What Is Jean Piaget Theory Of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was a Switzerland born constructivist psychologist who argued that children are constantly creating and participating in understanding the world that they live in (Fiore, 2011). Piaget proposed, then, in order to understand a child’s behavior it is important to understand how children process the information presented in their environment. Moreover, Piaget contends that children have cognitive structures that children use to “organize and adapt” to the world (Fiore, 2011). Thus, children are always constructing meaning of their environments. In Piaget’s “theory of cognitive development,” there exist four developmental stages that individuals go through, from birth to adulthood, to make sense of their role in the world.
The first …show more content…
Children during this stage will begin to identify and use visuals from their environment to make sense of things. In the Preoperational Stage, children are showing and demonstrating how they understand information—whether through interactions with or through objects in any given environment. In addition, the Preoperational Stage includes Symbolic Function and Intuitive Thought. Also, it is during this stage that Piaget argues language …show more content…
For example, I was able to identify the “internalization of schemes” sub stage found in the first stage of Sensorimotor. Piaget’s proposed internalization of schemes occurs in children between 18 to 24 months. Since Sophia’s age is two, I will elaborate on the internalization of scheme stage. In this stage, children start using visual images or signs to represent events or situations that are not presently happening to them or they have done first hand. Also, children begin to associate memories or occurrences with objects or people. Piaget shares also that children begin to experience Object Permanence, which means internally grasping the concept that for something to happen, it does not need to be visible or be represented through an