Piaget's Developmental Theory

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who studied the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.

His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. His research has spawned a great deal more, much of which has undermined the detail of his own, but like many other original investigators, his importance comes from his overall vision.

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. Whether or not should be the case is a different matter.

Stages of Cognitive Development

Birth - 2 years: Sensory-Motor
-Differentiates self from objects
-Recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise
-Achieves object permanence: realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense

2-7 years: Pre-Operational
-Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words
-Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others
-Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of color

7-10 years: Concrete Operational
-Can think logically about objects and events
-Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9)
-Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size

11+ years: Formal Operational
-Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically
-Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems

An article by Howard Gardner that critiques Piaget's theories is something I suggest reading. I found it rather thought-provoking, and I agreed with many of the points Mr. Gardner makes.

This information was taken from the following article:
ATHERTON J S (2010) Learning and Teaching; Piaget's developmental theory [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Accessed: 2 October 2010