Discussion Forum for Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive Development

Discussion Forum

HUMAN DEVELOPMET THEORIES

Introduction

Developmental psychology is a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive and social changes throughout the lifespan. The main aim of this assignment is to create a blog for one of the human development theory. Therefore, in this particular page, I would be focusing on the theory of cognitive development by Jean Piaget. It would be consisting of sub topics related to the title including a discussion about the cognitive development theory with its detailed aspects and the relationship between the different development stages and learning. It would also be focusing on the application of the theory to the classroom/teaching. Then, there will be a conclusion with a brief summary of the sub-topics that were presented. To end with, there will be a reference list along with all the materials that were used for completion of this assignment. To do this assignment, I used reference from various sources to prove my explanation towards each topic. 

Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most dominant researchers in the area of developmental psychology throughout the 20th century. He was a child psychologist who was interested in cognitive development which is concerned with the development of a person's intelligence. He was also the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development (Piaget, 1936). Piaget’s studies included a theory of cognitive development, in depth findings about cognition in children, and a series of resourceful experiments to disclose different intellectual skills (McLeod, 2012).

According to Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and experience from the environment (McLeod, 2012). He believed that children will create an understanding of the world around them, and will then experience differences between what they already know and what they learn in their environment.

The theory of cognitive development by Piaget mainly focuses on the development of the children rather than all the learners. Piaget identified that children developed through a sequence of four main stages of cognitive development which were clearly observable through changes in how they understand the world around them (Cherry, 2013).

Major Aspects Of The Cognitive Development Theory

In order to understand the theory of cognitive development by Piaget in detail, it is important to know about the major aspects of the theory. The major aspects to this theory included schemas, adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another and the stages of cognitive development.

In Piaget’s view, children understand the world around them and experience the differences as a result of adaptation to the world thorough two process described as assimilation and accommodation which happens throughout the person’s life as the person adapts to the environment (Piaget, 1952; Wadsworth, 2004).

Assimilation is described as the process of using and existing schema to deal with a new object or a situation while accommodation involves changing of existing schemas with the knowledge of new information to deal with a new object or situation. Through both these adaptation process, new schemas might be developed as it happens simultaneously.

Schema is the basic constructing block of intelligent behaviour which include both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing that help us to interpret and understand the world (Piaget & Cook, 1952). When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium. Equilibration helps to explain how children are able to move from one stage of the cognitive development into the next.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence about how they learnt and thought. He believed that the children from all over the world undergo the same sequence of development despite their cultural differences (Piaget & Cook, 1952). The four stages of cognitive development identified by Piaget include sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage.

Relationship Between The Cognitive Development Stages & Learning

Piaget believed that learning is a process through which the cognitive development occurs in a series of interaction between the individual and the environment when there is a balance between the process of accommodation and assimilation (Piaget, 1936). According to him, learning differs from child to child depending on their stages of cognitive development.

1-Sensorimotor Stage: birth - 2 years

The sensorimotor stage is the first stage of the cognitive development. At this stage, children builds an understanding of their world by using the movement senses to explore the physical actions they perform (Piaget & Cook, 1952). During this stage, children depend on their ability to see, touch, feel, suck and other senses to learn things about themselves and the environment. Therefore, the learning style of the child in this stage is dominated by accommodative processes (Piaget, 1936).

One of the important finding during the latter part of the sensorimotor stage is the concept of object permanence (Piaget, 1936). Children are not aware of the fact that an object continues to exist even when it is not in view in the beginning of the sensorimotor stage. However, older infants search for the object when it is covered, realizing that the object continues to exist.

Play the video below to watch an experiment about object permanence conducted on some infants.