1. PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

2. Jean Paiget
Swiss psychologist, Jean Paiget was one of the most influential theorist in the area of cognitive learning.
Paiget believed cognitive development was a way of adapting to the environment.
Children are motivated to explore & understand things around them.
Progress is shown through four stages:
sensory-motor stage
preoperational stage
concrete operational stage
formal operational stage

3. Piaget had several themes that we will see throughout the stages he established. Piaget argued that children ‘actively construct’ their cognitive world. There are several techniques that they use to do this.
The first is that of a schema – these are cognitive networks that contain our associations with certain places, people, events, or things. Thus, we may have a schema of what to do when eating at a restaurant or what a mom should be like or what a plane should look like. As we gain experience with things, we develop these schemas so that we have familiarity with them and don’t have to encode this information EVERY time we come into contact with them. It also helps us to identify abnormalities – when someone does something unexpected at a restaurant or when something doesn’t resemble what you expect (Lisa Kudrow’s cross-over role as Ursula, the waitress).

4. We can also engage in assimilation, which is how we use and adjust our schemas. Assimilation is when individuals incorporate new information into their existing knowledge structure. Infants trying to grab a book flatway will fail, and thus, will enter new information with respect to grasping into its grasping knowledge database. You will now assimilate this information into your existing information about child development.
We can also engage in accommodation, where individuals adjust to new information. People accommodate their behavior to their understanding of the environment (the best example is travelling – if you have ever been to a new culture or country, you accommodate by taking in how the locals do something). People will change behavior (I.e., accommodate) as a function of information assimilation (we adapt to new experiences). So the child will learn that they can’t pick up the book flatways (assimilation), but will accommodate by using a new way to pick up the book.

5. PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

6. Sensory-Motor Stage (Birth to 2 years old)
the first two years of life are in the Sensory-Motor Stage
Presents with reflexes
Development of imitative behaviors
Development of object permanence
Development of symbolic knowledge
*Object permanence is the term used to describe the awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible

8. Common Infant Motor Reflexes
Blinking Reflex
Response to stroking the side of
their foot
Grasping
Motor Reflex
Rooting Reflex

9. The Preoperational Stage
The Preoperational Stage follows the sensory-motor stage. It is the second of four stages.
By observing the sequences of play, Paiget was able to show that towards the end of the second year a qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs in the child.
Preoperational Stage Cognitive Developments:
Representational Thought
Fantasy Play
Symbolic Gestures
Egocentrism

10. During the preoperational stage the child will learn to use symbolic thinking. They will use and represent objects with images and words. Representational thought is the building block for two hallmarks of the preoperational stage: Fantasy Play Symbolic Gestures Thinking is still egocentric in this stage making it difficult for the child to take on the viewpoints of others. Along with their highly imaginative minds the child will assign emotions to inanimate objects. The theory of mind is critical in this stage. Their increasing ability to utilize mental representations is the foundation for their language development.

11. CONCRETE-OPERATIONAL STAGE (7-11 years of age).
Children become more flexible in their thinking
Learn to consider more than one problem at time
Demonstrate the ability to grasp principles of conservation
Cause-effect relationships with concrete objects
Decrease in egocentrism
Understand reversibility
Failure to understand abstractions
*Egocentrism: the incomplete differentiation of the self and the world, including other people and the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the self. The term derives from the Greek egô, meaning "I." An egocentric person has no theory of mind, cannot "put himself in other people's shoes," and believes everyone sees what he sees (or that what he sees in some way exceeds what others see.)
*Principles of Conservation: The concept that the quantity of substance is not changed by reversible changes in its appearance.

12. Formal-Operational Stage (Adolescence To Adulthood)
The Formal-Operational Stage is the last stage of development. It presents with:
Thinking becomes systematic and logical even about abstractions
Gain greater knowledge and experience
Are capable to understand cause and effect
Consider possibilities as well as realities
Develop and use general rules, principles, and theories

13. A different point of view…..
Piaget's theory differed from empiricist theories of development, which suggest that children learn through experience, and nativist theories that maintain we are born with innate knowledge that gradually comes to maturation.
Modern developmentalists have frequently referred to experimental research that contradicts certain aspects of Piaget's theories. For example, cognitive theorists like Robert Siegler have explained the phenomenon of conservation as a slow, progressive change in the rules that children use to solve problems, rather than a sudden change in cognitive capacities and schemas.
Other researchers have shown that younger and older children develop by progressing through a continuum of capacities rather than a series of discrete stages. In addition, these researchers believe that children understand far more than Piaget theorized. With training, for instance, younger children may perform many of the same tasks as older children.
Researchers have also found that children are not as egocentric, suggestible, magical, or concrete as Piaget held, and that their cognitive development is largely determined by biological and cultural influences
To view more oppositions take a look at the following link:

14. Online Resources:

15. Book Resources:
Morris, Charles & Maisto, Albert Understanding Psychology Eighth Edition: Prentice Hall
Piaget, J The Essential Piaget. Ed by Howard Gruber, New York: Basic Books