This essay discusses the cognitive developmental theory by Piaget and its four stages of human development. It explains how children acquire knowledge and intelligence through different stages of growth.
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Running head: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN Human Development across the Lifespan Name of the Student Name of the University Author Note
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1HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN Introduction The purpose of the essay is to build an idea on the topic of the human development by drawing from several theories. The focus of this essay will be on the cognitive developmental theory. This theory is believed to be one of the most important theories for the development of the human children both from the physical and psychological aspects (Boyd, Bee & Johnson, 2014). The human development takes place through several steps and it takes many years. The growth stages and its attributes would be discussed in this essay. The different aspects of the human development are quite interesting and the psychological aspects of the growth takes place through many steps. Cognitive developmental theory The cognitive developmental theory is one of the most important theories that can be attributed to the human development (Boyd, Bee & Johnson, 2014). This theory was developed by the great Jean Piaget. He had suggested that the mental development of the children has to pass through four stages. He has concentrated his theory on two things mainly. One thing is the intelligence of the children and the other is the way of acquiring the knowledge for the children. The four stages that Piaget has discussed of are Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete Operational Stage and Formal Operational stage. The first stage involves the children between birth to 2 years of age, The second stage begins from 2 years of age and continues till 7. The duration of the third stage is between 7 and 11 years of age. The final stage is from 12 years and continues after that (Sigelman & Rider, 2014). The developer of the theory Jean Piaget always believed that the children always take a very active role in the entire learning process. They always like to make some experiments in
2HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN whatever they learn. The children always come in touch with many new aspects of knowledge and they grasp it with both hands (Sigelman & Rider, 2014). They always adapt with the newly gathered information and think upon that for the betterment. It is said that the interest of the Piaget in the cognitive development of the children began through his own daughter and nephew (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). Earlier it was assumed that the minds of the children were just the smaller versions of the adult, grown up people (Baltes, Featherman & Lerner, 2014). However, the theory he came up with completely disagreed with that notion and it concluded that the minds of the children were the reservoirs for their future endeavors. Piaget had widely discovered the fact that the children always used to think in a different manner than the adults and they have a huge potential within them to contribute to the society. He had come up with the conclusion that children did not lag behind the adults in the brain development. The children just think differently than the adults (Baltes, Featherman & Lerner, 2014). Even the great scientist Albert Einstein had praised this discovery of the theory by Piaget. This process or theory tells that the development of the minds of the children depends on the cognitive abilities of the brain. According to Piaget, the early developments always involves that are mainly based on several actions (Bjorklund, 2013). Then these developments used to change in the mental operations. The development of the children through the four stages would be discussed in the following section (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). The first stage In this stage, the children only know about this world by their sensations and movement of the small limbs. The small infants at this stage only know about the world through some actions like listening and looking. They seem to be different things from the different people who surround them. Piaget has expressed his views that in this first stage of cognitive development,
3HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN known as sensorimotor stage, the children have to surpass a massive growth and learning period. A massive growth takes place in rather a short time indeed (Bjorklund & Causey, 2017). The second stage The name of the second stage is Preoperational stage. The stage falls between 2 and 7 years of age. The features of this stage are the facts that the children begin to think and act using various symbols (Mischel, 2013). The children are much centered about their ego and they try to see the different things of the world from the perspective of others. One of the most important things in this in this stage is the use of the language by the children. The children at this stage tend to learn through the pretend play but they go through much struggle when arranging the things through logical development. The third stage The name of the third stage is concrete operational stage and the age limit of this stage is between 7 and 12 years, In this stage, the children tend to think about the different things with much logic (Mischel, 2013). The thinking power of the children use to become much logical but it is very much concrete as well. The conception of the conservation enters the minds of the children in this stage indeed. The use of the inductive logic process is learned by the children properly. It is apprehended that the thinking process for the children in this stage can become rigid as well (Ormrod, 2013). The fourth stage The name of the fourth stage is the formal operational stage and it continues from age of 12 (Demetriou, Shayer & Efklides, 2016).The emergence of various abstract thoughts comes into the minds of children at this stage. The kinds of thoughts that the children think about are
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4HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN generally ethical, political, philosophical, social and others (Ormrod, 2013).As opposed to the use of the inductive logic, the children begin to use of the deductive logic indeed. They begin to think about the abstract situations and ideas and this is one of the most important things for the development of this stage. Conclusion This essay can be concluded by saying that the cognitive development theory by Piaget is one of the most important development theories for the children. The four stages of development have been discussed in this section. The different features of this development theory have been highlighted as well. The development of the brains of the children grows properly through this theory.
5HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFESPAN References Baltes, P. B., Featherman, D. L., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.). (2014).Life-span development and behavior(Vol. 10). Psychology Press. Bjorklund,D.F.(Ed.).(2013).Children'sstrategies:Contemporaryviewsofcognitive development. Psychology Press. Bjorklund, D. F., & Causey, K. B. (2017).Children's thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences. SAGE Publications. Boyd, D. R., Bee, H. L., & Johnson, P. A. (2014).Lifespan development. Pearson. Demetriou, A., Shayer, M., & Efklides, A. (Eds.). (2016).Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development: Implications and applications for education. Routledge. Mischel, T. (Ed.). (2013).Cognitive development and epistemology. Academic Press. Ormrod, J. E. (2013).Educational psychology: Pearson new international edition: Developing learners. Pearson Higher Ed. Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2014).Life-span human development. Cengage Learning.