Child Development: Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor stage. Beginning at birth to about 2 years, the first stage is characterized by perceptual and motor activities. The behavior of children during this stage can be described as nonverbal, reflex actions, play, imitating others, and object permanence. Early in this stage of development, if an object which the child has seen is removed from view, the object is forgotten (Out of sight, out of mind). However, later in this stage, if a child was playing with an object, and it gets hidden from view, the child will look for the object.

Piaget’s major achievement is his understanding of cognitive development. According to the book by Duchesne and McMaugh (2016), Piaget states how some influences of development can be biological. It further explains how important it is for children to experience firsthand the world around them. As this will strengthen the neurological pathways

On August 9, 1896, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, One of the most famous psychiatrist in the world was born, Jean Piaget! At the beginning of his life, he was interested in biology but then he turned his attention to studying the evolution of thought in children, which led him to study psychology. “Over the course of his career in child psychology, he identified four stages of mental development, called “schema.” He also developed new fields of scientific study, including cognitive theory and developmental psychology. He died on September 16, 1980, in Geneva, Switzerland.” (Editors, 2015)

At this stage, a child begins to perform roles and actions (imitation) of a grown up, along with familiar events. However, at the age of three or four years, the child’s skills then become symbolic; he/she learns substitution in the form of objects. For example, a child feeding a stuffed animal using a toy bottle, whereas an older child is feeding the stuffed animal using a highlighter in pretense that it would act as a feeding bottle for a baby. This stage also builds a solid foundation for children as they get their own experience through

Psychoanalytic was first discovered by Sigmund Freud which is a close look at the unconscious drives that make people do certain things or act a certain way. Freud was always talking about the way the mind worked because he believed our minds are responsible for the things we do weather we are conscious or unconscious. There are three characteristics according to Freud that made up a persons personality which are: The Id, ego, and the super ego.  The Id is the part of the unconscious that attempts pleasure, which people seem to act out when the Id is not lined up with the ego or super ego. Ego, for us humans to keep a real sense on earth in reality we need ego in order to maintain a balance between pain and pleasure,

Piaget believed that children go through 4 universal stages of cognitive development. A child 's cognitive development is about constructing a mental image of the world around them this keep on changing as the child matures.

Developmental psychology makes an attempt to comprehend the types and sources of advancement in children’s cognitive, social, and language acquisition skills. The pioneering work done by early child development theorists has had a significant influence on the field of psychology as we know it today. The child development theories put forward by both Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson have had substantial impacts on contemporary child psychology, early childhood education, and play therapy. In this essay, I aim to highlight the contribution of these two theorists in their study of various developmental stages, the differences and similarities in their theories, and their contributions to the theory and practice of play therapy.

He emphasize that the way children reason at one stage is different from the way they reason at another stage . The first stage, is called the sensorimotor stage which extends from birth to age about two. In this stage, infants build an understanding of the world by integrating with experiences such as seeing and hearing with physical, motoric actions. Infants obtain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they carry out on it. Piaget 's divide sensorimotor stage into six-sub stages. The first stage is simple reflexes which happens first month after birth, here infants learn rooting and sucking reflexes. The second stage called first habits and primary circular reactions occurs during one to four months of age. Infants creates habits resulting in repetitive action of an action. The third stage is primary circular reactions, infants try to reconstruct an experience that initially occurred by chance. Here infant 's own body is center of attention and there 's no outward pull by environmental events. The fourth stage is secondary circular reactions which occur from 4-8 months of age. Infant becomes more object-object oriented. However, infant 's schemes are not intentional or goal-directed. The fourth stage is coordination of secondary circular reactions which happens about 8-12 months of age. Here, infant coordinates vision and touch which uses hands and eyes. Actions are more outwardly directed, infants combine previously learned schemes in coordinated way and occur presence of intentionality. The fifth stage is tertiary circular reactions, novelty & curiosity which happen during 12-18 months of age. Infants intrigued by the many properties of objects, and it 's their starting point for human curiosity and interest in novelty. The last stage, internalization of schemes occurring at 18-24 months of age and Infant at this stage develops ability to use primitive symbols. By the end of the

The overall idea surrounding Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory is that development is solely dependent upon maturation. Piaget believed that people simply developed as they got older, without environmental factors affecting development. The concrete operational stage explains cognitive development in children that are seven to twelve years old. Children this age display logic skills, the ability to apply rules and categories, and are able to infer. This is also the stage where children are supposed to learn to take in multiple variables and develop the skill of conservation.

At three years old, Piaget argues a child is in the preoperational stage, which lasts from ages two to seven and is characterized by an ability to create mental representations of experience. During this stage, children may use objects, drawings, and language to show their ideas. Children

Sensorimotor Stage: During this stage parents can encourage the object permanence accomplishments, the feeling that the object exists even if they can’t be seen. Parents can hide the favorite toys of their infant’s partially, which makes the infant reach for the toys and as the infant grows, the toys can be hidden completely for the infant to look for.

Jean Piaget, known for his interest in the Epistemology in children is seen as the pioneer of Developmental Psychology. Piaget 's Cognitive development theory led to a great deal of research work in the field of educational philosophy . But in the discipline of Psychology, every theory has been faced with a counter theory or an alternative. So is the case with Piaget 's theory. Lev Vygotsky, a soviet psychologist came up with the socio-cultural theory, which is another strong theory emphasizing child development and is seen as a major counter theory to Piaget 's work (Saul McLeod, 2004). Theories of these two cognitive psychologists have been compared and contrasted on different levels. This essay will look into the differences and similarities between their theories.

Cognition is a process where different aspects of the mind are working together that lead to knowledge. Piaget’s cognitive development theory is based on stages that children go through as they grow that lead them to actively learn new information. Cognitive change occurs with schemes that children and adults go through to make sense of what is happening around them. The change that occurs is activity based when the child is young and later in life correlates to mental thinking. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development start from birth to adulthood and it begins with the sensorimotor stage, a child from birth to the age of 2 years old learns and thinks by doing and figuring out how something works. The second stage is the preoperational stage and in this stage children from ages 2 through 7 years are developing their language and they do pretend play (Berk, 2005, p.20). Concrete operational is the third stage and children ages 7 to 11 years old lack abstract but have more logic than they did when they were younger. The last stage is formal

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development revolutionized the study of children’s cognitive development and it has undergone some revisions over the years. It also provides a set of basic principles to guide our understanding of cognitive development that are found in most recent theories.

The sensorimotor stage is divided into six sub stages, the first substage namely being simple reflexes. The simple reflexes substage concords to the first month after an infant is born (Santrock, 2011). Sensorimotor actions during simple reflexes are mainly characterized by reflexive behaviors such as rooting and sucking (Santrock, 2011). In addition, another sensorimotor stage is known as secondary circular reactions and is acquired between the ages of four to eight months (Santrock, 2011). Out of fascination, the infant begins to repeat actions and imitates certain actions such as baby talk (Santrock, 2011). The fifth sensorimotor stage which develops in infants of 12 to 18 months is known as tertiary circular reactions, novelty and curiosity (Santrock, 2011). An infant in this stage is fascinated by the many things they can do to an object and they experiment with new behavior (Santrock, 2011). The final sensorimotor stage is internalization of schemes which develops in infants of 18 to 24 months of age (Santrock, 2011). In this stage, the infant can form mental representations and therefore can easily pick on certain new behaviors from the people around the infant (Santrock,