Piaget's Box Of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory is a standard theory in the field of psychology used to describe how people grow and change with regards to personal reasoning skills. According to the text, Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory is the “principle that from infancy to adolescence, children progress through four qualitatively different stages of intellectual growth.” CITE The four stages (occurring during childhood) developed by Piaget are: Sensorimotor, Preoperations, Concrete Operations, and Formal Operations. Each stage has subsequent stages, which further details Piaget’s beliefs around the development of a growing mind. Since its inception, Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory has been widely accepted in the field, and Piaget

It was a great benefit for those with special interests in cognition and development to have labels and guidelines to follow while observing developmental changes. However, Piaget’s stages were rigid, and somewhat unforgiving, a fact accepted by Piaget himself. The growth of human beings is not something that happens uniformly, every single person develops individually, at their own pace with a wide range of variables, ranging from heredity to socioeconomic status to trauma. Due to these facts, Piaget’s theory has become the subject of considerable scrutiny over the years. Developmental and social disorders do not fit so neatly into Piaget’s box of cognitive development, therefore, further assessment is warranted to get a clearer picture of how Piaget’s theory applies to today’s ever expanding field of psychology and its growing appreciation for non-normative psychological conditions. Through an examination of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development, opposing theories, and contemporary psychology, it will be determined whether or not Piaget’s theory remains valid in today’s

The text cites a study done by developmentalist Renée Baillargeon with a “physically impossible” scenario “showing a traveling rabbit that never appeared in a gap it had to pass through to reach its place on the other side. P102 The study with the rabbit alludes to the fact that children do indeed begin to understand the limitations of the physical world earlier than projected by Piaget’s theory. Due to Baillargeon’s findings, developmentalists feel less confined by Piaget’s theory and use a more broad methodology to development, a methodology that illustrates development occurring far more progressively than Piaget’s