Cognitive Developmental Theory: Piaget's Theory and Recent Research

Running head: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
Introduction
Development in humans across their life span takes place in all stages of life starting
from birth until death and the types of development vary. Human beings develop biologically,
physically, emotionally and psychologically (Dacey, Travers & Flore, 2009). The present paper
will focus on the cognitive development in humans. This will be done by drawing upon the
theory of Cognitive development. Jean Piaget was the first theorist who had developed the
Cognitive development theory focusing especially on children.
The essay will provide a thorough explanation of the theory followed by a review of
literature including recent researches on the topic. Further, the essay will analyze the findings
from the literature review and provide a better understanding of human development across the
lifespan.
Discussion
The Cognitive Developmental Theory states that individuals, especially children, pass
through certain stages of cognitive development at different age (Archer and McCarthy, 2007).
As they grow up, their cognitive ability also grows from the influence of several factors. Piaget
was of the view that cognition has a profound effect on behavior. According to his theory,
children begin to develop their cognitive ability from a very small age however; their level of
growth differs.
Piaget’s interest in children’s cognitive development grew while he worked in Paris at the
Alfred Binet Laboratories to conduct IQ test for children. While conducting the tests, Piaget
discovered that children belonging to similar age groups gave same kind of wrong answers. After
questioning the children about their way of thinking about problems, he was able to find out that

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
young children know as much as the older children but the difference is in their way of thinking.
With time, he unearthed several other factors that cause children of same ages to think similar.
He held that children do have innate ideas from birth ideas nor learn from adults but “construct
their own understandings of the world based on their experiences” (Sigelman & Rider, 2014).
This process of constructing the understandings and learning from own experience is termed as
constructivism, as proposed by Piaget (Karmiloff-Smith, 2018). To give an instance, children in
the preschool stage might invent ideas that the adults did not teach them such as children fall ill
if they lie or sun is alive because it moves across the sky and so on.
Gradually, the theory of Cognitive development took concrete shape and encompassed
several behaviors of children that demonstrated their cognitive capability at different ages
(Corey, 2009). At the core of the Cognitive theory of development are the three concepts –
schemas, adaptation process including equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation, and
the four stages of development (Berk, 2008). Schemas are, according to Piaget, the fundamental
factors of cognitive models that enable individuals to form an intellectual depiction of the world.
He opined that intellectual growth is a process of adjusting or adapting to the world. The
adaptation happens during assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation means dealing with a
new situation or an object using an already existing schema. Accommodation on the other hand,
occurs when the already existing schema fails to work and must be changed to cope with new
situation or object (Zhiqing, 2015). Equilibration is the force that pushes development along the
life course. In Piaget’s views, cognitive development progresses in leaps and bounds as opposed
to the common belief that it progresses steadily.
The assimilation, accommodation and equilibration result in the four stages of cognitive
development that include the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, the concrete