Piaget Cognitive Theory

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The theory that has always interest me is the cognitive theory, pioneered by Jean Piaget. It is a theory based on the idea that an individual 's thought processes and the way those processes affect the person 's understanding of the world. Piaget 's cognitive theory determines how this understanding, and expectations it creates, affects the individual 's attitude, beliefs, and behavior. His theory on Cognitive Development in a nutshell explains the way biology influences how children conceptualize and deal with tasks at different stages while growing up. Piaget 's theory focuses more on how children 's behavior changes as they grow and how the children interact with their environment. Piaget 's six stages of development Piaget maintained that there are four major changes of cognitive development. Each stage is age Sensorimotor stage (birth-2years old): this is the stage that the child knows the world through their senses and motor abilities; their understanding of objects is limited to their sensory experience of them and the immediate actions to play with the objects. According to Piaget, once they enter toddlerhood, children experiment with objects to see how it works; this is an experience-based kind of early intelligence. 2. Preoperational stage (2-6 years old): preschool children start to think symbolically; that is, they think about and understand objects using mental processes that are independent of immediate experiences. This reflects in their ability to use language, to think of past and future events, and to pretend. However, toddlers cannot think logically in a consistent way, and their reasoning is subjective and intuitive. 3. Concrete operational stage (7-11 years old): children start to think logically in a consistent way, but only in regards to real and concrete features of their world, but not in an abstract situation. This stage makes the school-age child a more systematic, objective and a scientific-style

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