Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

Since its development in the 20th century, the Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has been applied in the field of psychology and education to understand how children develop their cognition. Piaget developed this theory in an attempt to understand the root of intelligence in infancy and how children’s knowledge changes progressively over a period of time. He believed that children undertake specific tasks when they are mature enough to do so. According to him, children go through a series of cognitive stages in a similar order. In each stage, the child acquires new capabilities that allow them to do the more complex task. Piaget, however, believed that the path that cognitive development phases take is not always smooth and predictable.
Cognitive development refers to the development of conscious thought, intelligence and problem-solving ability (Crone & Ridderinkhof, 2011). Piaget was interested in understanding how individuals develop thinking capacity. His theory was motivated by his dissatisfaction with the assumption that intelligence was a fixed trait. Instead, he developed a theory that explains cognitive development as a process that is influenced by interaction with the environment and biological maturation. He wanted to measure or understand how children’s I.Q. can be determined from their abilities to spell, count or solve problems (Marchand, 2012). His primary interest was on how children develop concepts like time, number, causality, quantity, and justice, just to mention a few (Westman & Costello, 2011). He observed that a child’s brain develops and becomes more intricate, the child develops more complex thinking and ways of solving problems. From a biological perceptive, children’s ability to benefit from experience is limited since their brains are not developed enough (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2013). The environmental aspect is used to explain how children’s cognitive development is influenced by their exploration of the world around them (Marchand,