Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development


Piaget’s theory of cognitive development basically focuses on how a child constructs a mental model of the world due to the fact that Piaget disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait. Therefore, according to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure which is genetically inherited and evolved where all subsequent learning and knowledge are based on. In other words, cognitive development happens because of biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Piaget’s cognitive development theory concerned with children instead of all learners and it mainly focuses on development rather than learning since it proposes discrete stages of development.
Regarding the cognitive development theory by Piaget, there are three basic components namely as schemas, assimilation and accommodation and lastly stages of cognitive development. As for the first component, schemas, they are basic building blocks of such cognitive models and also they enable people to form a mental representation of the world in a way of organizing knowledge. Piaget suggested that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas and they are cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. For instance, babies have a sucking reflex and it is triggered by something touching the baby’s lips so it can be said that babies have a sucking schema. As for the second component, assimilation and accommodation, the former stands for using and existing schema to deal with a new object whereas the latter occurs when existing schema does not work and needs to be changed with a new object. Moreover, equilibration happens when a child’s schemas can deal with new information through assimilation yet when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas disequilibration occurs. As for the last component which is stages of cognitive development, there are four basic stages namely as sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. Sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to 2 years old, and the main achievement of the stage is the object permanence which stands for knowing that an object still exists even if it is hidden and therefore, it requires the ability to form a mental representation of the object. Preoperational stage lasts from 2 to 7 years old and in this stage, egocentric thinking is observed which means that the infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others. Furthermore, concrete operational stage lasts from 7 to 11 years old and in this stage, there is a major turning point which is that the stage marks the beginning of logical or operational thought so the child can work things out in their head rather than physically trying. Also, children can converse number and weight in this stage. Finally, the last stage is the formal operational stage which occurs after the age of 12 and more. In this final stage, children are able to develop the ability to think about abstract concepts as well as logically test hypothesis.
However, there are also some criticisms about Piaget’s theory. Regarding the criticisms about Piaget’s cognitive development theory, stages go one stage to another, thus there is no regression. In addition, Piaget ignored cultural influences therefore, it leaves out the impact of culture or social setting. Moreover, Some people fail to develop formal reasoning skills and some adults fail to show formal operational thinking under all circumstances. Regarding language and social environment, Piaget disagrees with the idea that language plays an important part in the development of children’s thinking and understanding therefore, he does not give much of a role to adults regarding social relationships.



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