Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist who based his findings on the cognitive development of children, in this case, how they acquire knowledge rather than how they learn it. This theory deals with children from birth until adulthood. However, Piaget focused on the mental construction of the child’s brain at different developmental stages. Piaget worked at the Binet Institute, where he developed English intelligence tests that were offered to both children and adults, this, intrigued him into studying cognitive development.
During his study, Piaget did thorough research that the contributions gave a detailed observational and stage theory based on a series of regular tests and observations. He focused on the schemas; that is, the building blocks of knowledge and adaptation process that allow the transition from one stage to another like the assimilation, equilibrium, and accommodation. After that, Piaget came up with the four stages of Cognitive development as below;
The four stages of Piaget’s cognitive development?
- The sensorimotor stage (0-2years)
- The preoperational stage (2-7 years)
- The concrete operational stage (7-11years)
- The formal operational stage (11- adulthood)
However, before the analysis of the four main steps in the cognitive development of Piaget, it is essential to understand the adaptation process as it will aid in understanding what happens within the stages.
Schemas
According to Piaget, this is referred to as the building block of knowledge. They are in the brain, and they allow one to have a mental representation of the world and objects. Therefore, it entails a repeatable action that is interconnected and controlled to give meaning. The schemas are the intelligent behavioral units of knowledge that assist an individual to relate to the aspects of the world; for example, a child translates meaning to the objects, actions, and abstract concepts. According to the theorist, he believed that as the child grows, their schemas become more elaborate and numerous.
Assimilation
Assimilation is a mode of adaptation that is used during cognitive development and includes the adjustment to the world. Therefore, in children, this is the ability to use an existing schema to identify a new object or situation.
Accommodation
Accommodation is an adaptive process that is used when the existing units of knowledge are dysfunctional and needs to be replaced for the latest information to work.
Equilibration
Equilibrium consists of the force that exists and fosters development in humans. Additionally, the equilibrium state of mind allows the processing of the new information; however, when interfered with, the latest data may not fit into the current schemas; hence assimilation process ceases. This disequilibration motivates the infant to accommodate new information to achieve the equilibrium
These terms are used in the theorists four stages of cognitive development which include;
Sensorimotor stage (0-2years)
It is the first stage of cognitive development, which runs from birth until the age of two years. At this stage, the child uses his senses and motor skills to acquire knowledge and understand their surroundings. At this stage, the child uses the basic reflex movements to touch, grasp, and taste anything that is around them. Once they are born, they have a sense of taste, sight, touch, and hearing. As the children develop, their schemas grow, hence allowing them to differentiate between people, objects, views, and textures and how different situations make them feel. This stage, therefore, entails the Object permanence.
Object permanence is a stage where the infant gets to understand an object that exists even when they are unable to touch, see, or feel it. It means that the schemas have created a mental representation of the object; thus, the child can have a mental image of it even when it is taken away.
Preoperational stage (2-7years)
It is the second stage of the cognitive development of Piaget, it begins at the age of 2 years and proceeds on to 7 years. During this stage, children get to build on the object permanence that they acquired during the first stage and further have abstract thinking, which is egocentric. It entails the development of language skills and behaviors to represent objects or past experiences. It is done in the following ways;
Imitation
As the child grows, they tend to watch and observe one’s behavior and later on they get to mimic the similar behavior, in the absence of the object of the person. This can be referred to as role play.
Symbolic play
A child at this stage gets to use objects as a representation of other objects that may have similar properties. For example, a broom to represent a horse. At this level, there is an increase in play and pretense.
Drawing
It is one of the behaviors that are adopted by the child whereby they tend to use the imitation and symbolic play to scribble drawings that might explain the characteristics of a person or an individual. It displays their abstract thinking towards those particular features.
Mental imagery
This involves the visualization of objects whereby they tend to picture images cognitively and ask what their names are. The units of knowledge have increased, therefore, the need for more assimilation of information.
Language development
The child gets to be quite vocal and inquires of the appropriate names of objects, events, and people from their past encounters.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
It is the third stage of cognitive development, which includes children at 7 to 11 years of age. According to Piaget, he considered this stage as the start of logical thinking, which entails the inductive reasoning. Additionally, at this stage, the child tends to become less egocentric and more rational. This means they become better in understanding things; however, they may find it challenging to use deductive reasoning. Nonetheless, at this stage, the classification of items is secure, and they can understand the logical orders and conservation.
Conservation is the ability of the child to be able to understand that an object can change its size, volume, and appearance; however, it remains to be the same object as before. The child gets to understand that the same concept remains the same, even if it transforms.
Furthermore, this stage entails the use of reversibility, where the child gets to understand the reverse of actions, or they are aware of the reverse order of relationships between the mental categories. For example, they can recognize that the name of the pet and the type of pet they have; therefore, the pet is an animal and vice-versa.
Formal operational stage (11years-adulthood)
It is the final stage of cognitive development that runs from 11 years to adulthood. This stage of development involves the sophistication and advanced methods of logic. The thoughts are more logical and get to understand abstract concepts and the problem-solving process.
In this stage, there is more use of logical thought that is the deductive reasoning that assists in systematical planning. The deductive argument is pivotal in this stage as it requires the use of the general principle to determine the specific outcome. Deductive reasoning is used in the scientific method of rationalization to come with conclusive results.
Consequently, this stage entails the use of abstract thought whereby the children get to evaluate the possible views of a given action, contrary to the previous steps where there was the use of the past experiences to build on the schemas. In this stage, it allows the use of long-term goals instead of short-term goals.
Problem-solving and decision making are crucial at the formal operational stage as the children in the previous stages tend to incorporate the trial and error in problem-solving. However, in this stage, there is the use of more rational and logical ways to solve a problem systematically.
As reasoning is the major part of the formal operational stage, Piaget came up with the hypothetical-deductive reasoning. This mode of thinking entails the analysis of the situations and what possible actions come with it. It is more structured and abstract compared with the previous cognitive development stages, where the thoughts were straightforward.
In the formal operational stage, an individual has several choices on how to handle a situation; therefore, they are more flexible and efficient to maximise the adaptation in the current world.
Conclusion
As children gain more awareness of their cognition and thought processes, they develop metacognition, whereby they tend to consider others in their thinking process. These four stages of cognition increase the comprehension of the mental processes and systems that occur in every situation.
