants think by directing the world around them. They do this by using all five of their senses: touch, taste, smell, hear, and seeing. Adolescents figure ways out to stimulate responses by doing, such as pulling a string on a music box to hear the music, setting a block in a basket and getting it back out, or chucking a toy to see the reaction. Between 5 and 8 months old, the child acquires object permanence, the understanding that if something is out of their picture it is still nonexistent. For example, a child learns that when his mother exits the area, she still exists; likewise, a ball does not disappear because it flew out of sight. At the end of this stage, children are able to engage in what Piaget termed deferred imitation, the ability to replicate or repeat a earlier observed action later on; rather than mocking it immediately, the child is able to generate a mental depiction of it and repeat the behavior later. By the age of 24 months, infants are able to imitate behaviors after an interval of up to three months. (McLeod, 2009)
The preoperational stage transpires from age 2 to 7. Throughout this stage, children can use symbols to signify words, images, and ideas, which is the reason children in this stage engage in imaginary play. A child’s arms might be used as airplane wings as they whizz around the room, or a child with a cane might become a Jedi with a sword. Language development and pretend play begin during this stage. Rational thinking, though, is still not present, so children cannot explain or understand more intricate ideas. Children at this stage are very egocentric, thinking only of their selves, without regard for the feelings or desires of others. They are unable to take on the perception of others, and think that everybody perceives, thinks, and feels just like they do. (McLeod, 2009)