Child Development: Piaget's Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget is a key figure for development, focusing on cognitive constructivism – that being that we must learn from experience and development, building on knowledge that has already been developed. The strengths and weaknesses of Piaget 's cognitive development theory will be discussed.

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory describes the way that people collect and categorise information to make sense of their surroundings (Woolfolk & Margetts 2013, p. 81). Piaget’s theory is known as constructivist as it is based on the idea that people are active in their own learning (Institute for Inquiry 2017). The theory is based around the idea that a thinking process change and develop from birth to adulthood. According to Piaget, there were four influences involved in the changes that thinking undertakes. These influences included biological maturation, activity, social experiences and equilibration (Kamii 1985, p. 574). He also identified four stages in which people cognitively developed: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete

When the brain is able to learn naturally we call this theory brain based learning we use our brain everyday to acquire and take in things that we learn and children are no exception. According to Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory children use their brain to think, reason, and remember. Based upon his observations, he concluded that children were not less intelligent than adults, they simply think differently (Cherry, n.d.). Piaget described his theory using stages that children go through as they mentally mature. In his description of children he called them "little scientists," actively trying to make sense of the

There are a few key concepts that significantly stand out when researching into Piaget’s theory. One important concept that is an obvious stand out is the stages of cognitive development (Margetts, 2016). From examining this theory it shows that Piaget broke down the stages of cognitive development into four different phases according to age and the person’s ability to use their brain to function and think (Margetts, 2016). The stages are Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years), Preoperational Stage (2-7 years), Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years) and Formal Operational Stage (11 years to adult) (Ey, 2015). During the sensorimotor stage, intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use symbols (Second Source), this indicates that children (0-2 years) are

A well-intentioned, but meddling, relative comes to visit the weekend before your child's first birthday, in April. She cautions you that you must be spoiling the child, because he hides behind your leg and clings to you when she tries to give him a hug, and he did not do this when she visited at New Year's. How will you explain what is happening with your child? The situation can be described as Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive of Development, where the the little boy might be going through stranger anxiety. To defend the little boy, the parent must explain that he is going through stranger anxiety, in which is a fear of unfamiliar people. He doesn’t know this aunt well enough to form a sense of comfortability to her. A great way to ease the issue is for the parent to interact with the aunt, so the toddler can see she is harmless.

Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory states that children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world. Stage one of this theory, or the sensorimotor stage, infants of the age newborn through two years construct an understanding of the world by sensory skills (hearing and seeing) with physical actions. This for example could be a simple game of peak-a-boo. Skye, the infant in the video clip, giggles at his mother playing the game. According to Piaget’s theory, young infants do not know what happens when object go out of sight. During the first year, infants learn that objects have life of their own, even when not visible. This is known as object permanence. Mya knew to look

According to Piaget (1929, 1954, 1963), the process of adaptation helps us to understand how a child constructs his/her world. Taking Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development with particular focus on the Sensori-Motor stage of development, I am going to discuss how understanding this stage might influence me when working with a baby as a nursing student in the future.

For this developmental observation, I decided to observe Sarah. She is a five-year-old in the stage of early childhood staying at the Ronald McDonald House. She is a loving, fun, and energetic kid. It was interesting to observe her and see what seemed normal for a girl her age to act. I was able to learn from interacting and observing Sarah.

In terms, of Piaget’s cognitive development theory, the 8- year old and the 16- year old perceptions of the political convention differ greatly. The 8-year-old is in the concrete operational stage, and the 16-year-old is in the formal operational stage. During the concrete operational stage children begin to think logically, however, they do not completely understand tougher subjects. The 8- year-old may not be interested in the political convention because during this stage, they are still egocentric, however, they might show little interest because they are moving out of this stage.

Adolescence is the transition between childhood and adulthood (Berk, 2014, p. 361). During adolescence, children and teenagers begin to form their identity, establishing who they are based on their values and goals (Berk, 2014, p. 361). Adolescence typically begins with puberty and is followed by changes in motor and cognitive development (Berk, 2014, p. 362). During adolescence, teenagers often experience Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, Erikson’s Theory of Development, and Kohlberg’s 3 Levels of Moral Development. These theories and ideas have helped form the basis of normal adolescent development. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development describes how the use of more advanced and abstract thinking occurs in a sequence for all children,

Jean Piaget developed a systematic study of cognitive development. He conducted a theory that all children are born with a basic mental structure. He felt that their mental structure is genetically inherited and their learning evolved from subsequent learning and knowledge. Piaget’s theory is different from other theories and he was the first to study a child’s learning by using a systematic study of cognitive development. His theory was only concerning the learning of children, their development and not how they learn. He proposed stages of development marked more by qualitative differences than by a gradual increase in number and complexities of behavior or concepts. His goal for his theory was to explain the mechanisms a child uses from the infant stage to the growing child who develops into a thinking and reasoning individual when reasoning and using hypotheses. His theory was that cognitive development was how the brain reorganized mental processes over time due to biological maturation and the experiences they have in an environment. The three basic components to Piaget’s cognitive theory is schemas, adaption processes that allow the child to transition from one stage to another, and the four different stages of development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.

My child’s name is Rose Marie Gutierrez. She is Mexican American and lives with both of her parents. Rose also has a little sister, Hope, that is three years younger than her. We all live together in a decent neighborhood. Rose and her sister get along just fine, although they do experience natural sibling arguments at times. Rose’s father and I have not had a perfect relationship and we separated for two years when Rose was ten. We got back together for the kids when Rose entered middle school, but sometimes still fight.

Samantha’s actions express signs of physical development through the two types of motor skills; gross motor and fine motor. Samantha has demonstrated development of gross motor skills,which according to Berk(107), “refers to the control over actions that help infants get around in the environment”. She is able to walk, jump, skip, and even hug Teacher Ashley and displaying the wide body movement actions which can be refined throughout the developmental stage. “Fine-motor development has to do with smaller movements such as reaching and grasping”(108). Samantha used a secure pincer grasp when using her forefinger and thumb to clamp the zipper on her jacket and pull it up. She also held her spoon to feed herself cereal.This means that she developed more fine motor skills that require precision in smaller muscles such as those in the fingers.

The following paper will summarize the observation of one child in a natural setting, captivating in typical behavior and make an examination on what stage of development the child was in based on the observations. Observations took place twice a week over a four week period for about two hours each time. One child was observed, Summer age 7 over this four week period. The first observation took place at Summer’s home. I have visited Kelly and Summer’s house a few times prior to doing my observations. I have known Kelly for about 2 years and not long after we met we became really good friends. In the living room, I observed Kelly reading a book to Summer about The Three Little Pigs and she made Summer give her a summary of book after she was done. Not long after that Kelly set up a little paly house in her living room for Summer to play with her toys. She played with some ABC blocks, a baby doll, and she had a play cell phone that she used to act like she was making a phone call. This was the end of the first observation.

During this stage the child starts to use symbolism so the development of language is very fast during this period, but they can not see other points of view, it is all from their own perception. Piaget believed that the child in this stage was not capable of logical thought (Lee and Gupta).