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Jean piaget theory cognitive development essays
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Strengths and weaknesses of Piaget's theory of cognitive development
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Choose one of the theorists and give a summary of the developmental theory. The theorist that I chose to give a summary on is Jean Piaget. Piaget believed that there were four stages of cognitive development that every child goes through. These include the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational period. The sensorimotor stage is the first stage in cognitive development. The second stage is the Pre-operational stage. The third stage in his theory is the Concrete operational stage. The fourth stage is his theory is the Formal operational stage. Every child goes through each stage. In the first stage (Birth -2yrs, “Infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects” (Cherry, 2016, p.1). In the second stage (2-7 years), children can think about different things symbolically and they learn a lot through play. Children can make an object or word stand for something other than just itself and still have some struggles understanding logic. The third stage (7-11 years), children can work out problems within their own head, and begin to think more logically and they better understand their way of thinking through their …show more content…
Piaget also thought that when children were playing, they were doing it for pleasure and did not result in the children learning new things. Piaget also thought that when children were playing, they were only reflecting what they already knew and that play does not necessarily teach them anything new. When children play, they interact with other children, it helps them by promoting their social-cognitive development. When children have interactions through play, it helps children to understand that other children also have different perspectives not just their own. “Play, for Piaget, provides children with opportunities to develop social competence through ongoing interactions” (Frost, Wortham & Reifel, 2014, p.
Theories abound around how people develop emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. This essay will examine the theories of five leaders on the subject of development.
This can be identified as the four stages of mental development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and the formal operational stage. (Cherry, 2017) Each stage involves a difference of making sense in reality than the previous stage. In the sensorimotor stage, the first stage, infants start to conduct an understanding of the world by relating sensory experiences to a motor or physical action. This stage typically lasts from birth until around two years of age. A key component of this stage is object permanence, which simply means to understand an object will exist even when it can’t be directly visualized, heard, or felt. The second stage was the preoperational stage. This stage dealt more so with symbolic thinking rather than senses and physical action. Usually, the preoperational stage last between two to seven years old, so you can think of this as preschool years. The thinking in infants is still egocentric or self-centered at this time and can’t take others perspectives. The third stage or the concrete operational stage averagely lasts from seven to eleven years of age. This is when individuals start using operations and replace intuitive reasoning with logical reasoning in concrete circumstances. For example, there are three glasses, glass A and B are wide and short and filled with water while glass C is tall and skinny and empty. If the water in B is
In acquiring this new-found knowledge Piaget stated that when the child is given a more complex problem they can use logical and cognitive processes to answer instead of just their imagination and/or visual prospects (Feldman, 2006, pp. 286-287). Although some kids may not fully just jump into the concrete operation stage Piaget says it is completely normal that kids shift back and forth between preoperational and concrete operational thinking during the two years before they completely reach the stage. When the process is complete you should notice how your child becomes more sophisticated in handling their information. Their concepts of speed and time also highly increase. During the middle childhood stage, short term memory improves significantly. For example, a child will be able to repeat a set of numbers back to you with more ease and less concentration then they could before (Feldman, 2006, p. 289). Vocabulary of children also begin to rapidly increase during the school years. They can take in what the teacher says and store it in their brains so more knowledge is obtained. This is the stage in which your child usually learns to read and
'A child's mind is a blank book. During the first years of his life, much will be written on the pages. The quality of that writing will affect his life profoundly.‘
Well as we all know Jean Piaget was an very important person in our history. Piaget was born August, 9th 1896 Piaget died of unknown causes in September , 16 1986 they would like to think he died of old age. He was born to Arthur Piaget and Rebecca Jackson in Neuchatel, Switzerland. His mother was a very kind and energetic woman but she did have small temper problems and it made family life very hard in the household of Piaget’s family. His mother’s mental disorder is one of the main things used to inspire Piaget’s desire for the cognitive thinking of the mind. He also became interested in pathological psychology during this time. His father was a very well dedicated man with his writings of medieval literature. At just the age of 11 Piaget was already starting his career as a researcher, because he had recently wrote a short paper on an albino sparrow. Shortly after that he continued to study natural sciences and also received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Neuchatel in 1918.
Developmental Psychology Attachments in Developments = == == == ==
This stage of development was described by Piaget as the preoperational stage. Children are often in this stage from ages two to seven. Children in this stage begin using symbolic thinking. Their reasoning skills begin to develop as well. Cognitive development is also very important in this stage of a child’s life (Feldman, 2011). Their thinking is partially logical, however they are limited (Fleming, 2004). They can only look at things from their perspective, which is called egocentrism. They cannot yet understand steps for transformations. They also do not comprehend that appearances can be deceiving. They do, however, develop their use of symbolic function. This is their ability to use symbols to describe something. Vygotsky also said that cognitive development is the result of social interactions. Children are guided and supported in solving problems (Feldman,
In exploring the discussion about developmental psychology, there is a need to review the historical background of the works, which led to what we have today. Most of the work started as philosophical subjects with argument being the interplay between biology and culture. Leading these discussion on these dichotomous view were philosophers such as John Locke attributing development completely to the effect of sensory input. His view suggested that babies are born with a clean tablet where all information needed is input from experience. On the other side, of the discussion was the French philosopher Descartes' who believed that we are born with the specific kind of idea (Keller, 2000). Beside those two there were many other theory on human development one being development follow the same stages as the evolution of species. These theories had birth new ideas and propelled developmental Psychology to new heights and pushed researchers to develop different methods in conducting researches on children
Developmental theories are broken up into two perspectives; Life-course, and Latent Trait. These perspectives may answer questions on why juveniles have grown to lead a destructive life-style and why others grow out of their delinquency. Latent trait explains that some tendencies we are may be born with and how important it is to be there for our children. Our parenting skills do have a profound effect on how our children may lack self control or have an impulsive behavior.
