PRINCIPLES OF PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget is one of the men that will be remembered throughout the years for
his contribution to the world of education. Jean Piaget was a biologist whom then found
an interest in children development understanding. Piaget said that, the children’s mind
do not develop entirely yet but it will be improved from time to time according to different
stages. There are four different stages that he had found during his investigation on the
children’s development. The four stages or principles stated by Piaget are Sensori-
motor , Pre-operational , Concrete operational and Formal operational.

The first stage is known as Sensori-motor. This stage started for the children at
the age of one day till two years. At this stage, infants start to learn more about
themselves and the surrounding by using motor reflexes and random stimuli. After the
age reached one month, they begin to produce simple and recurring actions. When they
reach their four month age, they will start to know about the concept of permanence.
This knowledge they achieved from the game Peek-A-Boo [ CITATION Pee11 \l 1033 ] . In
this game the elders will hide their faces and then appeared again in front of the baby
by saying Peek-a-boo! Sometimes followed by I see you! .Here they learn that, you will
not be gone although you have disappeared once. When the infants reached 8 months,
they started to acclimate themselves to new experiences. The concept of permanence
fully realized by the baby and they start to act according to the goals and symbolic
thought using language marks the end for this stage.

Pre-operational is the second stage in the principles. It started from the age of
two years old till seven years old. This developmental stage is when a child starts using
words and images to relate and symbolize objects and thoughts; during this time
children will still find it hard to see from the perspectives of others (Atherton, 2009). This
stage of cognitive development also signifies a child's inability to classify objects by
more than one feature. According to [ CITATION NoA103 \l 1033 ] at this stage the children
just pretend to know about the surrounding but the fact is that, they know nothing.
Toddlers and children at this stage also begin to use language to communicate their
mental representation of the world

The third stage that involves in this stage is Concrete Operational. It starts from
seven till eleven years old. The children start to learn about reasoning at this time. This
is because they already got their logical reasoning at this time being. The children starts
to use the schemes that they created in the previous stage to gain new knowledge by
assimilate and accommodate with it. This is happening when the child start to
understand concrete objects and also able to use not only their perspective but the
perspective of others as well. [ CITATION NoA103 \l 1033 ]. Apart from that, they also know
and comprehend the concept of conservation. They are able to do this is because of the
presence of logical reasoning that start to appear in their mind.

The final stage that appeared in Piaget principles is Formal Operational. Formal
Operational involve the children from the age of eleven and above. This stage indicates
a child's ability to hypothesized and test methodically. This developmental stage is also
when children will become "alarmed with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological
problems. [ CITATION NoA103 \l 1033 ] At this stage the child starts to think logically and re-
constructing an abstract problem. The child now considers problem that are not only
based on them. Piaget's cognitive development theory has played a significant role in
education theory on a child's ability to learn