Piaget's theory of cognitive development holds that children progress through four developmental stages, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational, as a progressive reorganization of mental processes from biological maturation and environmental experience. He first became intrigued by children's characteristic mistakes while working at the Alfred Binet Laboratory School in Paris in 1919, and elaborated the full stage theory over subsequent decades.
Facts
Core ClaimChildren progress through four qualitatively distinct developmental stages of cognitive reorganization, moving from sensorimotor coordination in infancy to abstract reasoning in adolescence. 1 FAQs
How have later developmental theorists responded to Piaget's account?
According to Rochat, in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science: "Nine theoretical views and intuitions are identified, all in strong reaction to some or all of the four cornerstone assumptions of Piaget's developmental account (i.e., action realism, domain generality, stages, and late representation)."
Connections
Associated With
The conservation tasks are the empirical evidence Piaget used to mark the transition from the preoperational to the concrete operational stage of his theory of cognitive development.
Source Wikipedia: Conservation (Psychology)
Developed By
Source Wikipedia: Jean Piaget
In Branch
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Piaget's theory of cognitive development
Wikimedia Foundationlead
humans progress through four developmental stages: the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage
body text
cognitive development was a progressive reorganisation of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience
Lead section
In 1919, while working at the Alfred Binet Laboratory School in Paris, Piaget "was intrigued by the fact that children of different ages made different kinds of mistakes while solving problems".
Wikipedia: Jean Piaget
Wikimedia FoundationDeveloped By: Jean Piaget, Lead sectionQuote, Developed By: Jean Piaget, Lead section
Jean William Fritz Piaget (9 August 1896 - 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development.
Wikipedia: Conservation (Psychology)
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Piaget's Conservation ExperimentsView the Source Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Core Claim
Vygotsky (and later Jerome Bruner) argued Piaget undervalued the role of language and social/cultural interaction in cognitive development, holding that language is more important to cognitive development than Piaget's stage model implies, and that Piaget's theory undervalues the influence culture has on cognitive development.
A dissenting reading, from Lev VygotskyWikipedia: Piaget's theory of cognitive development, Wikimedia Foundation
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