An essay is going to Describe child development in relation to piagets stages of child cognitive

development and all this will be done in a summarized way to pave way for readers or scholars
to easily make sense out of the academic paper.

Their cognitive development limits their ability to understand certain concepts. Specifically,
they’re not capable right now of understanding what you’re trying to explain. In this post, we’ll
learn more about Jean Piaget, a famous psychologist whose ideas about cognitive development in
children were extremely influential. We’ll cover quite a lot in this post, so make sure you have a
cup of coffee and you’re sitting somewhere comfortable. Before you continue, we thought you
might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based
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self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or
employees (Bovet, 1976).
Piaget (1977) argued that children’s cognitive development occurs in stages (Papalia & Feldman,
2011). Specifically, he posited that as children’s thinking develops from one stage to the next,
their behavior also changes, reflecting these cognitive developments. The stages in his theory
follow a specific order, and each subsequent stage only occurs after the one before it. These
stages are: Sensorimotor stage (0–2 years old), Preoperational stage (2–7 years old), Concrete
operational stage (7–11 years old) and Formal operational stage (11 years old through an
adulthood. The sensorimotor stage is the first phase of children’s cognitive development. During
this stage, children primarily learn about their environment through their senses and motor
activities. The sensorimotor stage comprises six substages, where children’s behavior moves
from being reflex driven to more abstract. Each substage is described briefly. Use of reflexes (0–
2 months) During this stage, children typically use their reflexes. They cannot consolidate
information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept.
Mcleod (2007) stated that Primary circular reactions (1–4 months) Children start to consolidate
information from different sensory organs. They start to engage in behavior that satisfies the way
their body feels or their needs. For example, they repeat pleasurable behaviors, and they adapt
their behavior to feed from different objects. They turn to respond to sounds and sights in their
environment. Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months). Children’s behaviors become more
intentional, and the types of behaviors that they repeat expand to include those that result in
interesting responses external to their body. For example, they might push buttons on a toy.
Children also start to take more interest in their environment. They repeat behaviors that generate
interesting responses.
Maréchal (2009) suggested that Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12 months), At this
point, children’s behaviors become more goal oriented, and they can combine different behaviors
to achieve goals. Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months) Instead of performing the same
actions, children try new behaviors and actions to achieve different results. These behaviors are
not spontaneous or by accident, but are purposeful. Unlike primary and secondary reactions,
children can combine more complicated behaviors and even perform a behavior similarly but not
the same to get the desired result. Mental combinations (18–24 months).
Children start to rely on mental abstractions to solve problems, use gestures and words to
communicate, and can pretend. Instead of relying on numerous attempts to solve
problems/puzzles, children can deliberate and carefully choose their actions. At the end of the
sensorimotor stage, children start to use mental abstractions.
At the age of two, children enter the preoperational stage, where their ability to use mental
representations, rather than the physical appearance of objects or people, improves greatly.
Examples of abstract representations include engaging in pretend play and talking about events
that happened in the past or people who are not currently in the room. OtherOther interesting
cognitive advances occur during this phase. For example, children understand causality. Children
also understand identities, where items and people remain the same even if they look different.
For example, at some point during this stage, a caregiver dressing up as Santa Claus might not be
as convincing (Bovet, 1976).
Maréchal (2008) suggested that In this stage, children also learn more about categorization. They
can classify items based on similarities or differences. They also start to understand numbers and
quantity (e.g., concepts such as ‘more’ or ‘bigger’). Although abstract thought advances quickly
in the preoperational stage, other cognitive processes develop more slowly. For example:
Children tend to consider their own viewpoint and perspective. Children fail to understand that
two things can be the same, even if they appear different (more about this in the next section on
Conservation). Children struggle to take someone else’s point of view. The next phase is the
concrete operational stage, which begins around the age of seven. During this stage, children are
more capable of solving problems because they can consider numerous outcomes and
perspectives. All of their cognitive abilities are better developed in this stage.

Piaget (1977) argued that Categorization abilities improve so that children can arrange items
along a dimension, understand that categories have subcategories, and relate two objects to each
other through a third object. Their numerical abilities improve a lot, and they can perform more
complicated mathematical operations. Their spatial abilities are better. They are better at
estimating time and distance. They can read maps and describe how to navigate from one
location to another. Conservation. During this stage, children understand the concept of
conservation better and, as a result, are better at solving conservation problems. Conservation
refers to the idea that things can be the same, even if they look different.

