Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development - Literature review Example

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development is a comprehensive and all-round theory describing the development and nature of human intelligence. Piaget held a belief that a person’s childhood plays an active and vital role on their intelligence. At the basic and primary level, it has been described to mean a developmental stage theory (Ginsburg 1998, pg.31). It is wider than this since it deals with the type of knowledge itself, how it is acquired, constructed and used. According to Piaget, cognitive development is a continually progressive reorganization of processes in the mind resulting from environmental experience and biological maturation. Children for example, construct their own understanding and meaning of the world they live in. As they grow they begin to discover new things and ideas from their environment, creating discrepancies between what they already know and the new experiences. Furthermore, Piaget purported that the center of human beings is cognitive development. Language spoken by human beings is a result of understanding and knowledge obtained through cognitive development. Greatest attention was given to Piaget’s earlier works. Many parents are inspired by his earlier work; they avail a suitable environment for their children’s natural ability to learn and grow. Perfect examples of the direct application of Piaget’s theory are open education and child-centered classrooms. In as much as this theory had success in most areas, it faced limitations, just like others (Ginsburg 1998, pg.43). He recognized sharp stages of development yet development is a continuous process that takes place throughout an individual’s life. Operative and Figurative Nature of Intelligence Reality being the dynamic system that it is, involves states and transformations. Transformations point out to all kinds of changes a person or thing can undergo. States on the other hand, refer to the appearances or the conditions in which persons or things find themselves between transformations. Changes might be in terms of form or shape, location in time and space; objects or persons can change their locations from time to time. Therefore for human intelligence to be adaptive, it should have functions and aspects to represent both the static and transformational aspects of reality. His preposition was that operative intelligence determines the manipulation and representation of the transformational or dynamic aspects of reality. On the other hand, figurative intelligence dictates the representation of the reality’s static aspects. The active aspect of human intelligence is the operative intelligence. It involves all the actions done so as to anticipate or recover the transformations that objects of interest undergo. On the other hand, the static aspect of human intelligence is figurative in nature. It helps to store locations or shapes that occur between transformations. It basically involves; imitation, mental imagery, perception, language and drawing. It can therefore be stated that, the operative aspects give meaning to the figurative aspects of intelligence. Assimilation and Accommodation During Piaget’s study of the educational field, he focused on assimilation and accommodation processes. Assimilation is the process by which humans make sense of unfamiliar situations by referring to the already learned ideas (Ginsburg 1998). On the other hand, accommodation involves the replacement of old ideas with new information. This often happens when the old knowledge is no longer required in the environment where the person is. He believed that evolution has programmed the human brain to bring an equilibrium which influences the accommodation and assimilation of external and internal structures. He believed that accommodation and assimilation are co-existent; one cannot exist without the other. In order to assimilate an object into a mental schema, one needs to accommodate the specifications of the object. As we continue to develop, the balance between accommodation and assimilation is obtained. When the perfect balance is attained, accommodation and assimilation create the mental schemas of operative intelligence. Stages of Cognitive Development The four stages of cognitive development proposed by Piaget are; 1. Sensorimotor stage 2. Preoperational stage 3. Concrete operational 4. Formal operational The first of the four stages, sensorimotor stage, describes the development from the point of birth to acquisition of language. During this stage infants continually construct their own understanding and knowledge of their world by coordination of experiences and the interactions with objects physically. They perform physical actions and through this, they gain knowledge (Ginsburg 1998). Progression occurs from reflective and instinctual action at the point of birth to symbolic thought at the end of this stage. From the age of two to seven years, the child is at the pre-occupational stage. At this stage, children do not understand concrete logic and therefore cannot manipulate information mentally. Increase in pretending and playing takes place at this stage. They use symbols to represent actual objects. Their thinking is basically egocentric making it difficult to view things from other people’s perspective. The third stage is the concrete operational stage. This stage occurs during the preadolescent period, between the age of 7 and 11 years. Appropriate use of logic characterizes this stage (Ginsburg 1998, pg.51). The thinking process becomes adult-like and mature, resulting in logical and mature problem solving skills. Children practice inductive reasoning which involves inference drawing from observations to make generalization of ideas. Deductive reasoning has not developed at this stage, making the children to struggle with it. Deductive reasoning involves the use of generalized principle to aid in the prediction of the outcome of a given event. This stage is basically characterized by egocentrism elimination and logic (Ginsburg 1998, pg.54). Despite other people’s perspective being wrong, a child at this stage is able to view the ideas from their perspective. However they can only solve concrete problems but not hypothetical tasks. Development and use of common sense is not complete at this stage. The tests for concrete operations include; justification, number of times asking and word choice. The last stage is the formal operational stage. This occurs from childhood to adulthood; between the ages of 11 to 20 years. This stage is characterized by both deductive and hypothetical reasoning. Demonstration of intelligence involves logical use of symbols in relation to abstract concepts (Ginsburg 1998, pg.61). People at this stage are able to predict the outcomes of their actions. They can therefore be held accountable for their decisions and choices. Practical Applications Piaget’s theory is applied by parents, teachers and the society at large during the upbringing of the children. For example, parents apply this theory when making decisions on the items to buy to enhance their child’s growth. Teachers on the other hand make use of this theory when designing the syllabus suitable for each level of students. Recent studies show that pupils in the same age group have different performance in tasks involving addition and subtraction. At the concrete operational level, children are able excel in both addition and subtraction problems. The application of this theory has recorded different results among different communities in the world. This has led some people to speculate that some cultures develop more cognitive development as compared to others (Ginsburg 1998, pg.64). Without the combination of formal schooling and cultural experience, cognitive development may stop at certain levels e.g concrete operational level. Challenges facing Piagetian Stage Theory This theory has been challenged by many on several grounds. This theory brings out development to be a very smooth process. In reality, this is never the case. The stages described are just approximations in the ideal situations, which rarely exist. Further studies have proven some children are able to learn and comprehend concepts of complex reasoning that are only possible in the later stages, according to Piaget. On a broader perspective, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is “domain general” (Ginsburg 1998, pg.67). It predicts that cognitive maturation takes place concurrently across the different knowledge domains such as; physics, language, logic and mathematics. He did not factor in the difference in sophistication children possess in the different domains. Culture also attacks this theory since it feels that it has been undervalued when it comes to the cognitive development of children. In this theory, it is demonstrated that a child travels through several stages and at the end makes his/her own conclusion. In reality the cognitive development of a child is greatly influenced by their sociocultural environment (Ginsburg 1998, pg.78). References Ginsburg, H., & Opper, S. 1988. Piagets theory of intellectual development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Read More