Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget spent nearly his whole life trying to unlock the mysteries of the child’s mind. He came up with a theory called “Cognitive Development.” Cognitive Development is the mental processes and functions that are connected with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Everything started for Piaget when he became fascinated with the wrong answers that children would give on intelligence tests that he had made for them (Myers 179). Piaget helped to explain how a human being’s life is divided into four basic stages.

These four stages are age specific and revolve around the development of the mind. The first stage of Piaget’s Theory is called Sensorimotor. This is the stage when an infant is between zero and two years old. During this stage, the infant see’s the world through senses and actions. Also in this stage, infants lack the understanding of object permanence. Object permanence is, “the awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived (Myers 181).” Young children cannot comprehend that objects are simply hidden. The old saying, “out of sight, out of mind”, is easily used here. In the Sensorimotor Stage, I have an excellent example that relates to everything discussed.

Over fall break, I was able to see my five-month-old baby cousin. His name is Mitchell. He will lie on the floor and be as happy as can be rolling around and touching everything. He will put whatever is within his reach into his mouth. In his mind, he must explore. At the same time though, if you take one of his toys, he will get upset and throw a fit for about twenty seconds. Once he realizes the toy does not exist anymore, he simply moves on to tasting other things. Piaget states that the next stage in life for everyone, including my cousin, starts around three years of age.

He names this next stage Preoperational. The Preoperational Stage is roughly from ages two to seven. It is also