An example would be a cup of water poured into two glasses. One glass is tall and thin, while the
other is short and wide. Recognizing that both glasses contain the same amount of water shows
an understanding of conservation. Children in the preoperational stage struggle with problems of
conservation. For example, they struggle with tasks where the following is conserved even it
appears different: Number of items (e.g., two sets of 10 items arranged differently) and The
volume of liquid (e.g., the same volume of liquid in two differently shaped glasses). Children
struggle with conservation because they can only focus on one dimension at a time; this is known
as centering. For example, with the volume of liquid, they can only consider the shape of the
glass, but not the shape of the glass and the volume of water. They also do not yet understand
reversibility. Irreversibility refers to a child’s inability to reverse the steps of an action in their
mind, returning an object to its previous state. For example, pouring the water out of the glass
back into the original cup would demonstrate the volume of the water, but children in the
preoperational stage cannot understand this (Maréchal, 2008).
Bovet (1976) suggested that In contrast, children in the concrete operational stage can solve
conservation problems. This is because children now have the following cognitive abilities: They
understand reversibility (i.e., items can be returned to original states). They can decenter (i.e.,
concentrate on multiple dimensions of items, rather than just one).

They better understand identity (i.e., an item remains the same even if it looks different). At the
age of 11, children enter the formal operational stage. Abstract thought characterizes this stage.
Children can think about abstract concepts and are not limited to a current time, person, or
situation.

Maréchal (2008) suggested that They can think about hypothetical situations and various
possibilities, like situations that don’t exist yet, may never exist, or might be unrealistic and
fantastical. During this stage, children are capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which
allows them to test hypotheses and draw conclusions from the results. Unlike younger children
who haphazardly approach problems, children in the formal operational stage can apply their
reasoning skills to apply more complicated problems in a systematic, logical manner. Several
concepts are pivotal to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Schemas and constructivism,
Piaget argued that children learn about the world by interacting with it. This notion of gaining
knowledge about the world is known as constructivism (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). Through their
interactions, children construct schemas or cognitive patterns about how the world works
(Waite-Stupiansky, 2017). These schemas come about through organization, which is how
categories are formed, organizing items together based on common characteristics.

According to Piaget schemas can then be repeated and tested. For example, an infant has a
schema about a rattle: shake it, and it makes a noise. Importantly, schemas are not static, and
they can be improved and updated with new information. When children learn new information,
they do not disregard their previous schemas; instead, they build upon them. As a result,
children’s cognitive development happens in stages as schemas are continuously updated with
new information. Adaptation describes how children update their current cognitive organizations
and schemas with new information. Adaptation takes place in two ways: assimilation and
accommodation. Assimilation describes how children incorporate new information into existing
schemas. For example, a child refers to dogs as ‘woofs.’ When they see a cat for the first time,
they refer to the cat as a ‘woof’ too. Accommodation describes how children adapt their
cognitive structures to match new information in the world. Continuing with the previous
example, the child realizes that dogs and cats are different. The child updates their cognitive
schema of the world, and now refers to cats as ‘cats’ and dogs as ‘woofs’ (Bovet, 1976).
Maréchal (2009) suggested that Piaget’s background as a biologist influenced some of his work,
notably the concept of ‘equilibrium,’ which resembles homeostasis (Waite-Stupiansky, 2017).
He posited that children’s cognitive processes are aimed toward equilibrium. When children
learn new information that is at odds with their current schemas, they are in an undesirable state
of disequilibrium. To achieve equilibrium, children adapt their mental instructions by:
Assimilating new information Accommodating new information by updating their cognitive
schemas By achieving equilibrium, children learn new information.
In conclusion, an essay has described child development in relation to piagets stages of child
cognitive development and all this has been done in a summarized way in order for readers or
scholars to easily make sense out of the academic paper. The paper is well presented in such a
way that it’s comprehensive to various individuals.
.

REFERENCES

 Bovet, Magali (1976), "Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development and Individual

Mcleod, Saul (2007). "Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development”, retrieved 202-07.

McLeod, S. A (2012), "Piaget | Cognitive Theory". Simply Psychology. Retrieved 18

Karen E. (2005). "Concrete Operational Period". Encyclopedia of Human Development. 1. doi..

Maréchal, Garance (2009). "Constructivism". Encyclopedia of Case Study Research. 1.

Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1973), “Memory and intelligence”, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.