The Contributions Of Piaget's Theory And Human Development

1. Piaget (1995) denies behaviorism advocates that the organism’s response as a passive only depends on the stimulus in the environment, but rather both the organism and the environment are interaction. Therefore, he believes the children are the active thinker and try to construct the world (Piaget, 2006). Thus, this paper has 4 parts to illustrate his contribution. The first is Piaget’s basic concept and theory (Para. 2-9), the second is compare with other theory (Para.10), and the third is the challenge about the theory and experiment (Para. 11-13), the last is the conclusion.

2. Piaget defines intelligence as a basic life function helps the organism to adapt the environment. Therefore, the cognitive equilibrium which means the balance between the thought processes and the environment is the primary goal for the organism. In this process, this cognitive development has 2 basic responses: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation means based on the existing knowledge to explain the new information and integrate it into the original schema; contrast, accommodation means that if the existing knowledge cannot explain it, the organism will modify their schema. By modification and equilibrium, the schemas constantly expand to a huge cognitive structure and

In information-processing perspective, stage theory is not the best way to understand human development and solve the problems but rather how to use different cognitive strategies and experience; contrary, some believe cognitive development is stage-like changes gradually (Case & Okamoto, 1996). These theorists are called neo-Piagetians. Moreover, Intellectual development has different aspects which depends on what the children domains (Fischer & Bidell, 1998). One study showed that the even 10-year-olds chess tournament players better than the 18-year-olds amateurs to recall the chess position (Chi, 1978). Thus, the children just only teach the specific knowledge rather than cognitive