LEARNING DEVELOPMENT

 

Hallo guys... How are you? Long time no see

Today I want to share with you about Piaget's Stages of Development. 

So, here we go ...

Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental psychologist who studied children in the early 20th century. His theory of intellectual or cognitive development, published in 1936, is still used today in some branches of education and psychology. It focuses on children, from birth through adolescence, and characterizes different stages of development, including:

·         language

·         morals

·         memory

·         reasoning

Piaget made several assumptions about children while developing his theory:

·   Children build their own knowledge based on their experiences.

· Children learn things on their own without influence from adults or older children.

· Children are motivated to learn by nature. They don’t need rewards as motivation.

Piaget’s four stages

Piaget’s stages are age-specific and marked by important characteristics of thought processes. They also include goals children should achieve as they move through a given stage.

1. Sensorimotor

The sensorimotor stage covers children ages birth to 18–24 months old. Characteristics include motor activity without use of symbols. All things learned are based on experiences, or trial and error.

The main goal at this stage is establishing an understanding of object permanence — in other words, knowing that an object still exists even if you can’t see it or it’s hidden.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

a. The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations

b. Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening

c. Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object permanence)

d. They are separate beings from the people and objects around them

e. They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them

2. Preoperational

The preoperational stage can be seen in children ages 2 through 7. Memory and imagination are developing. Children at this age are egocentric, which means they have difficulty thinking outside of their own viewpoints.

The main achievement of this stage is being able to attach meaning to objects with language. It’s thinking about things symbolically. Symbolic thought is a type of thinking where a word or object is used to represent something other than itself.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

a. Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.

b. Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.

c. While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in very concrete terms.

3. Concrete operational

Children are much less egocentric in the concrete operational stage. It falls between the ages of 7 to 11 years old and is marked by more logical and methodical manipulation of symbols.

The main goal at this stage is for a child to start working things out inside their head. This is called operational thought, and it allows kids to solve problems without physically encountering things in the real world.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

a. During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete event.

b. They begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example

c. Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.

d. Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle

4. Formal operational

Children 11 years old and older fall into Piaget’s formal operational stage. A milestone of this period is using symbols to understand abstract concepts. Not only that, but older kids and adults can also think about multiple variables and come up with hypotheses based on previous knowledge.

Piaget believed that people of all ages developed intellectually. But he also believed that once a person reaches the formal operational stage, it’s more about building upon knowledge, not changing how it’s acquired or understood.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

a. At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems

b. Abstract thought emerges

c. Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning

d. Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information

References

https://www.healthline.com/health/piaget-stages-of-development#other-terms

https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457