Piaget’s Theory Piaget’s (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. Cognitive Development Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience. Piaget’s Views He believed that children construct an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, and then adjust their ideas accordingly. Piaget claimed that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism and …show more content…
Sensorimotor Stage The sensorimotor stage is the first of the four stages in cognitive development which extends from birth to the acquisition of language. In this stage, infants progressively construct knowledge and understanding of the world by coordinating experiences (such as vision and hearing) with physical interactions with objects (such as grasping, sucking, and stepping). Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical actions they perform within it.They progress from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of the stage. During this stage, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. At this point in development, a child's intelligence consists of their basic motor and sensory explorations of the world. Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own …show more content…
Kids at this point of development begin to think more logically, but their thinking can also be very rigid. They tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts. At this point, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. At this time, elementary-age and preadolescent children ages 7 to 11 demonstrate logical, concrete reasoning. Children's thinking becomes less egocentric and they are increasingly aware of external events. They begin to realize that one's own thoughts and feelings are unique and may not be shared by others or may not even be part of reality. During this stage, however, most children still can't think abstractly or hypothetically. Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child's cognitive development, because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance