Piaget s Theory Of Cognitive Development - 1111 Words

Discuss Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Piaget’s theory of cognitive development was based around his belief that children will develop their intelligence through a series of stages: Sensorimotor (birth – 2yrs), Preoperational (2-7yrs), Concrete Operational (7-11yrs) and Formal Operational (11+). He believed these stages to be invariant, the same stages taking place in a fixed order, and universal, the same for every child regardless of their background or culture. (McLeod, 2015) Piaget believed schemas are ‘the building blocks of life’, some, such as reflexes, we are born with and others we develop over time to explain what we see and experience. Through a process of assimilation, fitting existing information into an existing†¦show more content†¦Asked which of the two rows had more counters, children at the pre-operational stage generally said that the stretched row had more counters because it was longer whereas children in the concrete operational stage said that the lines were the same. Piaget concluded that it is only at the concrete operational stage that children can ‘conserve quality of substance’. In his initial studies Piaget frequently sampled his own three children. The fact that this was a small sample of Swiss children means the findings may not be representative of children from all cultures or backgrounds. The study was also limited by the fact that he did not take into account learning or physical disabilities, parental input, culture, gender or speed of personal development which may well have had an impact on the capabilities of a child. As Piaget carried out the studies himself there is also the risk of researcher bias. Criticism of the study included the means of of questioning the children. The children were asked the question twice and it was suggested that with younger children they are generally only asked the same question twice because they have given an incorrect answer the first time. The ecological validity of Piaget’s study has been questioned for a number of reasons. As the studies took place in laboratories it may be that the findings cannot be translated to other settings. It was also suggested that the nature of the test had little meaning to