One of Piaget’s key views was stages of cognitive development, he divided cognitive development into separate stages as follows: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. It was hypothesized
Much of middle school curricula requires students to engage in formal operational cognitive processes, even though most students seldom reach the levels of understanding that teachers might expect in each subject area” (eric.gov.edu) Maslow have five different stages in his prevention theory. These stages include self-actualization, Cognitive needs, Respect and esteem needs, belongingness and love needs, and safety needs. Piaget’s theory explains how children develop in stages. Piaget’s has four stages of development. Piaget and Maslow theories both includes cognitive needs.
Piaget identifies four important stages of cognitive development where the latter stages are more complex but are able to form more precise concepts and categorizations. This prinicple may work well for those individuals considered healthy and have the ability to develop at a normal rate according to the thoery. However, chronological theories are not efficient means to determine concepts and catergorisations. It suggests that everyone understand the principles of concepts and categories during the same age, which is not always the case (Galotti, 2008). All individuals learn, understand and think on different levels based on factors such as experience and genetic attributes (Olson, 2013).
Since it characterises cognition over long periods, it is illustrative and stable (Kail, 2004). His theory has also been the subject of various research projects done by psychologists in the field (Corman & Escalona, 1969). It has been subjected to much criticism, as certain people may believe that it is too rigid, and does not take into account the cultural aspects of development, as observed in Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget’s theory, however, as previously mentioned, is a more universally applicable view of development and cognition (Corman & Escalona, 1969). It is not limited to certain geographical areas, or ways of thinking.
Cognitive Development can be explained as the emergence of thought processes beginning from infancy to childhood to adolescence to adulthood. The aim of this essay is to focus on Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development. Jean Piaget is a Swiss developmental psychologist who is known for his epistemological studies. On the other hand, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist best known for his theory known as the Cultural-Historical theory. Both Vygotsky and Piaget were particularly interested in Cognitive Development in 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.
Rather, he believed that cognitive development is more like a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Through his studies on cognition in children, a series of simple but clever tests revealed different cognitive abilities in children at different age stages. Children from birth understand their environment through cognitive development stages that are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Sensorimotor is the first stage of cognitive development which starts from birth to 2 years of age. During this stage, children acquire their knowledge through their movement and sensations.
Two of the most recognized cognitive psychologist, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, developed theories that addressed cognitive development and learning among children. (Ballinger, 2013) Jean Piaget proposed that children proceed through four stages based on maturation and experience. Piaget’s theory is guided by assumptions of how learners interact with their environment and how they integrate new knowledge and information into existing knowledge. Briefly, Piaget proposed that children are active learners who construct knowledge from their environments, they learn through assimilation and accommodation, and complex cognitive development occurs through equilibration, the interaction with physical and social environments. (William, 1996) Piaget’s theory is evident in the case study as they discuss which animals should be placed in which enclosure with each.
The cognitive processes are: observing, categorizing, and forming generalizations about our environment. There are three basic components to Piaget's cognitive theory: 1)schemas (building blocks of knowledge), 2) adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation), 3)Stages of Development: (sensorimotor, preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal
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.