Piaget's Developmental Theory

Life span developmental psychology is the field of psychology that involves the examination of both constancy and change in human behavior across the life span, that is, from conception to death. The focus of the study of developmental psychology is to further our knowledge of how we evolve over our entire life span. The study of development is possible within a range of topics in modern psychology like social psychology, cognitive psychology, abnormal psychology, comparative psychology, and neuro psychology. Child development is one of the studies in developmental psychology. The study of children is important because it has the potential to inform us about the nature of human development. By studying the earlier changes of behavior, we can

Exceptional educators keep their fingers on the pulse of what their students need, in order to teach them effectively. Examining Piaget and Maslow’s theories, and applying them to the classroom will facilitate achieving this goal. Considering Piaget’s focus on development, and Maslow’s prioritization of human needs, one can integrate these ideas into classrooms and lesson plans that are optimized for student success.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development advances from an understanding that there are a series of stages which children are specific to. The four stages are: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational, the four stages are divided up into age brackets that are birth to two-year-old, two to seven years old, seven to eleven years old and twelve and up. Each stage has a set of skills that children will acquire as they progress in age and cognitive ability and development

Development refers to the pattern of continuity and change in human capabalities that occurs throughout the course of life (King, 2008). Children development is is a part of human development that refers to a biological, emotional, and psychological changes that take a place in human beings between birth to adult.

One of the most well known theories in cognitive development is Piaget 's theory. The psychologist Jean Piaget theorized that as children 's minds development, they pass through distinct stages marked by transitions in understanding followed by stability. Piaget describes four different stages of development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operation, and formal operations. Each stage describes the thinking patterns of a child depending on his or her age. In order to compare the thinking processes of a three-year old and a nine-year old using Piaget 's theory, you must compare two sequential stages of cognitive development: preoperational and concrete operations.

Social Cognitive Theory by Jean Piaget. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based. It is concerned with children, rather than all learners. It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors. It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc. The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment. Both Piaget and Vygotsky provided highly influential theories which had impact on the way children are taught. However, as with every theory and study, there are pro’s and con’s to be highlighted. I will first evaluate Jean Piaget’s theory, followed by Lev Vygotsky. I will then compare and contrast the two with each other, showing the main similarities and differences between the two. Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in a number of important ways: 1: Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting/shaping cognitive development - this contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development. (Vygotsky does not refer to stages in the way that Piaget does). (i) Hence Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures. 2: Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to

Biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes are all connected in the developmental task of a baby smiling at his or her mother’s touch. Biological processes produce changes in an individual’s physical nature. Cognitive processes bring changes to the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language. Socioemotional processes include changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions and changes in personality. For the baby, the biological process has to do with the physical touch by the mother and the baby’s response to this touch. The cognitive process deals with the fact that the mother is intentionally touching the baby, something that the baby is beginning to understand. The socioemotional process for

How to foster the growth of a child’s brain development during the first two years of life? Our book describes infant’s brain growth in Piaget’s six stages. I will go over each stage and what we can do to help our child grow. I will also touch on how text describes the stages of emotional growth and attachment within each of these stages.

Children’s gallery is a place where “children play to learn and adults learn to play”. Developing such kind of environment is a challenging task. It required to study and understand the child growth and developments . No two children are like. Even identical twins, who have the same genetic makeup. Children differ in cognitive , social, physical and emotional development pattern. They may differ in response for the same objet or play or affection or people. Some always appear to be active and happy and other appear to be dull and unhappy. It is found that some children are easier to like. To help all kinds of children, it is required to understand the sequence of development pattern. Thorough knowledge of these domains

Cognitive development is a process which enhancing the ability of learning. The cognitive theories emphasize on conscious thoughts which highlight the mental aspects of development such as logic and memory. The primary factors of cognitive theories is the structure and development of the individual’s thought processes and the means of these processes can effort the person’s understanding of the world. Therefore, the cognitive theories study on how this understanding, and the expectations it creates, can affect the individual’s behavior. There are three types of cognitive development theories in human which are Piaget’s Cognitive development theory, Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Cognitive theory and Information-Processing theory. (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1). All of them focus on the development of complex thinking skills.

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.

Developmental psychology relates to the changes in behaviour and abilities that transpire over time as development advances. (Harwood & Miller, 2008). Infancy and childhood is a time of rapid development of social, sensory and cognitive abilities. Infants acquire perceptual and motor skills which allow them to comprehend the world they live in. Cognitive development is “the growth of cognitive abilities and capacities from birth to old age” (Colman, 2008). In this essay I will address Piagetian Theory, the cognitive performance of children from age seven to eleven, (the concrete operational period), and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development.

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

Jean Piaget (1896-1980), a biology student did extensive research work in the area of child development and is attributed with the development of the theory of cognitive development which has played a major role in this field (child development).

Having the right knowledge, skills and experience in understanding how children or young people develop are very important tools for early years practitioners. We must put to mind that each child born to this world is unique; they are born with different characters and their personalities and behaviours are formed and influenced by variety of factors. These factors may affect their ways of interacting to the environment and community or setting in which they live in.