Jean Piagets Cognitive Development Theory

Born in Neuchatel (Switzerland) on August 9, 1896, Piaget is the oldest son of professor Arthur Piaget and Rebecca Jackson. Piaget is well-known for his theory of cognitive development as his researches in developmental psychology has one unique characteristic, which is: how does knowledge grow? (Smith, 2000). Piagets theory of development states that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development (Santrock, 2008). With reference to the above quotation, childrens cognitive development grows as they grow up and encounter with a lot of experiences. Piaget (1954) believed that we adapt in two ways: assimilation and accommodation (Santrock, 2008). The process of assimilation includes the process when the children learn from a new experience. This new experience will incorporate into their existing knowledge, and will change the way they think or not. This is how the children will construct their understanding towards the world. Piaget has divided our life to four stages of life, where each of the stages are age related and consists of different ways of thinking. The four stages are: i.) Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years of age) Children begin to understand and represent the world with words, images and drawings. An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage. The child also has a primitive understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. Object permanence appears around 9 months. Preoperational stage ( 2 7 years of age) The child begins to represent the world with words and images. These words and images reflect increase symbolic thinking. The child uses language and symbols, including letters and numbers. Egocentrism is evident. Conservation marks the end of the preoperational stage and the beginning of concrete operations .

ii.)

iii.)

Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years of age) The children can now reason logically about concrete events and classify

objects into different sets. The child demonstrates conservation, reversibility, serial ordering, and a mature understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. Thinking at this stage is still concrete. In this stage, children can perform operations, and logical reasoning replaces intuitive thought.

iv.)

Formal Operational Stage (11 years of age to adulthood) The individual demonstrates abstract thinking, including logic, deductive

reasoning, comparison, and classification. In this stage, the individuals can think in abstract and more logical terms. As part of thinking abstract, adolescents may develop images of ideal circumstances. In solving problems, those who have achieved this stage can think on a more systematic way.