Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Introduction

Jean Piaget was born on 6th of August in the year 1896. He was a psychologist and a philosopher, popularly known for his studies on children. Piaget was regarded for what he believed about education. He believed that education is the only tool that can save societies from collapsing. His famous work however is the theory he formed on cognitive development.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development is an extensive theory that pertains to the development and nature of the human. Jean Piaget was the first one to develop this theory. His theory is also called a development stage theory. It is concerned with how humans make use of their brains to acquire knowledge and use it for their own purposes. According to Piaget, cognitive development is a process through which human brain matures.

Cognitive development is a branch of psychology and neuroscience which focuses on a person's development during the infancy stage in terms of language, conceptual resources, information processing, perceptual skills and various other aspects related to brain development and psychology in comparison with an adult's thought process. Cognitive development is the emergence of one's ability that enables one to think and understand the world around him. A significant part of research has focused on understanding the mindset of a child and how he imagines the world during his infancy stage. A great deal of work has been done in this respect. Of all the many researchers who have their own share of work in this field, Jean Piaget's work has played a vital role in this field, paving ways for further research. He proposed a” Theory of Cognitive Development”, which became very popular among those who have great deal of interest in the field. However, many people criticized the theory and its methodology, for that matter. Jean Piaget described four stages of cognitive development as; sensorimotor stage, Pre-operational stage, Concrete operational stage and Formal Operational stage. Piaget worked on various phenomena. His two phenomena gained the attraction of many researchers. These two phenomena were Object Permanence and Conversations in school age. In the last few years, different models and theories have been developed to integrate Piaget's school of thought with more methods in cognitive and developmental science. In this paper, we will focus on Piaget's Theory of Cognitive development. We will be discussing the criticisms faced and its methodology, highlighting our view of the theory, its methodology and any critics felt during our discussion.

Discussion

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development is defined as changes which occur in any person's cognitive structures, thinking processes and abilities. According to his theory, children's mindset or mental structures change with the passage of time and age and are initially based on actions, and later on the intellectual level. In addition, Jean proposed and discussed four major stages of development, as under;

Sensorimotor Stage: This stage describes the number of years from birth of an individual to about the age of two. During this, the child learns to ...