Developmental Psychologist and Theories

Developmental Psychology and Theories Developmental Psychologist and Theories Piaget's cognitive theory of development Jean Piaget developed the theory of cognitive development, which suggests there are four key stages through which children advance as their minds develop. The theory focuses largely on an understanding of the nature of knowledge and intelligence, and how they acquire and use it. Piaget lays the claim that cognitive development is key to human development and that language skills depend on cognitive development Fiore, 2011, p. 35.

This essay focuses on Piaget's theory of cognitive development and presents an explanation of the four stages of development in this theory. The first stage of development is the sensorimotor stage, which happens from birth to about 24-month's age. During this period, the child begins to know the world around them and their sensations. It is in this period that as suggested by Rathus, 2011, p. 17(Piaget (1983, p. 152) , assimilation is the process whereby children begin to see the environment and process new information using old or pre-existing information.

For example when a child sucks their thumb for the first time and gain pleasure from this action, they may intentionally decide to do it again for the pleasure. Accommodation, on the other hand, occurs "when children alter pre-existing information in order to understand new information," Piaget and Inhelder (1973, p. 31) , infants learn the existence of the objects in life and that they continue to exist even when they are out of view, a phenomenon referred to as object permanence.

They also learn to, "differentiate objects from people and they often realize that their actions have consequences." They learn this through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. According to ). A quintessential example of this is when a child may use different sounds to try to get the attention of the caregiver and from the reaction of the caregiver, they know which sound is more effective.

The second stage is the preoperational stage at the ages of 2 to 7 years where the child thinks symbolically and begins to use pictures and words to express themselves. At this point, Piaget & Inhelder, 1973, p. 38(. At this stage, children "are unable or find it difficult to see things from others' perspectives," Piaget and Inhelder (1973) argues that children are often egocentric because they "only see objects and people from their own point-of-view," (p.37)).

Role-playing is key in this stage and children mimic and imitate what their mother, father or nanny does in an attempt to learn language. One example of development in this stage is seen when a child uses a stick as a horse or an object as a toy car. The concrete operational stage is the third stage and takes place between the ages of 7 to 11 years. In this stage, children begin to think logically about events that have taken place. During this period, they can understand the concept of conservation.

This was tested in Piaget's experiment using thin and normal cups where children were asked which of the two holds the most amount of liquid. Children at this age are often able to know that the two cups hold the same amount of liquid. Piaget also found that children understand the concept of reversibility of actions Salkind, 2004, pp. 99-103.

This is where they are able to use inductive reasoning to more from specifics to general principles such as understanding that her dog is a poodle, and a poodle is a dog and that dogs are animals. Rathus (2008, p. 23) argues that children at this stage "can focus on multiple parts of a problem at once," (p.23) Therefore, they can see objects from different points-of-view. The last stage is the formal operational stage from the age of 12 years onwards.

During this stage, the adolescent is able to think more abstractly, defined as "This type of reasoning can be done without thinking about actual objects," Brain & Mukherji, 2005, p. 77. They also have the ability to use reason to solve problems and to think about moral, political, philosophical, and social constructs surrounding issues. Deductive reasoning emerges in this stage and they are able to "consider past experiences, present demands, and future consequences in attempting to maximize the success of his or her adaptation to the world," Salkind, 2004, p.

107() Kohlberg's research on moral development Lawrence Kohlberg presents six moral development stages that children must go through. The six stages developed by Kohlberg are essentially an extension of Piaget's two-stage process of moral development Fiore, 2011, p. 168. Piaget's two stage theory places children in groups based on their age and argues that children below the age of 10 think about moral dilemmas based on a fixed set of rules provided by adults and God while those above this age understand that there are certain situations where rules may be changed Piaget, 1932, p. 137.

Kohlberg's theory is based on research with several groups of children and he presents a series of moral dilemmas to them and interviews them to determine their reasoning pathways Kohlberg, 1973, p. 632. This paper discusses Kohlberg's theory of moral development and presents the three levels of the theory upon which the six stages of development are grouped.

One of the moral dilemmas that Kohlberg used was one titled 'Heinz steals the drug.' His experiments aimed at analyzing on the thought process that leads to the final decision and not the final decision. Using this experiment, he developed three levels of moral development -- the pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional morality levels which each had two stages of development Kohlberg, 1973, p. 641() The pre-conventional level has two stages. In the first stage, obedience and punishment, children use fixed rules that they view as being absolute.

They often think that God or adults develop rules and obedience of these rules is of utmost importance. A good example is when the child is told not to touch something, they will often not touch it because they were told by an adult. The second stage, individualism and exchange, children begin to appreciate themselves as having a point-of-view and they judge their actions based on how these serve their individual needs.

In his experiments, Kohlberg found that children often said that the preferred action would have been the one that served Heinz's interests. At this stage, reciprocating is often possible, but only when it serves the interest of the individual. In the second stage, conventional morality, the third and fourth stages of development are presented. The third stage is that of international relationships. This is where there is the "good-boy, good-girl" attitude Gilligan, 1982, p. 5.

At this stage of development, the children strive to live up to the expectations of the society by presenting a good boy or good girl image. A good example is a child who begins to be responsible by taking their dishes to the kitchen.