Jean Piaget Stages Of Development Essay

Jean Piaget, a trained biologist from Switzerland, paved the way in Developmental Psychology when he introduced his theory that development occurs in stages. He was a constructivist that believed that children build meaning based on experiences. He also focused on children learning as individuals rather than with the help of others, which went against what social constructivists thought. Piaget stated that a child must reach certain stages in their life as they develop. There are four stages in Piaget’s theory and they are; sensorimotor, preoperational, operational, and formal operations. In each stage, a child will reach a new standard of cognitive development, which means that they are developing new abilities as they grow. Piaget stated that children may vary within each stage, for example a child in the preoperational stage may develop conservation of numbers before conservation of volume. However, the child must accomplish this stage before they can move up. Stages must be accomplished in order and non can be skipped. When Piaget says that a child in in a certain stage, he means that they are in either of the four, and are developing new abilities that will let them reach another stage. There is a good amount of evidence that development

While there is some controversy over this theory, he makes a lot of great points. Some may argue that development doesn’t happen in stages, rather a more linear path. However, children do need to develop certain things before they can move on to something else. A high schooler needs to learn basic algebra before they can jump into algebra 2, otherwise they won’t know all of the formulas or the basics. A child needs to accomplish one stage before they can move to another and non can be skipped. I agree with Piaget’s theory based on the evidence that I see throughout my life and with the experiments that back him