Jean Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development Essay

During the Sensorimotor stage (between birth and the age of two), Piaget claims that sensory and motor skills are developed, as well as claiming that infants are unable to grasp object permeance until eighteen to twenty-four months; Piaget argued that if a child could not see the item, it no longer existed to them. When the child’s age was between nine and ten months, more experiments were done into object permeance, resulting in the 'a not b ' test, in which one object was hidden underneath an item, and then switched. Despite the obvious difference in sizes underneath the two objects, the child would still believe the item to be under where it was originally found. Furthermore, Aguiara and Baillargeon (2002), suggested the violation of expectation; using the example of a doll moving between two opaque objects and reappearing in the centre – the child will then be surprised, as to them the object had no longer existed.

I handed my infant niece, Harper, a set of keys, thinking she would shake them and giggle at the noise they made. I thought this because in Piaget’s developmental stage, sensorimotor, it states that infants learn from experimenting and their main focus is what is happening in that very moment. My prediction was correct. As soon as I held the keys in front of her she began to reach for them. Then once I handed the keys to her, she rattled them making a clanging noise.

Cognitively, the way infants process information undergoes rapid changes during the infant’s first year. For instance, the Piagetian theory of cognitive development includes (1) the sensorimotor stage in which infants, through trial an error, build their understanding of things around the world (e.g. imitation of familiar behaviour); (p. 203, Chapter 6); (2) building schemas (e.g. a 5 month old child can move or drop an object fairly rigidly, whereas an older child can do the same action but with more intentional and creative movement);(p. 202, Chapter 6) and (3) the concept of object permanence (e.g. an infant knows that an object exists even though it is hidden encourages the child’s perceptual skills and awareness of the objects ‘realness’ in the world (p.

Most of the criticism of Piaget’s work is in regards to his research methods. A major source of his inspiration for the theory was based on his observations of his own children. And because of this small sample group, people believe that it is difficult and incorrect to generalise his findings to a larger population. Similarly, many psychologists believe that Piaget underestimated the age which children could accomplish certain tasks and that sometimes children understand a concept before they are able to demonstrate their understanding of it. For example, children in the Sensorimotor stage may not search for a hidden object because their motor skills are not developed, rather than because they lack object permanence. This has been supported by evidence from Bower & Wishart (1972). They found that the way that an object is made to disappear influences the child’s response. As well as this, Piaget’s theory has been said to overestimate that every child and adult reaches the formal operational stage of knowledge development. Dasen (1994) claims that only a third of adults ever reach this stage.

Piaget believed everyone had to go through each stage of development. Although some kids may show characteristics of more than one stage at a time, he was certain that cognitive development always followed the sequence of the stages, stages cannot be skipped, and each stage is marked by new intellectual abilities and more complex understandings of the world. With this experiment I will prove how each toy can improve, or dismantle each stage for children. While in the toy store I watched how kids were interacting with one another, and how they handled some of the toys. Having, a niece, nephew, and Godson who are infants it was easier to find

Piaget believe that children are active thinkers. He recognized that the mind develops through a series of irreversible stages. He also acknowledged that a child’s maturing brain builds schemas that are constantly assimilating and accommodating to the world around them. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is split into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to nearly two years of age. At this stage, infants learn about the world around them by sensing it and interacting within it. It is also in this stage that the idea of object permanence develops, that is, the awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not being observed. In my personal life, I am certain that in this stage of development I would have enjoyed peek-a-boo, because if I didn’t see it, to my developing mind, it wasn’t there at all. The second stage, preoperational, lasts from two years of age to seven years of

     Piaget proposed that object permanence doesn’t develop until during what he identifies as the sensorimotor stage. The sensorimotor stage he identifies as being from birth to about two years of age. Piaget broke the sensorimotor stage down into six sub stages. Piaget also broke down the idea of object permanence according to the sub stages of the sensorimotor stage. During the first stage of object permanence which is roughly between the ages of birth to one month old, an infant will look at an object only while it is directly in front of their eyes. However, if an object was to move to the left of right of an infants direct line of vision, the infant would no longer look at the object. During the second sub stage which lasted from one to four months, Piaget said that infants will look for an extended period of time to an area where an object had disappeared from. He said that an infant will not however, follow the object if it were to move out of their line of sight. In the third sub stage which is between the ages of four and eight months, an infant will anticipate where a moving object will go and they will begin to look for the object there. They will only do this though if the object is partially visible, they will not make

