Cognitive, biological and socio-emotional development over time starts from the prenatal period and concludes at late adulthood. The first 5 periods of development will be highlighted as this is where the greatest amount of conscious thought and thinking pattern is established. These are important periods in life as a child will start to understand their surroundings as they deal with the ability to consider, reason and remember. Children will enhance in cognition as they grow older and form mental processes in which they recall information and make sense of the world.
One of the most significant and influential theorists is Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the major pioneer of the cognitive theory. Piaget was captivated by the reasoning children provided for their wrong answers to questions which required them to think logically. (website). He revealed the difference between child and adult thinking processes and the importance it has to one’s learning. His systematic study examines that the process of thinking is building on top of pre-existent knowledge. His contributions allow us to now have a developmentally suitable education and teaching that is
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An infant evolves from spontaneous, Instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought towards the end of the stage. There are three developmental milestones of this stage. The first is object permanence, this is where the child will look for a toy when it is out of sight. The child will begin to understand that objects still exist even if they are not seen. Goal directed or intentional actions are displayed when the infant is either hitting a musical toy to allow sound to heard. The last milestone is deferred imitation, as the infant begins to copy an action displayed by another individual, for example, an adult throws a ball and the infant imitates the