Piaget's Theory of Development

¶ … perfect, Piaget's theories a profound impact field cognitive development. Provide analysis model challenges. a.Define main stages Piaget's theory, age ranges. b.Discuss crucial processes children move stage. Piaget's theory of cognitive development relates to four essential stages that children go through as they grow up. The first is the sensorimotor stage and it involves the time period between birth and the age of two. Children learn more about the world in this phase by interacting with objects and through their experiences.

The second is the preoperational stage, entails children between the ages of two to (approximately) seven, and it has children acquiring more information through role-playing but still encountering issues because they cannot properly implement logics and as they have difficulty seeing things from other point-of-views. The concrete operational stage occurs from about seven to about eleven years old and has children behaving and thinking more logically. Even with this, they tend to have very direct thinking and they are still unable to effectively consider abstract ideas.

The final stage of development as seen by Piaget is the formal operational stage and it starts in adolescence and can go until adulthood. This stage has individuals think more logically, able to put across complex reasoning, and having lesser trouble understanding abstract concepts. Piaget described schemas as strategies that children use as a model to gain a better understanding of the world. Through learning they enlarge their schemas and focus on other two processes called assimilation and accommodation.

The former involves a schema being expanded in order to transform into another while the latter entails the actual schema being modified and containing new information. The Sensorimotor stage involves children having significant trouble understanding their role and being generally reluctant to take on behaviors they see in others. The Preoperational stage has children comprehend social activities better, but still having trouble with logics and with understanding other people -- they are generally subjective at this stage.

Individuals in the Concrete Operational Stage are enthusiastic about involving logics in their affairs, but tend to have unidirectional thinking. Hypothetical ideas can still be problematic at this stage, as they are likely to perceive them with more confusion. Gelman is inclined to provide a less complex description of developmental stages in children, as he focused on seeing the general picture and trying to comprehend the way the individuals think during their development through this type of analysis. She describes how a child's ability to get more actively.