Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget)

• Jean Piaget was a Swiss scholar who began to study intellectual development during the 1920s.
• Jean Piaget focused on the growth of children’s knowledge and reasoning skills.
• Jean Piaget had three children, whom Piaget studied infancy.
• Cognitive Development refers to the manner in which people learn to think, and use language.
• Cognitive Development involves a person's intelligence, perceptual ability, and ability to process information.
• According to Jean Piaget, children are naturally curious explorers who are constantly trying to make sense of their surroundings.
• The sensorimotor stage of development is from birth to age 2, where infants use sensory and motor capabilities to explore and gain a basic understanding of the environment.
• In the preoperational stage of development, which lasts from 2 to 7 years, children use symbolism (images and language) to represent and understand various aspects of the environment.
• The concrete-operational stage of development lasts from 7 to 11 - 12 years, where children are no longer fooled by appearances and are becoming much more proficient at inferring motives by observing others’ behavior and the circumstances in which it occurs.
• The formal-operational stage of development begins at around 11 - 12 years and beyond, where adolescents’ cognitive operations are reorganized in a way that permits them to operate on operations (think about thinking).