Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Swiss psychologist and biologist Jean Piaget were privileged to watch his children grow and noted that their development occurred a model that is four staged; the model gives an illustration of the manner in which minds realise the processing new information it comes across. Additionally, he added that there were four different stages in child development and they follow each other systematically. He believed children pass through each stage of life. The age which children passes through vary with environment and background of individual children. The stages are:
The Sensorimotor stage
The Sensorimotor stage begins at birth until 2years of age. Children have limited knowledge. Infants build understanding and reality when interacting with their environment. Learning is mainly through accommodation and assimilation.
Milestones of the sensorimotor:
Trial and error- In trying to learn more about their properties, Children usually attempt variant things
Object Permanence- It is at his stage that children get to comprehend the persistent existence of objects even when eliminated from their sight.
Drawbacks
He fails to give defined descriptions that would allow for researchers to realise elaborate links mental changes and their related observable alterations in character. In Piaget’s variables, therefore, the establishment of cause-effect variables is challenging.
The Preoperational stage
The preoperational stage is the between 2-4 and early childhood 7 years. In this stage, children develop language, memory and thoughts. They can organise skills. They can think logically about certain objects and events. Children engage in and can understand and express the relationship between past and future.
Pre-Operational Stages milestones
Ability to realise description of images and words of specific objects by language.
They can classify objects by grouping them in simple ways, especially with features that are important.
Extensive Pretend Play- children can act during play time
Limitations
He underestimated the development of young children. Contrary to Piagets’ thoughts, there are children who realised object permanence development at a considerably early stage.
Stage of operational concrete