Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages of Development-This learner has gained a better appreciation for Piaget’s contribution. The ability to comprehend how one’s mental capacity develops is very important. This new understanding will aid in the ability to communicate in a manner that is age appropriate.
Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory outlines the manifestation of cognitive development and intelligence. According to Piaget’s theory, there are four components that are directly responsible for the developmental sequence: The sensorimotor – birth to 2 yrs., preoperational – 2 to 7 yrs., concrete operational -7 to 11 yrs. and formal operational period 11yrs to adulthood and these are stages which cannot be it skipped. In order to progress from one stage to the next, the infant must first move for example, from sensorimotor to preoperational; therefore, the sequence of stages is constant and predictable (Broderick & Blewitt, 2006).
The sensorimotor period is the stage at which the new born infant is rather helpless and relies on the caregiver for its survival. However, the infant has some control over reflexes and often the ability to grasp objects such as someone’s finger and illustrates control over sucking milk from the bottle or the mother’s nipple. These types of physical motor actions are then transferred to other objects such as such sucking on toys and other items within their reach. This practice and behavior is the first evidence of assimilation, “by sucking a range of objects, infants begin their initial assimilations with the environments. They learn that some objects yield nourishment but others do not” (Kail & Wicks-Nelson, 1993, p. 183).
The next stage is what Piaget has termed the preoperational period. During this stage the infant becomes more aware of his or her environment and surroundings. They are able to use symbols. However, their thinking is marked in terms of egocentrism and they have difficulty discerning reality from fantasy. The concrete operational stage is evidenced by the child’s ability to demonstrate logical reasoning based upon actual experiences and have a basic understanding of the conservation principle. Children who have arrived at this stage of Piaget’s theory are also capable of forming a number of mental operations (Broderick & Blewitt, 2006).
The fourth and final stage of Piaget’s theory is the formal operational period. During this phase, the individual acquires the ability to think logically and abstractly by demonstrating the skills to problem solve and draw conclusions based upon deductive reasoning and make valid generalizations from experience using inductive reasoning. Furthermore, according to Piaget, one is also capable of performing complex mathematical equations as well (Broderick & Blewitt, 2006).
Many American psychologists hold Piaget’s work in great regard; however, some have become disenchanted with several elements concerning cognitive development. Take for example Professor John Flavell of the Stanford University Department of Psychology; he suggests that the Piagetain model which consists of long periods of stability followed by abrupt change seems unlikely. Flavell posits that change is gradual, especially great change “human cognitive development is too varied in its mechanism, routes, and rates to be accurately portrayed by an inflexible stage theory” (Vander Zanden, 2003 p. 48). Furthermore, many practitioners and theorists have asked, how does Piaget’s stage theory relate to those with learning disabilities? Do they remain stuck forever at lets say, the preoperational stage since they have not yet mastered the concept of the conservation principle?
Although, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory somewhat mirrors Piaget’s cognitive development theory, Vygotsky argued that cognitive development is enhanced by incorporating aspects of one’s culture, environment and social interactions with others. Vygotsky summarized that through social activities children learn cultural tools such as language, rules, counting systems, writing, art, and social inventions (Broderick & Blewitt, 2006).
Infants at the sensorimotor stage are functioning at a largely internal level. They have not as yet, according to Piaget and others, learned the difference between outside and inside. Freud also termed this the oceanic feeling that an infant s experiencing. In this state, memories are specious at best since there is no point of reference that has yet been established. When dealing with clients concerned with recovered memories, this learner would try to make them understand that an infant has no capacity for self reflection and that anything recalled would only be feelings, colors, and other sensory input but no real sequential memories as we know them. The likelihood of misremembered events is extremely high and certainly charged with emotional content rather than factual. This learner recalls a period in the history of psychoanalysis (1980-1990), of a movement known as The Recovered Memory Therapy industry which involved thousands of psychotherapists using hypnosis, group therapy and other means to help patients recover alleged repressed memories of child abuse and other horrific crimes that had been inflicted during the stage of infancy. This industry was dismantled over a five year period by hundreds of malpractice lawsuits (Loftus, 1993).
Reference:
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2006). The life span: Human development for helping professionals (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Kail, RV, & Wicks-Nelson, R. (1993). Developmental psychology. (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. University of Washington. Retrived on October 18, 2006 from http://faculty.washington.edu.
Vander Zander, J. W. (2003). Human development. (Crandell, L. T. & C.H. Crandell
& Thomas L., Eds.). New York: McGraw Hill.
