Theories of Cognitive Development in Children Essay

If an adult following Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, saw a four-year-old boy pouring wet sand out of a bucket two feet above the ground, to make sand castles, would watch and scaffold. The adult would provide guidance and support to the contemporary level of capability of the boy. However, if an adult supporting Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory, saw the four-year-old boy doing the same thing, they would have to show him figuratively or illustrate symbolic play. For example, the adult…

lifespan. Researchers have proposed numerous theories about the different stages and characteristics of development to understand human behavior and personality. For instance, cognitive development is one of the fields of developmental psychology that outlines how humans perceive stimuli based upon their ability to process knowledge, reason, and be creative or critical. Numerous social and environmental factors influence a person’s cognitive development. This essay will argue that social factors…

childhood education programs. These theories on development have been researched and formulated to help us understand how and why a child develops intellectually and socially as they do. Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory focuses on the intellectual development of a child; while Erik Erikson 's theory encompasses social and emotional development. Jean Piaget, a psychologist born in 1896, was the first person to develop a well thought out theory on connectivity in children. While employed at the…

(1978) sociocultural theory suggests that learning is a continual social process that never ends and how we view the world is shaped by symbolic tools like language. As a child’s cognitive function improves through social interaction, he or she learns at a social (inter-psychological) level and then at an individual level (intra-psychological), consequently expanding their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - a concept introduced but not fully developed by Vygotsky (1978). As children grow,…

1. Identify five areas in which children’s lives need to be improved and explain the roles of resilience and social policy in children’s development. Five areas in which children’s lives need to be imporved are: health/wellbeing, parenting, education, sociocultural context/diversity, and gender. Children’s health before and after birth can affect their lives and ability to learn, thus it needs to be improved. Similarly, parenting can have a positive of negative affect in children’s lives.…

Psychologists’ Theories and Age Characteristics Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory The popular saying: “a place for everything and everything in its place” seems to be the motto of Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Theory. According to Piaget, humans were born with the proclivity to organize and adapt (Snowman & McCown, 2013). Piaget believed that as children interact with the world around them, they begin to “formulate organized patterns of behavior or thought, known as schemes” (Snowman & McCown,…

Education Theories According to Bredekamp (2014), theories perform an explanation of how information and observations are organized to relate to one another (p.101). As children grow through time, their experiences and brain activity develop differently. Over the years research has shown that theories are in fact evolving overtime due to the changes in the way children learn. Theories that have been made often affect the way people, educators, parents, doctors behave. Some theories are in…

The infant in this video playing with a telephone appears to be in Piaget 's theory would categorized as, the sensorimotor stage, the time frame from birth to age two (Barrouillet, 2015). This sensorimotor stage is the first phase of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory (Barrouillet, 2015). Piaget, saw this phase as one of extraordinary advancement and evolution of cognitive growth (Barrouillet, 2015). Children observe and imitate as they test their senses and motor skills. The baby in the…

This essay will discuss major theories of human development and learning including Māori perspectives. These theories will then explain two critical points and how they are related to the theory. The chosen theorist beliefs will then be related to a role as an Early Childhood Educator while providing examples of how these theories apply to the development of infants, toddlers and/ or young children and their families. The differences between a Māori theorist and the two general perspectives…

Child development and socialisation are crucial facets that refer to the psychological and emotional fluctuations that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from acclimatization to maximizing autonomy. Jean Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. The cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environment experiences. [1]…