...Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development The cognitive development theory is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. It is primarily known as a developmental stage theory, it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire, construct, and use it. Piaget felt, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. “For that reason, children construct an understanding of the world around them, and then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.”(McLeod 2014) Additionally, Piaget claimed the idea that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism, and language is contingent on cognitive development. Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensori-motor: (Birth-2 yrs) Differentiates self from objects. Recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise. Achieves object permanence: realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense. • Pre-operational :( 2-7 years) Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words. Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others .Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless...
Words: 735 - Pages: 3
...Cognitive development is the term used to understand the process of thoughts, comprising memory, problematic and management, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. The cognitive theorists Jean Piaget and Lev Samanovich Vygotsky raise awareness of the learning process of an individual and how teachers need to coherently structure lesson plans in order to promote an inclusive learning environment as well as promote higher order thinking. Both theories have been embedded within the case study (McGonigal.J.A, 1999). Both theories of which were extremely important contributors to the cognitive development element to children development psychology. Furthermore to this also evaluate the strong point and weaknesses of each theory and outline how they have been applied to an educational setting. Argument’s raised to understand that in (McGonigal.J.A, 1999) research literature she is able to implement different techniques to get the children to all participate within the assigned classroom activities. This suggests that all children do have a different level of involvement and grasp of attention, from her traditional approach to the lesson, as she states the children’s impact on the lesson that they were uncomfortable with this type of lesson without direction of their worksheets as that is what they were familiar to. She then comprehends that not all students were not engaged so she experimented with the traditional task to something more individual based, the question is that...
Words: 478 - Pages: 2
...Chapter 6: Cognition & Language CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory A. Piaget’s theory is a general, unifying story of how biology and experience sculpt cognitive development. 1. Piaget thought that just as our physical bodies have structures that enable us to adapt to the world, we build mental structures to adapt to the world. 2. He emphasized that children actively construct their own cognitive worlds; he sought to discover how children at different points in their development think about the world and how systematic changes in their thinking occur. B. Processes of development: 3. Schemes are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge; behavioral schemes (physical activities, characterize infancy, and mental schemes (cognitive activities) develop in childhood. a) Older children have schemes that include strategies and plans for solving problems; b) By the time we reach adulthood, we have constructed an enormous number of diverse schemes. 2. Assimilation occurs when new information is incorporated into existing schemes. 3. Accommodation occurs when learners adjust their schemes to fit new information and experiences. 4. Equilibration is the grouping isolated behaviors and thoughts into higher-order system. Continual refinement is an inherent part of development. C. Equilibration and...
Words: 2735 - Pages: 11
...Jean Piaget Intelligence Piaget was opposed to defining intelligence in terms of the number of items answered correctly on a so- called intelligence test. (Olson & Hergenhahn, 20090 To him intelligence is what allows an organism to deal effectively with its environment. Intelligence changes constantly because both the environment and the organism change constantly. Intelligence is a dynamic trait because what is available as an intelligent act will change as the organism matures biologically and it gains experience. (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009) It is an important part of all living organisms because they seek those conditions for survival. How intelligence manifests will vary as conditions vary. This theory is often referred to as genetic epistemology; it attempts to trace the development of intellectual capabilities. Schemata Children are born with a few highly organized reflexes (sucking, looking, grasping, reaching, etc.) Instead of discussing individual occurrences of the reflexes, he discussed the general potential to act. The potential to act in a certain way was labeled as schema (plural: schemata). (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009) The schema is more than a single manifestation of the reflex. Schema is an element in the organism’s cognitive structure. When any particular manifestation is observed, it must be described in terms of a specific response to a specific stimulus. These aspects of any particular manifestation of a schema are called content; content describes...
Words: 2546 - Pages: 11
...“Cognitive Development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving and decision making from childhood through adolescense to adulthood.” (Answer.com) According to Jean Piaget, cognitive development progresses gradually through a series of stages. “Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in Menchates, Switzerland. Piaget begain the study on child behaviour through his own kids.” (Newkrik, E) He studied his kids intellectual development from infancy. While conducting his studies on his kids, Piaget developed a theory which was sub divided into four stages of intellectual development. Piaget’s intellectual development theory was divided into four stages and was also known as stage theory. The first stage is Senserimotor stage which starts from the birth of the child till age two. This stage is also named as infancy. According to Piaget, infant “presume that the world profoundly lacks permanence.” (Mitchell P, Ziegler F 2007) Piaget subdivided the stage of infancy into six further stages. In a brief this stage says that the child depends on seeing, feeling, sucking and they learn how to feel though their environment. In this stage it was proven that the infact has the ability to coordinate separate activites. For instance, the coordination between looking and reaching. Object permanence was one of the important concepts developed during this stage. “Object permanence is the awareness that an object continues to exist even when it is not in view.” (In a Nutshell)...
Words: 1273 - Pages: 6
...Ever wonder why children behave the way they do? According to theorist Jean Piaget there are some very simple explanations for this. Piaget explains through his theory of cognitive development, to what is occurring for a child at every stage of their live and how it gradually changes. The first stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is the sensorimotor stage. The sensorimotor stage is comprised of six sub-stages which begin at birth and are broken down specifically to age ranges of when development markers should occur up to two years of age. Piaget argues that an infant processes thought from sensory experiences with physical actions to gain an understanding of the world around them without judgment. Piaget argues that infants do not distinguish between the world and themselves meaning that objects have no permanency. For example, a toy given to a six month old, as long as it is in sight it exsists, but when distractions blocks the view of the toy, the child does not search for it because for them it is no longer there. Piaget’s theory is that infant should learn object permanence as they near the end of the sensorimotor stage (Santrock, 2010). In the preoperational stage Piaget contests that children with in the age range of two to seven years are beginning to think in a more egocentric kind of way. They are discovering themselves and the world around them. The children are unaware of differences in people and familiar objects. The child is oblivious to the fact...
Words: 851 - Pages: 4
...Jean Piaget Jean Piaget was an intriguing theorist who provided support that adults and children do not think alike. He dedicated his whole life to answer one single question, and that is “How does human knowledge develop?” He identified himself as a genetic epistemologist. Genetic epistemology is defined as the discovering of the roots of the different varieties of knowledge. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the origin, nature, extent, and limits of human knowledge. Piaget was interested not only in the nature of thought, but in how it develops and understands how genetics impact this process, (J. P Biography, 2013). This paper will discuss the contributions that Jean Piaget made to the field of learning and cognition. Additionally, it will address the models of cognition development associated with his theories as well as analyzing the relevancy of the models to modern day. Jean Piaget started studying natural science when he was just 11. He was born in 1896 and was a native to Switzerland. He received his PhD in Zoology in 1918. During his early work with Binet's intelligence tests, it had led him to assume that children think differently than adults do. Through this observation it inspired his interest to understand how knowledge continues to grow throughout childhood. He suggested that children sort the knowledge they acquire through their experiences and interactions into groupings known as schemas. When new information is acquired, it...
Words: 773 - Pages: 4
...Jean Piaget Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on August 9th, 1896. He was the oldest of three children, and the only boy. His father was Arthur Piaget, a professor of medieval literature. His mother was Rebecca Jackson, and his godfather was the Swiss scholar Samuel Cornut. In 1923, he married Valentine Chatenay. The couple had three children, Jacqueline, Lucienne, and Laurent. Piaget died in Geneva on September 16, 1980, after a brilliant scientific career made of over sixty books and several hundred articles (Papert, 1999). Piaget’s greatest contribution was to found the field of cognitive development. He believed children are the biggest manufacturers of their own development, as man’s capacity for logical thought is not learned but embedded along with hair color and sex, in his genes. In other words, a child cannot be forced to develop understanding any faster than the rate at which his powers mature to their full potential, so there is a limit to what overeager parents and teachers can achieve. On the flip side, a child who does not get the chance to apply his developing abilities and test limitations may never reach his full intellectual capacity (Pramling, 2006). According to Jurczak (1997), Piaget believed in four stages of cognitive development: • Stage 1: Sensorimotor – Newborn to Age 2 The child’s primary concern is mastering his own innate physical reflexes and extending them into interesting or pleasurable actions. During this time, the child becomes...
Words: 1869 - Pages: 8
...Abstract Literature review of Piaget’s theory of developmental psychology (1954), object permanence and a critical evaluation of Piaget’s theory in relation to recent studies that show different results to that which Piaget originally gathered and based his stage theory on. Introduction The work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980), has made him go down in history as one of the most instrumental and influential figures in the history of psychology to date. His contribution to the world of psychology is based around the field of developmental psychology. He transformed this area of psychology and laid the foundations upon which subsequent research can be based around and undercover more of the truth behind the cognitive development of infants. Piaget believed that the key to understanding children’s thought processes is not whether they get the answer right, rather the key lies within how they arrived at the answer (Holt et. al, 2012). Piaget stated that our brains hold schemas, which are responsible for organising our patterns of thoughts and actions (Holt et al., 2012). Building on this mental framework he introduced the concepts of assimilation and accommodation which helped lay down the foundation upon which he could build his work on. Piaget committed 50 years of his life to study the intellectual development that occurs in children which ultimately led to the development of his well-acclaimed staged theory of cognitive development (Hock, 2009). His theory is based on the idea...
Words: 1369 - Pages: 6
...constructs their thoughts for example, remembering things, problem solving and attention. In this essay I am going to evaluate the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. I will look into the weaknesses and strengths of the theories with supporting evidence and also the similarities and the differences of the two theories. Piaget believed that children develop through the interaction of innate capacities with environmental events (Gross 2005). He saw children as scientists and he also argued that cognitive development consists of four evident phases the first phase being the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational, the concrete operational and the formal operation. Piaget argued that cognition development in children developed through these four stages and that the thinking patterns always happened in a sequence with four key features. It also happened in the same order and no stage was skipped, each stage was an important change than the stage before it. In the sensor motor stage from birth to two years, Piaget observed that childrens cognitive development was limited to natural involuntary response. Children build on these responses and develop complicated processes through physical interaction and experience (Gross 2005). At around seven months, the child learned that even if an object is out of sight the object still existed. This is what Piaget called object permanency In this stage the children will learn from their parents and those who care for them. At this stage children try...
Words: 1032 - Pages: 5
...In regards to child development Piaget has come up with a theory called cognitive development. The cognitive theory development theory basically shows that children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world. (Berk 2014) Piaget broke this theory up into four categories. The first category is called the Sensori-motor stage. This stage usually occurs from birth until 2 years of age. Here infants learn by exploring their world using their eyes, ears, hands and mouth. Because of this learning style they are able to solve simple Sensori- motor issues. An example of this would be children learning to put things and take things out of a box. The next stage according to Piaget’s theory would be called the Preoperational stage. This age group is ranged from 2 to 7 years of age. Here pre-school children would use symbols to represent their earlier discoveries. During this stage language and make believe starts to develop. The next phase is called the concrete operational stage. This stage is grouped from 7 to 11 ears of age. During this stage children become more logical with their reasoning. The last stage according to Piaget is called the formal operational stage. This stage is grouped from 11 years of age and on. Piaget’s theory has caused many researchers to not only study and learn tremendously but to challenge him as well. According to research, Piaget underestimated the capabilities of infants and preschoolers. Researchers found that...
Words: 988 - Pages: 4
...Piaget and Education There are three educational principles from Piaget’s theory that still majorly impact both teacher training and the practices of the classroom. This is especially during early childhood. His theories focused attention on the idea of developmentally appropriate education. They include materials, instruction, curriculum, and an environment that is suitable for a student in terms of their physical and cognitive abilities and also meets their social needs as well as their emotional needs (Slavin 2010). Theses educational principles are not a focus on the results but on the process of the child’s thinking (Slavin 2010). The first principle is discovery learning in which the children are encouraged, through spontaneous interaction with their environment, to discover for themselves (Berk 2014). The teachers provide a variety of activities designed to promote exploration instead of presenting ready-made knowledge (Berk 2014). They include playing dress-up, playing with musical instruments, art, puzzles, measuring tools, and table games (Berk 2014). The second principle is the sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn (Berk 2014). The activities introduced in this principle build on the child’s current thinking and challenges their incorrect ways of viewing the world (Berk 2014). But his view is that teaching new skills before the child is ready could be “worse that no teaching at all, because it leads to a superficial acceptance of adult formulas rather...
Words: 573 - Pages: 3
...I replicated Piagets conversations task on a three and a half year old girl named Juju. I had Juju sit down in a chair across the table from me. I told her I was going to ask her a few questions and she had to tell me the answer she thought. For the first conversation, I had two equal glasses of water sitting in front of her. I asked her if she thought the glasses of water were equal or if they were different sizes. She told me they were both equal is size. Then right in front of her, I poured one glass of water in a taller and narrower glass. I asked her if the glasses were different sizes or if they were equal. She responded by pointing at the taller and narrower glass claiming it had more water in it. The second conversation consisted of two equal lines of quarters. I asked her if the lines were equal or if one line was longer than the other. She replied yes that she thought they were equal. Next I increased the spacing of the second line of checkers and asked her if she thought the lines were equal or that one line had more quarters in it. She focused on it for a little bit, but was very distracted. She then replied that the second line with more space in between the quarters had more quarters. The third conversation task consisted of two equal balls of clay. I asked Juju if the balls of clay were equal or if one ball had more clay in it than the other ball. She looked at them closely but then replied that they were both equal. Then I squeezed one ball of clay in front of...
Words: 622 - Pages: 3
...Cognitive Theorist -Jean Piaget Erika Rakes Psy- 390 November 24, 2014 Matthew Pearcy Cognitive Theorist - Jean Piaget Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental psychologist & philosopher, when it came to his career of course, has had a profound conclusion on both education and psychology. Throughout his career, Jean Piaget worked to compose a plethora of contributions to learning and also to cognition. This model that has been developed by Piaget still has modern day relevancy. Olson, M. H. & Hergenhahn, B. R. (2013). An introduction to theories of learning (9th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Contributions to learning and Cognition Piaget has created a plethora of contributions to learning and cognition by theories which in being beneficial to understanding the cognitive characteristics between adults and children. He has implemented as well as sustained for the idea of children and adults think differently. Piaget’s endeavors’ also bring about and increased interest in developmental and cognitive psychology. However when students in education and psychology, they study the theories of Piaget to understand learning and cognition. When we speak of implementing Piaget’s theories of cognitive development to education of children is yet another donation that enables the effective teaching of children (Kuhn, 1979). The last contribution of Piaget the creation of the International Center for Genetic Epistemology, this was created in 1955. ...
Words: 886 - Pages: 4
...Piaget’s stages of development, to aid one have a final opinion of his Theory of Cognitive Development. Gender was a word used by Ann Oakley and others in the 1970s to describe the characteristics of men and women that are socially determined, in contrast to the ones that are biologically determined. Gender is therefore a term referring to the social and cultural construction of men and women. The word stereotype is defined as an organised set of beliefs concerning the characteristics of all members of a defined group (Golombok, 1995). Therefore, gender stereotyping is the overgeneralisation about the characteristics of an entire group of people based on their gender. It is the perception of people on how others should behave. According to Piaget (1952), cognitive development was a progressive reorganisation of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. He believed that children progress through a series of four critical stages of cognitive development and that each stage is marked by shifts in how they understand the world. He called the first stage the sensorimotor stage, which is the period of time from birth up to two years of age in which the infant learns about the...
Words: 1849 - Pages: 8
