Piaget's Stages Of Cognitive Development Essay

The psychological, physical, and cognitive development of a child is rather important throughout the child’s life. There have been a number of psychologist who laid out the stages a child should reach within a specific age. Some of those theorist/psychologists include Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Eric Erikson, and Jean Piaget. Each of the theorist focus on a different aspect of development. Jean Piaget focused on children’s cognitive development where there are four stages of development. The four stages of cognitive development according to Piaget’s theory consist of the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and lastly, the formal operational stage (Arnett, 2016). Each of these stages consist of goals the child should be striving for and reaching throughout specific ages. Throughout this course, we have used MyVirtualChild and this helped lay out some of these stages of my child Gabriella.

The first stage of Piaget’s cognitive development theory is the sensorimotor

stage. The sensorimotor stage usually takes place from the day the child is born until the child is eighteen months to two years old. One of the main goals of sensorimotor is to develop object permanence skills. Throughout this stage, children begin to learn about the world through their senses with motor activities (Arnett, 2016). From the beginning of Gabriella’s life to the age of two, she has developed multiple skills. Throughout the first month of Gabriella’s life, she was very active and curious about her new environment and surroundings. Gabriella was able to look around at her new surroundings, grasping items in reachable distances, and listening to her surroundings. By eight months, she developed object permanence skills as she was “able to find a hidden object, as long as you don’t wait too long or distract her in the middle of the search” (Pearson, 2014). She did struggle finding an object that was previously hidden because she often looked in the same spot the object was last hidden. At the age, she also started to set little goals which contained two step planning. Gabriella began to crawl, sitting up, and standing at the age of nine months. By twelve months, Gabriella enjoyed “throwing every toy out of her crib and watching what happens to it” (Pearson, 2014). At this age, she began to imitate new words and actions as well as she began to walk. Performing simple experiments is something that Gabriella began to do at the age of fifteen months. According to the examiner I took Gabriella too, she claimed that Gabriella has the average gross motor skills. The examiner also explained that Gabriella’s language comprehension, language production, and communication skills are age appropriate for the eighteen to nineteen months. Overall, Gabriella is developing at an appropriate rate according to Piaget’s cognitive development. Within this sensorimotor stage, there is one main substage that Gabriella also went through. (Pearson, 2014)
There are four substages throughout the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development that include simple reflexes substage, first habits and primary circular reaction substage, secondary circular reactions substage, and coordination of secondary circular reactions substage. The simple reflexes substage starts when the child is born and goes up to the age of one. Throughout this stage, the child begins to root and suck which are reflexive behaviors (Arnett, 2016). My child Gabriella started this substage when we began the breast-feeding process. According to the information provided, she was able to breastfeed for a good portion of time. (Pearson, 2014)
The next stage of cognitive development is the preoperational stage. This stage typically starts at the age of two and goes through the age of seven. The main objective throughout this stage is for the child to develop symbolic thoughts. Memory, language, and imagination becomes to a key part of development and become rather strong. Conversations between the child and adults become fluent and more understandable (Arnett, 2016). Throughout the ages of two to seven, Gabriella’s conversational skills have improved greatly, and she has been able to hold stronger conversations as she gets older. Gabriella’s memory has improved greatly as she able to remember and follow household rules and routines at the age of two. She is also able to remember recent experiences and events to the zoo and amusement parks. Her imagination is growing greatly, and she is starting to play with dolls. Gabriella’s motor skills have improved greatly throughout the ages of two and three including the abilities to throwing and catching objects, shooting mini basketballs, and kicking the mini – soccer balls. Gabriella enjoys playing with dolls and other objects that she can use throughout fantasy play. Her fantasy play has been “more and more elaborate, sometimes involving superheroes or cartoon characters, or parents and children” (Pearson, 2014). The growth of imagination in a child’s mind is rather important and I found myself encouraging her to think outside of the box and imagine different scenes of play. She has been able to solve picture puzzles and building blocks. At age four, Gabriella has been excelling at physical play, dramatic play, writing her name, reading a few words, expanding her vocabulary, and reciting books from her memory. She is also excelling with her thinking ability. At six years old, she is still expanding her vocabulary, conversations with adults and other children, and participating in more independent activities. At the age of eight she is still in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. As Gabriella approaches being eight and a half, she begins to enter the third step of cognitive development. (Pearson, 2014)
The third step is concrete operational development.

From age seven to eleven years old the child usually is in the concrete operational stage. The goal of this stage is to develop operational thoughts using mental operations. Children throughout these ages often have trouble thinking hypothetically (Arnett, 2016). Gabriella was tested by an examiner to see where her cognitive development lies, and the results were rather interesting. According to the examiner, she excelled greatly on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, when tested in math she ranged in the gifted portion, and for visual – spatial ability she was rated above average. At ten years old she is able to concentrate longer than she has in the past. She has expanded her education level greatly and has been using her imagination greatly by writing stories at home and at school. Gabriella has grown rapidly physically and cognitively and can be seen as more advanced for her age. (Pearson,

2014)
The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is the formal operational stage. The formal operational stage typically takes place throughout a larger margin of time which is from adolescence after the age of eleven to adulthood. The focus throughout this stage is for the individual to develop abstract concept skills. Abstract concept skills include logically solving problems, viewing the world around them, as well as figuring out the plans for the future. Children throughout this stage are able to think logically and formulate a hypothesis and theories to test the hypothesis systematically (Arnett, 2016). At the age of fourteen, Gabriella is excelling at a number of areas of cognitive development including oral reading, decoding, reading comprehension spelling, and writing. She often enjoys writing stories using her imagination. Her problem-solving skills have developed greatly and she able to solve problems on her own or limited help. Throughout this portion of her life, she has developed moral principles as well as the ability to understand people and their personalities. Sixteen years old has been an interesting year for Gabriella because she is able to develop solutions and understanding the consequences the action may have. She is able to concentrate more and has become more organized throughout the years. One of the things, that Gabriella has performed well in was performing greatly in school and scoring greatly on her ACT and SATs. Although, Gabriella had entered the formal operational stage later then she should have, she is cognitively improving each day. (Pearson, 2014)
Gabriella’s cognitive development has improved greatly throughout the years according to the information provided. I think it is rather important that each child follows Piaget’s cognitive development as much as possible because it gives the child goals to reach as well as developing new skills. The four steps of cognitive development including sensorimotor, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage have specific goals that children are eager to develop.