Posted: September 5th, 2023

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is referred to as a theory that explains development of human intelligence. The theory also explains that toddlers go through different stages of mental development. According to Meadows (2016), the four stages are used to explain how children acquire new knowledge through experiments, observations, and learning. The children continuously acquire new information and adapt to the already existing knowledge (Tourmen, 2016). Jean Piaget’s theory argues that cognitive development involves step-wise development of children’s cognitive abilities. The theory explains that the four stages describe the differences in children of various stages and how they should be handled to improve learning.
Sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to two years of age. The characteristics of the stage include knowing the world through the environment and sensations (Tourmen, 2016). Children also learn basic actions such as sucking or grasping. Children also learn to differentiate between people and objects. Learning the difference between people and objects helps them to attach names and identities to objects and people. Meadows (2016) argues that children learn that they can cause things to happen around them. During the first stage, children learn how to crawl, walk and communicate with the people around them.
Preoperational stage occurs from 2 years to 7 years. Children at this age are egocentric and they begin to see the world from their perspective and not the perspective of other people (Tourmen, 2016). They also think symbolically which helps them to communicate using words. They also start using pictures to communicate. They start perceiving the world in concrete terms which helps them to understand the world better. However, their understanding of the world is not fully developed (Tourmen, 2016). During the preoperational stage, a child may not differentiate that objects of different shapes can be of the same size.
The concrete operational stage occurs between seven to eleven years. At this age, children become logical and organized. They also apply inductive logic which helps them to reason out issues. According to Meadows (2016), the last stage is the formal operational stage which occurs from 12 years and above. In this stage, adolescents start to think abstractly and reason. They also tend to think about ethical issues, political issues, the social life that require both theoretical and abstract reasoning (Meadows, 2016). According to Piaget theory creation of knowledge is an active process that occurs in various stages. The knowledge creation process changes how children relate with the world and people around them.

References
Meadows, S. (2017). An assessment of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Developing Thinking (pp. 7-25). Routledge.
Tourmen, C. (2016). With or beyond Piaget? A dialogue between new probabilistic models of learning and the theories of Jean Piaget. Human Development, 59(1), 4-25.

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