Cognitive Development Theories, Essay Example

The cognitive development theory is concerned with the nature and development of a person’s intelligence. How a person’s intelligence influence how human beings understand and interact with the environment in which he lives in. The theory was developed by the works of a biologist known as Jean Piaget and psychologist Lev Vygotsky (Miller, 2002). The theory was initially known as development stage theory where it was dealing with the nature of knowledge alone and how the human beings gradually acquire it, develop and use it in their daily life experiences. At the beginning Piaget’s proposals seemed obvious but now have become the basis in children development. He claims that the idea of cognitive development is the core of human being and language is more depended on cognitive development. The study focused on a child’s development taking into account information processing, language development, concept understanding, skills and brain development.

Psychologist Lev Vygotsky emphasizes that children gain their knowledge from the interactions and experiences from their social surroundings. The cultural influence for child development was something that was not seen by Piaget. They proposed that reality is a dynamic system of continuous process of change which involves transformation and states through environment interaction. Transformation involves to all kinds of changes a person can go through and states refers to the conditions or the appearances upon which a person can be found when goes through the transformations (Miller, 2002).

They both accept that human intelligence to be adaptive; it must have some functions which include both transformational and static processes of reality. Piaget suggested that operative intelligence which the active aspect of intelligence is responsible for the representation and manipulation of transformational aspects in real life while figurative intelligence is responsible for the representation of the static aspects of reality (Piaget, 2007). Operative intelligence involves at action, covert or overt, how humans follow, recover or anticipate the transformations of things. Figurative intelligence involves all ways of representation used to retain information in mind the states that they interact with. It includes perception, imitation, drawing, mental imagery and language development.

Piaget and Vygotsky concur that children are capable of learning with and without the help from others. They agree that intelligence is active and constructive. It is active in that it depends on individual actions that help him to build and rebuild his own images about the world. It is constructive in the sense that mental actions are well coordinated into more cohesive and inclusive systems for stability and effectiveness in actions from the surrounding people (Piaget, 2007).

On the other hand they differed in their opinions to their form of child development. While Piaget concentrated on both innate and physical knowledge, Vygotsky only looked at the social and cultural environment. Vygotsky did not take into the consideration of the biological development in the child. Paiget took more time to study the biological development in relation to intelligence and divided the child development into four stages and how the child is able to conceive from the environment as he grows. This was not divided so by Vygotsky only he focused of the people who are able to train the child (Piaget, 2007).

From birth through adolescence they both agreed that the child develops progressively and with support of the environment. They both accepted that cognitive begins from birth to the child acquits with the language which is the most important tool in development. This is the time the infants begin to understand the new world through coordinating experiences like seeing, feeling and hearing. The infants acquire knowledge of the environment through the physical action they undertake and what they see the people around them do. During this period the child develops to symbolic thought from reflexive, instinctual senses that occur at birth. The infant develop sense of hearing, vision, and motor skills for instance sucking, grasping and even stepping (Bernstein et al, 2001). At this stage the child begins to understand the world through interactions and experiences and know that he is independent from his environment.

Even though Vygotsky did not study the child in stages but most of his concepts were similar with that of Piaget as the child develops gradually. Between birth and two years the child begins to develop mental processes through drawing, words and images. Between the age of 2 and 7 years intelligence is shown by language maturity, use of symbols, memory and imaginations. Thinking at this stage is egocentric. From the age of 2 -4 years the child is not able to manipulate and transform information logically, instead can think using symbols and images familiar to him. Between the ages of 4 and 7 years the child begins to have primitive reasoning whereby he becomes too curious and inquisitive about his in6teractions and experiences in the environment(Piaget, 2007). This was called intuitive sub-stage by Jean Piaget in which the child is aware to be very much informed but unaware how he knows it. Throughout the preoperative stage the child develops centration and conservation.

This is the third stage of cognitive development theory as suggested by Jean Piaget. It occurs between the age of 7 and 11 years and involves logical development skills. At this stage the child is able to sort out objects, recognize several things serially, identify and name objects, solve problems and understand numbers logically. The child can make his own rational judgment in relation to observable or concrete phenomena. The child is able to learn more complex materials at a faster rate.

This is where the child gets into the final stage into adulthood from childhood. Intelligence logically uses symbols relating to abstract concepts through experience. The person is able to reason deductively and hypothetically. At this stage the child is able to see possible results and consequences of various actions and solve problems more systematically with a lot of logic and reasoning. However, Vygostky take more consideration to the social surrounding whilst Piaget takes more concern on the physical environment (Chapman, 2008).

Vygotsky argues that the child must learn with the help of more competent adults who enable them to acquire some skills. For example a child cannot walk alone on the beam balance without the help of the mother at the beginning. Piaget on his own perspective tends to disagree in that he says that the child gains the skills independently of his environment.

In a classroom setting, the theory is very much significant in that a teacher has to consider the age and ability if the child to comprehend a particular information and experiences. At the stage of early childhood development class a teacher is required to use more symbols and simple common language for teaching the children. The teacher can enable children to learn well when using figures and objects as teaching aids. At the early stage language development is the basis of all learning. This can be achieved when it is combined by physical movements. As the child progresses, the child can be taught of solving problems starting from simple to complex. Examples are very much important as the children rely on what they see, hear and even feel (Abbott & Bartlett, 2002). When playing the child all able to understand the significance if going through the experience together with the teacher. With time the child as he grows and the body also develops is able to solve problems in classroom more logical and systematic.

References

Abbott, A. L., & Bartlett, D. J. (2002). Infant motor development & equipment use in the home. Child: Care, Health & Development, 27, 295-306.

Chapman, M., (2008). “Constructive Evolution: Origins & