Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development | Short Notes
Jean Piaget was born on 9th August 1896, in Switzerland. He received PhD from the University of Neuchatel in 1918. He died on 16 September 1980. The cognitive development theory of Jean Piaget deals with the nature of intelligence and how people progressively come to acquire, construct, and use it. In this theory, Piaget said that children make different mistakes at different ages while solving problems. Therefore, he grouped the children in the following four stages according to age. In this theory, he not only focused on thinking and understanding but also on how children acquire knowledge and the children's understanding of the nature of intelligence. According to Jean Piaget, there are four stages of developmental theory.
Four Stages Of Theory of Cognitive Development
i) Sensorimotor stageii) Preoperational stage
iii) Concrete stage
iv) Formal stage
1 - Sensorimotor Stage
The first stage of Jean Piaget's theory is the sensorimotor stage. Basically, the age group of this stage is from birth to two years. The word sensorimotor is the combination of two words, the first is 'sense' related to our five senses and the second is motor-related to our movement. The children's understanding of the world is linked with sensory experiences of physical actions. They use five senses and react according to their experiences. During this stage, the children's knowledge is limited to sensory opinion (hearing, seeing) and simple motor activities (touching, reaching). At the end of this stage, they get the concept of object permanency.2 - Pre-Operational Stage
The pre-operational stage is the second stage of Jean Piaget's theory. This stage starts from two to seven years. Moreover, in this stage when a child starts to use the symbols and increases in language ability. This is the developing stage of language and concepts. This stage is divided into two further stages.i) Pre-Conceptual Phase
The age group of this phase is two to four years. In this phase, a child makes mistakes in the identification of names and put them in the classes. Furthermore, the concept formation starts in this phase. The child uses the symbols to stand for action. Language also develops in this phase. Some modes of thinking and reasoning are quite illogical. They are caring too much about you and not for others. Children's imaginative thinking develops in this phase.
ii) Intuitive Phase
The age group of this phase is four to seven years. In this phase, the child thinks intuitively rather than logically. In addition, this is the phase in which children's knowledge is based on what they see and feel to be physical things and they cannot explain abstract reasoning. In this phase, reversibility and conservation are also absent. They cannot conserve.
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3. Concrete Operational Stage
The age duration of this stage is seven to eleven years. The Concrete Operational stage is the third stage of Jean Piaget's theory. In this stage, the children's proper use of logic occurs. The children identify sets of objects and sizes, including the idea that one set of an object can include another and they make different sets. In this stage, the presence of reversibility and conservation is also present.a) Reversibility
The child understands an object and also the numbers of those objects, they can be different, and then returned to their original state.
b) Conservation
The child understands that quantity and quality, length and number of items are not related to the arrangement or appearance of the objects or the items.
4. Formal Operational Stage
The age duration of this stage is eleven to fifteen years. In this stage, the development of the ability to think about abstract concepts or ideas and logical thinking occurs. During this stage, Children can logically solve different problems. The growing seasons in more idealistic. They build multiple hypotheses and several alternative solutions.Conclusion
In these stages, the developments of children occur including a unique way of understanding the world and how to solve problems in life and how to change the way of thinking. During the first stage of Jean Piaget's theory, the sensorimotor stage, children learn things through sensory experiences with physical actions. The second pre-operational stage is the growth of symbolic thought and increases in language ability. During the third stage of the concrete operational stage, the child can achieve basic operations such as classification and series of objects and size of material objects. In the last stage, the formal operational stage the child develops the skills of thinking about abstract concepts and logical thoughts. They can logically solve problems. The knowledge of Jean Piaget's theory helps the teacher to understand the mental development of the child as the teacher deal with the proper activities to keep students active.
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