Piaget's Theory and Chaos Theory



Piaget's Theory

Jean Piaget developed the theory of “genetic learning” (also called “structural-genetic” theory), which deals with the explanation of the cognitive development of children. The focus is on the interaction of a child with his environment. Piaget is known as “the godfather of developmental psychology.” Jean Piaget explains the methods through which the mind process new information and data. According to him, the humans can comprehend the data which connects with their already established opinions. Piaget has described the different stages of the development of the humans (Wadsworth, 2003). The stages described by him are from the childhood to adolescence. He describes in this theory the development of the psychological structures from the inborn reflexes. These are organized through out the childhood stage in different behaviour patterns which are internalized throughout the second year of the human's life. These patterns characterized the models of thinking which are developed during childhood and adolescence and ultimately characterize the adulthood. Piaget studied the cognitive development as an event of the ongoing interplay of accommodation and assimilation. Assimilation and accommodation are two invariant processes through the development cognition. For Piaget assimilation and accommodation interact with each other in a process of equilibration (Brown & Desforges, 2007). The balance can be considered a regulatory process to a higher level, which governs the relationship between assimilation and accommodation.

According to Piaget, there are four phases or stages of children's development of thought (also called "cognitive development"). Each of these stages is based on the previous stage. Piaget was convinced that all children go through these stages in the same order, although the pace of development can vary. Following are the four phases as described by Piaget:

Sensorimotor: (birth to about age 2)

Preoperational: (begins about the time the child starts to talk to about age ...