JEAN PIAGENT COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that intelligence changes as children grow. A
child's cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge, the child has to develop or construct
a mental model of the world. Cognitive development occurs through the interaction of innate capacities
and environmental events, and children pass through a series of stages.

Piaget proposed that intelligence grows and develops through a series of stages. Older children do
not just think more quickly than younger children. Instead, there are both qualitative and quantitative
differences between the thinking of young children versus older children. Based on his observations, he
concluded that children were not less intelligent than adults—they simply think differently. Albert
Einstein called Piaget's discovery "so simple only a genius could have thought of it."

Piaget's stage theory describes the cognitive development of children. Cognitive development

involves changes in cognitive process and abilities. 2 In Piaget's view, early cognitive development
involves processes based upon actions and later progresses to changes in mental operations.
STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different
stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought. Each
child goes through the stages in the same order, and child development is determined by biological
maturation and interaction with the environment. At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is
qualitatively different from the other stages, that is, each stage involves a different type of intelligence.

Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children
progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages. Piaget did not claim that a
particular stage was reached at a certain age - although descriptions of the stages often include an
indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

The Sensorimotor Stage

During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through
sensory experiences and manipulating objects. The first stage is the sensory motor stage, and during this
stage the infant focuses on physical sensations and on learning to co-ordinate his body. A child's entire
experience at the earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

Birth to 2 Years
Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

 The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around
and exploring its environment). Know the world through movements and sensations.
 Learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening
 Learn that things continue to exist even when they cannot be seen (object permanence)
 Realize that they are separate beings from the people and objects around them
 Realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them

During the sensorimotor stage, children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids
interact with their environment, they continually make new discoveries about how the world works. The
cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively short time and involves
a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and
walking; they also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also
broke this stage down into substages. Early representational thought emerges during the final part of the
sensorimotor stage.

During this stage the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world
stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of object permanence. If it cannot see something
then it does not exist. This is why you can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not
search for the object once it has gone out of sight.

The main achievement during this stage is object permanence - knowing that an object still exists, even
if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object. Piaget
believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue
to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By
learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside
of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects. The child
begins to be able to store information that it knows about the world, recall it and label it.
The Preoperational Stage
The pre-operational stage is one of Piaget's intellectual development stages. It takes place
between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage the child does not use operations, so the thinking is
influenced by the way things appear rather than logical reasoning.

A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the
same even if the appearance changes. Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people
see the world as he does. Animistic thought is a child’s belief that inanimate objects have living
qualities. Centration is the tendency to focus on only one aspect of a situation at a time. Irreversibility
is the inability to reverse the direction of a sequence of event to their starting point.

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

 Begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects
 Tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others
 Getting better with language and thinking, but still tend to think in very concrete terms

By 2 years, children have made some progress towards detaching their thought from physical world.
However have not yet developed logical (or 'operational') thought characteristic of later stages. Thinking
is still intuitive (based on subjective judgements about situations) and egocentric (centred on the child's
own view of the world).

At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view
of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy. Children become
much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet they continue to think very
concretely about the world around them. 

For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then give a
child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of clay is rolled into a compact ball
while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape. Because the flat shape looks larger, the
preoperational child will likely choose that piece, even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.
The Concrete Operational Stage
By the beginning of the concrete operational stage, the child can use operations (a set of logical
rules) so he can conserve quantities, he realises that people see the world in a different way than he does
(decentring) and he has improved in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.
While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they
become much more adept at using logic. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as
kids become better at thinking about how other people might view a situation.

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

 Begin to think logically about concrete events

  Begin to understand the concept of conservation (the ability to recognize that the amount of a
substance does not change if its shape or size is rearrange); that the amount of liquid in a short,
wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example
 Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
 Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle

The stage is called concrete because children can think logically much more successfully if they can
manipulate real (concrete) materials or pictures of them. Piaget considered the concrete stage a major
turning point in the child's cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational
thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try
things out in the real world). Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9).
Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance
changes.

While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in development, they
become much more adept at using logic or becomes much more logical, it can also be very rigid. Kids at
this point in development tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts. But operational
thought only effective here if child asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at
this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or
hypothetical problems.

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people
might think and feel. The egocentrism of the previous stage begins to disappear as kids become better at
thinking about how other people might view a situation. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin
to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their
thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
The Formal Operational Stage
Ages: 12 and Over

The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain
the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated
way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not
everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well
as to engage in scientific reasoning. Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas: e.g. they can understand
division and fractions without having to actually divide things up. Solve hypothetical (imaginary)
problems.

The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive
reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, adolescents and young adults become
capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world
around them.

Major characteristics and developmental changes during this time:

 Begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems

 Begins to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require
theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begins to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information

Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas.
Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints. During this stage,
adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing
sweets to understand division and fractions). They can follow the form of an argument without having to
think in terms of specific examples.

Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What
would happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible
consequences. From about 12 years children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference
to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically
test hypotheses. This stage sees emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and
hypotheses when faced with a problem.

The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the formal
operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan for the future and reason
about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that emerge during this stage.