1. Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory
Ella Newkirk

2. Who was Piaget?
Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and died in 1980 in Geneva, Switzerland.
At age 11, he wrote a paper on an albino sparrow, which was published and was the start of his famous career.

3. Who was Piaget? (cont.)
After graduating high school, he attended the University of Zurich, where he became interested in psychoanalysis.
He married in 1923 and had three children, Jacqueline, Lucienne and Laurent.
Piaget studied his children’s intellectual development from infancy.

4. Theory of Cognitive Development
While studying his children, Piaget developed theories concerning how children learn.
His theory of Cognitive Development consists of four stages of intellectual development.

5. Theory of Cognitive Development

6. Stage 1—Cognitive Development Theory
Sensorimotor Stage
Birth to age 2
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
Reflexes
Habits
Hand-eye coordination
Object Permanence (knowing something exists, even though it can’t be seen)
Experimentation and creativity. Piaget referred to the children in this stage as “little scientists.”
Trial and error experiments

7. Sensorimotor Stage

8. Stage 2—Cognitive Development Theory
Preoperational Stage
Age 2-7
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
Ability to represent objects with images and words
Language skills
Imagination
Children learn through imitation and play during this stage. They begin to use reasoning, however it is mainly intuitive, instead of logical.

9. Preoperational Stage

10. Stage 3—Cognitive Development Theory
Concrete Operational Stage
Age 7-12
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
The fundamentals of logic
Ability to sort objects
Ability to classify objects
Understanding of conservation (physical quantities do not change based on the arrangement and/or appearance of the object)

11. Stage 4—Cognitive Development Theory
Formal Operational Stage
Age 11-15
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
Ability to hypothesize, test and re-evaluate hypotheses
Children begin thinking in a formal systematic way