Piaget Review

Jean Piaget formed his cognitive developmental theory in 1954. Piaget’s (1954) theory claimed that children actively construct their understanding of the world and experience four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and a formal operational stage (as cited in Santrock, 2006, p. 46). Each stage of his theory pertains to a particular life stage of development (infancy, early childhood, late childhood, and adolescence and beyond) and the behavior in each stage is distinct. In the nature versus nurture debate, Piaget focused on interaction and adaptation. He believed that the environment supplied the atmosphere for cognitive structures to develop.  
	Piaget was born in Switzerland and was married with three children, all of whom he meticulously observed.  As a child, Piaget (1954) had an intellectual father and mother who taught him to think systematically (as cited in Santrock, 2006, p. 40). Piaget’s early experiences with his parents might have influenced his enthusiasm on cognitive development. 
	Piaget’s (1954) first stage of his theory of cognitive development, the sensorimotor stage, occurs from birth to 2 years of age and revolves around how infants coordinate sensory experiences with physical actions (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 46). By coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions, the infant actively constructs an understanding of the world.  Piaget (1954) believed that children use schemes, assimilation, accommodation, organization, equilibrium, and equilibration in the sensorimotor stage to construct their knowledge of the world (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 173). 
	Piaget (1954) defined schemes as actions or mental representations that organize knowledge (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 173). Thus, children create various schemes in their minds to organize all the information around them. For example, a child could have a scheme on how to ride a bike or how to remember their address and phone number. Accordingly, Piaget’s principles of assimilation and accommodation relate to schemes because they explain how children utilize and adjust their schemes. Piaget (1954) described assimilation as when individuals incorporate new information into their existing knowledge and accommodation as when individuals adjust to new information (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 46). 
An example of assimilation and accommodation could include a young boy interested in baseball that receives a softball for a gift. As he plays with the ball, he incorporates and assimilates the new shape and size with his existing knowledge of a baseball. The, as he adjusts his throw and form to pitch the softball, he accommodates his scheme of the ball. 
	Another principle of Piaget’s cognitive development theory includes organization. Piaget (1954) described organization as the concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order system (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 174). Children organize items by putting them in categories. For example, a girl who has a vague idea how to play a game of Monopoly might also have a vague idea on how to play the game Clue. Each game is similar because there are game pieces to move, dice to throw, cards to read, and spaces to move on the board. Piaget’s other two principles include equilibration and equilibrium. Piaget (1954) defined equilibration as when children shift from one stage of thought to the next and described equilibrium as a balance of thought where children resolve a cognitive conflict (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 174). Basically these two principles occur when a child faces an inconsistency and resolves the conflict by figuring out the solution to the problem, and reaching a balance of thought. 
	Piaget’s (1954) sensorimotor stage has 6 substages: simple reflexes, first habits and primary circular reactions, secondary circular reactions, coordination of secondary circular reactions, tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity, and internalization of schemes (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 175). Basically, at the beginning of this stage, newborns only have reflexive actions to work with, such as sucking, grasping, and rooting. At the end of this stage, infants have complex sensorimotor skills and work basic symbols. Thus, this stage shows the progressing of coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions, forming the name “sensorimotor” stage. 
	The next stage in Piaget’s cognitive development theory includes the preoperational stage, which spans from two to seven years of age. Piaget (1954) described this stage as a time when stable concepts form, mental reasoning emerges, egocentrism begins strongly and then weakens, and magical beliefs are constructed (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 234). Piaget (1954) also defined this stage as one where the child begins to represent the world with words and images that reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 46). The preoperational stage has two substages: symbolic function and intuitive thought. 
	Piaget’s (1954) symbolic function substage occurs around age two to four years of age and deals with symbolic thinking and mentally representing the world (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 235). Two limitations to this stage include egocentrism and animism. Santrock (2006) defined egocentrism as “the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s” (p. 235). Thus, a child in the symbolic function substage portrays egocentrism because they cannot understand someone else’s perspective and thinks that the world revolves around them. Another limitation to the symbolic function substage includes animism. Santrock (2006) defined animism as “the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action” (p. 235). An example of animism would be if a girl blamed a rock for making her fall and ruin her new dress. 
	The next substage of preoperational thought includes the intuitive thought substage, which spans from four to seven years of age. Piaget’s (1954) intuitive thought substage involves children that begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 236). Two important characteristics of the intuitive thought substage include centration and conservation. Santrock (2006) defined centration as “the focusing, or centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others” (p. 236). Centration is clearly pronounced in a young child’s lack of conservation. Santrock (2006) defined conservation as “awareness that altering an object’s or substance’s appearance does not change its quantitative properties” (p. 236).  An example of conservation includes two identical sticks presented to a child. The sticks initially lay parallel to each other and then one is slightly moved forward. A child in the preoperational stage would say that the stick that moved forward is longer than the other. A child in the concrete operational stage would realize that the sticks remained the same length.
	Piaget’s third stage includes the concrete operational stage, which occurs from about 7 to 11 years of age. Piaget (1954) described this stage as a time when the child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 46). In this stage, the thought is comprised of operations. Piaget (1954) defined operations as “mental actions that allow children to do mentally what they had done physically before” (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 301). The operations in this stage are reversible. Two important concepts to this stage include seriation and transitivity. Santrock (2006) defined seriation as “the concrete operation that involves ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (such as length)” (p. 302). An example of seriation includes giving children a bag of different length tubes and asking the children to order the tubes by length. Children who can serialize can properly determine the order of size for tubes and do not sort the tubes into two general piles. Santrock (2006) defined transitivity as “the ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions” (p. 302). Concrete operational thinkers understand this concept, while preoperational thinkers do not. 
	Piaget’s last stage of his cognitive developmental theory includes the formal operational stage. This stage spans from 11 years of age to adulthood. Piaget (1954) described this stage as when the adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 46). Piaget (1954) also described this stage as where individuals are more systematic towards problem solving and develop a hypothesis about why something is happening and then test the hypothesis in a deductive manner (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 47). This is the longest and final stage of Piaget’s theory. While most people do master all of the stages of Piaget’s theory, some do not and live in a fantasy world full of illogical, unrealistic, and irresponsible thinking. A healthy individual masters all four stages by early adulthood. 
	As with most theorists, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development did not go unchallenged. Santrock (2006) described a major criticism of Piaget’s theory that involved children’s competence and how some abilities may have emerged earlier than he stated (p.304). Also, some abilities may have emerged later than he stated, especially concerning the formal operational thinkers. Another criticism includes how his theory may not be as stage like as he thought and that his stages were not unitary structures of thought. Other critics argue that children can be trained to reason at higher levels than their current stage. Lastly, critics argue that culture and education play a great role in development than Piaget proposed. 
	Along with his theory of cognitive development, Piaget also greatly influenced the classroom with his principles. Piaget’s (1954) general principles included to take a constructivist approach to teaching, facilitate rather than direct learning, consider the child’s knowledge and level of thinking, promote the student’s intellectual health, and turn the classroom into a setting of exploration and discovery (as cited by Santrock, 2006, p. 303). Thus, not only did he promote his theory of development, but also applied his knowledge to aid teachers in creating the most efficient and positive learning atmosphere possible. 
	Overall, Piaget remains very famous in the field of developmental psychology with his cognitive developmental theory. His theory covered four stages that children go through and proposed that children actively construct their understanding of the world. He emphasized conscious thought in his developmental theory and concentrated on interaction and adaptation. Santrock (2006) relayed how Piaget is considered “the founder of the present field of children’s cognitive development” (p. 303). 
References
Santrock, J. W. (2006). Life-span development (10th ed). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.