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Child Development Theorists: Jean Piaget
Ericka Ridley
March 3, 2016

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If one individual has influenced research on child development more than any other, it is
Swiss cognitive theorist Jean Piaget. Piaget’s work has been around since 1930, but did not get much credit until the 1960s. This was mainly because Piaget’s ideas were at odds with behaviorism, which dominated North American psychology at the time. Piaget did not believe that children’s learning depends on rewards from adults, which is behaviorism. In the cognitive development theory, children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore the world. Piaget’s view of development was greatly influenced by his early training in biology. In Piaget’s theory, as the brain develops and children's experiences expand, they move through four broad stages of development. Each characterized by qualitatively distinct ways of thinking. The first stage of Piaget’s cognitive development would be sensori­motor, and this stage applies to children birth­2 years of age. In this stage the infant's think by acting on the world with their eyes, ears, hands, and mouth. They can differentiate themselves for objects, and recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally. An example would be shaking a rattle to make noise. As a result, they invent ways of solving sensorimotor problems, such as finding hidden toys and putting objects into and out of containers. The next stage is preoperational and this applies to children ages 2­7 years of age. In the preoperational stage preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor discoveries. Development of language and make­believe takes place. In this stage they learn to use language to represent objects by images and words. Also they have difficulties taking

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viewpoints from others and classify objects by single features. An example would be grouping all the square blocks regardless of color. However, thinking lacks the logic of the two remaining stages. The third stage is concrete operational and this applies to children ages 7­11 years of age. In the concrete operational stage children’s reasoning becomes logical. They can think logically about objects and events and classifies objects according to several features. An example would be school age children understand that a certain amount of lemonade remains the same even after its appearance changes. They also organize objects into hierarchies of classes and sub bases. However, children think in a logical, organized fashion only when dealing with concrete information they can perceive directly. The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is the formal operational stage, this stage applies to children 11 years to adulthood. In the formal operational stage the capacity for abstract, systematic thinking enables adolescents, when faced with a problem. Adolescents can also evaluate the logic verbal statements without referring to real ­world circumstances. Also they become concerned with the future and ideological problems. Piaget convinced the field that children are active listeners whose minds consist of rich structures of knowledge. Besides investigating children’s understanding of the physical world, Piaget explored their reasoning about the social world. His stages have

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sparked a wealth of research on children’s concept of themselves, other people, and human relationships.