In the context of infant cognitive development and its corresponding theories, Jean Piaget often serves as a key theorist. Often referred to with the metaphor of children as “explorers,” Piaget believed that children, from the moment of birth, are actively engaging with and exploring their surrounding environment. With his contributions to the psychological field, like his six stages of sensorimotor development, we grasp a better understanding of a child’s first encounters developmentally. One of his most important accounts was on the concept of object permanence. He was able to provide a look into infants’ understanding of the physical world (DeHart, Sroufe, & Cooper, p. 168). In order to better understand his account on object permanence however, one must be aware of his six stages of sensorimotor development: “Reflexes,” “Primary Circular Reactions,” Secondary Circular Reactions,” Coordination of Schemes,” “Tertiary Circular Reactions,” and “Beginnings of Representational Thought,” which were largely influence through his experiments with his own children.

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development proposes that a child’s capacity to understand certain concepts is based on the child’s developmental stage. He outlined 4 stages of development that spanned a child’s age from birth through 11 years old. The list below presents a summary of the characteristics typical at each stage:

A standard test that a developmentalist might use to determine whether an infant has attained object permanence is the toy under the blanket test. The toy under the blanket test is a test that Piaget did. The goal of the test is to hide a toy under a blanket, while the child was watching, and observe if the child searched for the hidden toy or not. If the child searched for the toy, they obtained object permanence. There are many factors why Piaget's test might not work. Researchers argued that Piaget's test might not work because the child could be distracted. Or the child could lose interest in the object, so he/she could lack motivation to search for it. Also, Piaget's test might not work because a child may also have a delay in their

Jean Piaget is considered to be very influential in the field of developmental psychology. Piaget had many influences in his life which ultimately led him to create the Theory of Cognitive Development. His theory has multiple stages and components. The research done in the early 1900’s is still used today in many schools and homes. People from various cultures use his theory when it comes to child development. Although there are criticisms and alternatives to his theory, it is still largely used today around the world.

In the first, or sensorimotor, stage (birth to two years), knowledge is gained primarily through sensory impressions and motor activity. Through these two modes of learning, experienced both separately and in combination, infants gradually learn to control their own bodies and objects in the external world. Toward the end of Piaget¡¦s career, he brought about the idea that action is actually the primary source of knowledge and that perception and language are more secondary roles. He claimed that action is not random, but has organization, as well as logic. Infants from birth to four months however, are incapable of thought and are unable to differentiate themselves from others or from the environment. To infants, objects only exist when they are insight

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is one the most widely accepted, his four stages of development are age based.

All children are unique as they learn, progress, develop at different rates and in a variety of ways. Nearly all theorists agree on the principles of children’s learning expansion in general and play a vital fragment of early childhood development. They all accept that cognitive learning is relatively systematic and takes place gradually at a variety of rates. Learning only occurs when experience causes a permanent change in an individual’s knowledge or behaviour (Weatherby-Fell, N. 2013). I am reviewing Burrus Federic Skinner’s behavioural theory and Jean Piaget cognitive development theory. This report style essay will provide an overview of the two theorists, a comparison between the two in relation to the image of the child, teaching, learning and development, and an analysis of how these two approaches align with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Subsequently, details of both theories will be discussed and explained to illuminate the differences and connections to how children learn. These two extremely well-known theorists’ approaches are stimulating, cause reflection upon learning methods and ensures thought provoking teaching.

The first stage of Piaget’s development theory is the sensorimotor stage which takes place in children most commonly 0 to 2 years old. In this stage, thought is developed through direct physical interactions with the environment. Three major cognitive leaps in this stage are the development of early schemes, the development of goal-oriented behavior, and the development of object permanence. During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of them. They focus on what they