Jean Piaget's Theories Of Cognitive Development

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A swiss pyscholoist, Jean Piaget observed children in stages of life of cognitive development by watching his 3 children grow and it helped him understand his children’s minds. Piaget came up with a stage theory of development; the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. The sensorimotor stage happens at birth and ends at about 2 years of age. When a child is born, it already has some innate sensory abilities. It knows how to search for the mother’s nipple for food, to cry when he/ she needs something like a bottle or a diaper change, etc... Piaget’s theory in the sensorimotor stage believe that through this age a child survives and discovers through their senses and motor skills. …show more content…

Piaget’s theory behind this stage is that the child has limitations mentally. Believing that children have egocentrism, that we only see their point of view, kind of like the world revolves around them. Egocentrism is a great example of “hide-n-seek” believing that if he/she hides under the covers, and he thinks he can’t be seen, then there is just no way you can see him. “Gosh, I just don’t know where he can be”, as you see a huge bulge in the blankets on your bed. He will believe that he is invisible, but he is just not advanced mentally to realize there are other viewpoints other than his. Another feature is animistic thinking believing non-living things (teddy bears, baby dolls, etc…) are alive and feel/ think like humans. For example, seeing a child play “school” with stuffed animals and believing they are students and you are the teacher. Centration happens when the child has a limitation, and doesn’t get the “bigger picture”. In the book Psychology Concept 7th edition, it had an example of when a child sees a tall cup, and believes it is bigger than a short wider cup but it actually holds the same amount. Since they see the tall cup, they automatically assume that it holds more juice then a wider cup would since the length is shorter. The last feature is irreversibility, having a limitation in the “mental trial-and-error”. They are incapable to mentally reversing process after a series of events/

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