Piaget’s theory of cognitive development was ahead of its time by posing the human being as an active subject in his learning. His fundamental interest was in investigating the process by which people acquire knowledge, not so much what or how much we acquire.
In the following Psychology-Online article we will see the most important aspects of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Specifically, we will talk about the four stages of cognitive development that it proposes: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations and formal operations.
Piaget’s learning theory
Piaget’s theory introduced a revolutionary concept to contemporary learning theories. He introduced children as active subjects of their learning, which interact with their environment to interpret it. This reciprocal interaction is predetermined by various evolutionary stages that will progressively develop from the maturation and interaction of the child with his environment. Piaget’s main interest in cognitive learning focused on how people process information throughout their life development.
In the following article you will find more information about the.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Cognitive development would be the process by which human beings obtain knowledge through their interaction with the environment that surrounds them. The psychologist Jean Piaget was one of the great theorists who investigated this aspect and developed . According to Piaget’s cognitive theory, this development occurs throughout four evolutionary stages that occur in human beings from birth to adulthood.
The basic principles that govern the cognitive development and the progressive evolution from one stage to another are:
- Organization and adaptation: Innately, people organize the information we receive in mental maps and, in turn, we adapt to the demands of the environment in which we develop.
- Assimilation and accommodation: we shape the information we receive to fit the mental schemes of the moment. If it disagrees with our current mental schemas, we will adjust them to fit this new information.
- Development mechanisms. The mechanisms that condition cognitive development and the passage between the different stages are determined by the maturation of inherited physical structures, by physical experiences with the environment, by the social transmission of information and by the continuous search for balance.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has shed a lot of light on pedagogy when developing educational applications.
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states that knowledge evolves through four qualitatively and quantitatively different stages. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development share four characteristics:
- The appearance sequence follows a predetermined fixed order.
- Each Piaget stage has its own overall structure and mode of operation.
- The stages are hierarchically inclusive, that is, each stage includes the previous ones.
- The transition between stages is gradual, not abrupt, and presents great individual variability.
Piaget’s stages range from birth to adolescence and in each of them boys and girls learn specific cognitive abilities. The four Piaget’s stages are the following:
- Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): Boys and girls interact with their environment through their senses and the motor actions they perform through their body. The repetition of innate reflexes allows you to interact with your body, first, and, later, with the outside world through the senses and concrete actions.
- Preoperational stage (2-7 years): in the infants begin a mental integration of all the actions-reactions carried out in the previous period. They begin to abstract all this information through mental schemes, which allow the development of language, and symbolic games.
- Stage of concrete operations (7-11): at the stage of reasoning processes they become logical. The cognitive processes of serialization, classification of concepts and conservation are developed. The new logical structures allow boys and girls to solve specific social problems.
- Formal operations stage (11 years and older): At this stage, adolescents are capable of carrying out inductive and deductive logical reasoning. This allows you to develop your perception of yourself and others.
In this table we will see what Cognitive abilities Little ones learn in each of Piaget’s stages.
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Bibliography
- Gutiérrez, F. (2005). Theories of cognitive development. Madrid: McGraw Hill Spain.
- Piaget, J., and Inhelder, B. (2015). Child psychology. Madrid: Morata Editions.
- Rafael Linares, Aurelia. Cognitive development: The theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Module I of the Master in Paidopsiquiatría, retrieved from: http://www.paidopsiquiatria.cat/archivos/teorias_desarrollo_cognitivo_07-09_m1.pdf