Piaget's Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and biologist who is well known in the psychology field, developed a theory through observations involving children and their intellectual development. Through his observations on children, Piaget concluded that children view the world in a unique way, in which different from adults. In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, he came up with four stages: sensorimotor (from birth to age two), preoperational (ages two to four), concrete operational (ages seven to eleven) and formal operational (ages eleven to fifteen). Each stage shows how children process information from the environment around them.

When I think of Piaget’s theory, my two nephews come to mind. From since they were born, I’ve been able to

My oldest nephew, Sawyer, is seven years old. When he was a newborn, I would always stroke his soft cheeks with my fingers. With each side I stroked, Sawyer would perform the rooting reflex and turn his head towards the cheek I touched. After studying Piaget’s cognitive development theory, I learned that Sawyer turned his head because he was looking to feed. While still in the sensorimotor period of development, I also noticed that Sawyer lacked object permanence. When my brother and sister-in-law would bring him over to our house, they would play peek-a-boo with him. When my brother would hide his face, Sawyer would lack joyful expression, but when he would make his face reappear, Sawyer would show excitement through his facial expressions and the way he would kick his legs and flail his arms. One of Sawyer’s favorite toys that he played with all the time was a stuffed giraffe. When I would babysit him, I would hide his giraffe under a pillow in hopes that he would quickly find it right after. However, even when I hid it in front of him, he had a hard time understanding that it was under

Similar situations that happened with Sawyer happened to Bowen as well. Bowen’s first few months of life, I would always play with his tiny fingers because I always thought they were adorable. When doing so, Bowen would grip my finger tightly. That was always one of my favorite feelings, especially because I was surprised how tight he could grip even at such a young age. In the sensorimotor stage, he of course also lacked object permanence. My family liked to hide toys from him, but we would do it right in front of him so he would see us. However, when Bowen struggled to find the toys, he easily gave up and focused on something else. About a year ago, my family and I flew up to Washington state to visit family. We went to a drive-through zoo in Sequim, where we were able to tour in the park. Animals such as yaks, buffalo, donkeys and llamas would stick their heads in the vehicle and we had the opportunity to pet them. Bowen saw the donkeys at the beginning of the drive and noticed how they had tall ears, four legs, long faces and necks. Near the end of the drive, Bowen began to believe that the llamas were donkeys as well. With every llama we passed, Bowen would point to them and say “Llamas!” In this moment, Bowen showed the process of assimilation, because he took this new information and included it into his already existing information. With Bowen now being almost five years old, he has grown out of assimilation and