Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory Analysis

Jean Piaget began to study children in 1920. He became fascinated how children gave wrong answers on questions that require logical thinking. Piaget reported how the wrong answers show the differences on how adults think than how children think. Piaget’s theory states that children go through four stages of cognitive development as they actively construct their understanding of the world (Santrock, 2014, p.21). As a person progresses through life from childhood to adulthood, to which they take observations and experiences is the basic theory of cognitive development. In these four stages we go through, we understand the world around us. Each of these stages are age-related that consists of a clear way of thinking and a different way of understanding

This sub sage develops between 8 and 12 months of age. In this sub stage, actions become more outwardly directed, and infants coordinate schemes and act with intentionality (Santrock, 2014, p.140). According to my mom around these months when I was a baby, she had told me that I would like to grab a lot of things that I would see. Whether it was my bottle, Barbie doll, or just other random toys I would have. My mom told me that my older sister would like to play peek-a-boo with me and how I would cry after my sister says boo. According to Piaget, he believed that the children who were upset at this lacked the understanding of object permanence, while others who seemed to enjoy this reached a developmental milestone (Cherry, 2016). Looks like I, as a baby needed a little bit more understanding on object

In this sub stage, the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols. For Piaget, a symbol is an internalized sensory image or word that represents an event (Santrock, 2014, p.140). Like my mother said, how I would like to follow my sister around and copied her on what she would be doing or saying. For instance, my sister and I would like to be outdoors playing, running, and screaming. My mom told me that she found my sister and me outside in the backyard playing with mud. Since my sister liked playing with mud she would make “mud pies” and my mom told me that she saw me doing the same thing as my sister was doing. Like the saying goes, “monkey see, monkey do.” In this stage, children begin to go beyond simply connecting sensory information with physical action and represent the world with words, images, and drawings (Santrock, 2014, p.22). This stage lasts from 2 to 7 years of age. This preoperational stage could be divided into two sub stages: symbolic function sub stage and intuitive thought sub