The stages are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The phase that applies to these children at the age of 4 years old is the preoperational stage, which covers approximately ages 2 to 7 years old. During this stage, “ preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor discoveries,” (Berk, 2010) and the use of language. In this preoperational stage, children do not yet understand concrete logic, and cannot mentally manipulate information . Piaget and Vygotsky had different ways to explain cognitive development. Piaget’s roots were in biology and the evolutionary adaptation of humans, and Vygotsky in theory that focus on how people transform their world rather than adapt to it (Vianna, 2006). Vygotsky focused on the importance on the psychosocial aspect of cognitive development. Piaget believed cognition was a result of the of the child 's maturity. Vygotsky felt that learning was only as strong and powerful as the environment surrounding the child. Piaget’s felt that one stage of devlopment must be completed prior to moving forward, whereas Vygotsky’s cognitive development perspective has little dependence on time, but more emphasize on social
Piaget’s research helped him discover that children structure their knowledge differently than adults. He believed there were four stages of a child’s intellectual development (Cohen, 2011, p. 27). Sensory-motor was the first stage and described how children learn about their environment through senses and motor action. This stage also includes the concept of object permanence that usually lasts until the baby is eight months old. Babies that have not overcome object permeance do not look for an object once it is out of his of her sight and will focus their attention on something new. The pre-operational stage is second and occurs in children between the ages of two and seven. In this stage they do not have to relay on physical contact to obtain knowledge and can think about an event after it has happened (Cohen, 2011, p. 161). However they can not decenter, which means they only give their attention to one object at a time. Cohen (2011), gives the example of children believing taller people must be older than shorter people (p. 161). The third stage is the concrete operational stage, which lasts from seven to eleven years old. In this stage they have the concept of decantation. Unlike in the pre-operational stage children can take on more than one detail about an object in at once. The last stage is the formal operational stage, which begins at about age twelve. In this stage children begin to think about the possible, abstract and hypothetical ideas (Cohen, 2011, p.
While the child is significantly gaining symbolic representations of experiences and objects and developing languages, the child’s thought process becomes more efficient and extensive compared to the earlier stage. The child starts to develop intuitive thought. This is a “transition period between depending solely on perception and depending on truly logical thinking” (Thomas, 2000, p. 261). Even if the child is not fully basing his or her logic off of intuitive thought, which creates the child to not be able to fully think like adults, the child is “better able to see more than one factor at a time that influences an event”, which is “a major advance in logical thought” (Thomas, 2000, p.
Cognitive development theory was propounded by Piaget in (1972). Piaget proposed that cognitive development from infant to young adult occurs in four universal and consecutive stages. The four stages are; sensorimotor - birth to 2 years, preoperational - 2 years to 7 years, concrete operational - 7 years to 11 years and formal operational (abstract thinking) 11 years and up. Each stage has major cognitive tasks which must be accomplished. In the sensorimotor stage, the mental structures are mainly concerned with the mastery of concrete objects. The mastery of symbols takes place in the preoperational stage. In the concrete stage, children learn mastery of classes, relations and numbers and how to reason. The last stage deals with the mastery
It involves language, mental imagery, thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and memory development. Jean Piaget stages of cognitive development are the sensorimotor period (birth to 2 years). Children at the sensorimotor stage becomes more goal-directed oriented with goal moving from concrete to abstract (Driscoll et al., 2005). Children at the preoperational period (2-7), engage in symbolic play and games, but has a difficult time seeing another person’s point of view (Driscoll et al., 2005). For example, teaching a preoperational child can provide opportunities to play with clay, water, or sand. Children at the concrete operational period (7-11), solves concrete problems in a logical fashion (Driscoll et al., 2005). For example, providing materials such as mind twisters, brain teasers, and riddles. The formal operational period (11-adulthood) is when student’s solve abstract problems and develop concerns for social issues (Driscoll et al., 2005). For example, making sure that tests that’s given has essay questions and asks a student to come up with other ways to answer the
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development describes his belief that children try to actively make sense of the world rather than simply absorbing knowledge as previously thought. Piaget’s theory claims that as children grow and develop they experience four different cognitive stages of life. As a child grows through each stage they not only learn new information but the way he or she thinks also changes. “In other words, each new stage represents a fundamental shift in how the child thinks and understands the world” (Hockenbury, page 368).The first stage of Piaget’s theory, known as the sensorimotor stage, begins at birth and continues on until about age 2. As the name suggest, this stage is when children begin to discover