Cognitive Development: The Five Theories Of Child Development

If there is no single path that development should take, then that is multi-directionality. Development is comprised of multiple abilities. These abilities go different directions and show different types of change. In development, there is a belief that development involves both gains and losses. Baltes believed that any developmental process involves both gains and losses. Development varies around the different contexts in which we live our lives. Baltes said that developmental psychology is multi-disciplinary. The first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development was Jean Piaget. He contributed a theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities. Before Piaget, the common idea in psychology was that children are merely less competent thinkers than adults.Piaget thought that cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of growing up and experiencing the different environments. There are three main stages to adulthood: early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late

Piaget asserts, children are born with inherited scripts, called schema, these schema are building blocks for cognitive development. As a child grows, he acquires more of these building blocks; moreover, these building blocks become more complex as the child progresses through different stages in development (Huitt, Hummel 2003). Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development are as follows. First, The sensorimotor stage where an infant has rudimentary motor skills, and can eventually

Cognitive development is the process that leads to the emergence of the ability to think and understand (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg, & Saffran, 2014). This process involves the “development of thinking and reasoning” (Siegler et al., 2014, p.15) throughout childhood, including the growth of capabilities such as “perception, attention, language, problem solving, reasoning, memory, conceptual understanding, and intelligence” (Siegler et al., 2014, p. 131). Children contribute to their development through self-initiated activity even before they are born, by practicing breathing and digestive processes and exercising

Piaget thinks that his theory of cognitive development is clear and that it’s the only perspective that should viewed as correct. He explains how children go through the four stages based on advancement and background and their development occurs in stages. He also believes that children’s physical and social environment is important in children’s cognitive development. He believes that children are active learners who gain knowledge from their surroundings. Children learn through taking in there surrounding and modifications, and multiple cognitive development occurs through collaboration. Piaget’s thinks that children and adolescent’s cognitive development explains the changes in logical thinking.

On the Contrary, Erickson (…………….) believed that there were eight stages of human development, he emphasised his development in terms of social and emotional development with each stage associated with social conflict or crisis while Vogotsky (………………) explain the theory of human development using the sociocultural theory. Vygotsky argued that children build their knowledge through social and cultural experiences. One of major criticism of Piaget theory of cognitive development is the use of strict stage time scale for each stage of development. Many researchers in their own opinion agreed that many children abilities overlap. (………………………………….). Consequently, Piaget rigid age-related stages thereby make Piaget’s hypothesis inaccurate. Furthermore, in a study conducted by (Kuhn et al., 1977) suggested that only 30-35% of high school student could achieve Piaget’s (formal operations stage of cognitive development. This implies that Piaget’s idea of one cap fit all was inaccurate, therefore he was criticised for not considering and focusing on individual’s child, because children are individual they achieve intellectual ability at different stages in life. (Gardner…………………. supported this argument) and some may never achieve that cognitive development in the cases of children with learning

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states four stages of cognitive development. During the first Sensorimotor Stage which Piaget

Unlike adolescents and adults, growth and development is different in infants and toddlers. Observations from the physical, cognitive and perceptual development show that toddlers and infants grow and develop at a faster rate than adults. The physical, cognitive and motor development in infants and toddlers is higher than the same development in adults. This paper is an analysis and interpretation of an observation conducted with an aim to understand the growth and development of toddlers and infants. It explains an observation of an infant boy named Taylor who is 8 months old. Taylor was born in North Carolina and has been living with his parents since he was born.

Jean Piaget was a Twentieth century Swiss psychologist and was the first psychologist to systematically study the cognitive development of children. Thomas (2005) wrote that early in Piaget’s career he worked with children and his observations and interactions with the students led him to the theory that a young person's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults (pp. 188-9). According to Ahmad, et al. (2005), Piaget showed that when compared to adults, young children think in differently and he then came to the conclusion that cognitive development was an ongoing process which occurred due to maturation and interaction with the environment (p. 72).

The famous Swiss developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget in his theory also become our main source of theory to study about child development and changed the way we think about how children develop. His theory was important because he saw children as an active participants in their own learning. Between the four stages that have been stated in this Piaget theory, it is important to know which are the main stage that playing a crucial role because from there we know which one is shaping the most of development of a child.

Jean Piaget used observations of his own children to develop the four stages that we know he created today. Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages: the sensorimotor stage, from birth to age 2; the preoperational stage, from age 2 to about age 7; the concrete operational stage, from age 7 to 11; and the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and spans into adulthood. He believed that there were four necessary ingredients for cognitive development which included: “maturation of the nervous system, experiences gained through interaction with physical world, social environment, and child’s active participation in adapting to environment & constructing knowledge from experience.” (Sullivan, 2014, Slide 3)

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.

2. The psychodynamic theory is associated with, Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson. Theorists who support this theory state, early childhood experiences play a major part in later development of a child’s personality, even if it is buried in there unconscious. Psychodynamic Theorists also believe that children go through qualitatively distinct stages in their development. In my classroom, how I could apply this theory is by engaging the child on who they think they are, and how it will affect their future. Identity plays a major role in this theory, by engaging the child on who they think they are, I feel I will be able to assess their ability to learn.

It stresses on learning through thinking. It studies how people treat, organize, and transform information to affect their behavior. The most representative theorist of cognitive theory is Jean Piaget (1896-1980). He was born in Switzerland, and he has three children. It is impressive that most of his research is based on observation and studying of his own children. Cognitive development stages are the central part of Piaget’s theory, which demonstrate the development stages of children’s ability to think from infancy to adolescence, how to gain knowledge, self-awareness, awareness of the others and the environment. These stages are respectively relative to 4 ranges of age. It consists of characteristics of each stage and phenomena of each. The first stage between birth to 2 years old, children learn the external through senses and action, instinctively. They sense object permanently and they usually show anxiety to strangers. The second stage is between age of 2 to 6 years old, children form ideas with words and images, which is tend to be over generalizing. Developmental phenomena of this stage include pretending play, egocentrism and language development. And then the third stage from 7 to 11 years old, children think logically about concrete events and understand similar events. In this period, abilities of conversation and mathematical transformation get to be developed. Last stage, 12

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

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.