Cognitive Development

1. Cognitive Development
Cognitive Development According to Piaget
Cognitive development is defined as gradual orderly changes by which mental processes become
more complex and sophisticated, or the scientific study of how human beings develop in certain
orderly stages as they get older. The actual study of cognition refers to the process of knowing; it is
the study of all mental activities related to acquiring, storing, and using knowledge (Microsoft,
2001, p.3). How we as humans develop cognitively has been thoroughly observed and researched by
Jean Piaget. He was a cognitivist: he believed that our environment stimulates us to learn on our own
(make our own intelligence).
Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who had a major impact on educational theory in the...show more
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The final sub–stage is from eighteen to twenty–four months and is called mental combinations. This
is when they start to pretend. They now have symbolic play where they imitate mom, dad, brother or
sister, babysitter, etc. They can now remember the past and certain isolated events.
Piaget 's second stage of cognitive development is the Preoperational Stage and is from age two to
six or seven years (Woolfolk, 2001). This is the stage where children really start to use symbolic
representation. There are only two sub–stages here, but they last for longer amounts of times with
more learning occurring in each. The first sub–stage is from two to three or four years and is called
the preconceptual phase. At this stage children start to judge from their own experiences. However,
the world still revolves around them; if they want it, it will happen (or so they think). They also
think that others have access to their thoughts. Therefore, when children of this age start to talk
about random ideas or people they know, they don 't give specifics because they think others know
exactly what or who they are talking about. In this stage, children are very egocentric. More than
forty percent of the time, they talk about themselves. Their
imagination in this stage is very active. They talk to inanimate objects (their toys, a rock, a stick,
etc.). This is when they start to mix play with reality. They are afraid of monsters and fictional bad
guys from their favorite cartoon
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