Stage Development Theory

Why? What is that? These are just merely a few examples of a kid’s favorite questions to ask as they mature and begin to understand more about the world surrounding them. They are curious about this new, exciting world and eager to learn about it. Their method of learning is by asking those questions and hearing the answers, allowing them to gain knowledge about their world. This is the basis of Jean Piaget’s stage development theory, a theory focused on the cognitive development ranging from infants all the way through to adulthood.
Jean Piaget did a massive amount of research and studies on cognitive development, and concluded that there are four stages every human must progress through in order to grow cognitively. The four stages are the

For example, the three-year-old I babysat loves dinosaurs and watching dinosaur movies. Well, for Halloween his aunt got an inflatable dinosaur costume to wear. We thought he would love it, right? Wrong, he hated it and cried when he saw it. Even after seeing his aunt put the costume on and watching it inflate, he still got upset over it, but was fine seeing her get into the costume. What changed to make him have such a reaction? Well, think back to the idea of centration, once he saw the dinosaur blow up, he focused on that one obvious aspect of the object and believed it was a real dinosaur. He ignored the fact that he saw his aunt getting into the costume. This is obviously a sign of the limitation of a toddler’s thinking and cognitive ability at this age. In the preoperational stage, toddlers do not understand that one entity cannot change to another just because of a change in the physical aspect of it. Children in this stage must learn this and in doing so, also grow their cognitive

By overcoming their limitations, children cultivate their cognitive ability and pave the way for them to begin thinking in more abstract and formal ways. You can look at the preoperational stage as being a basis or foundation for their cognitive development all the way through to their adult years. That is why it is important for parents to encourage and support their children at this trying time, even when they are asking the same question over and over, why? By helping children to understand the world around them, you are also allowing them to reason and make their own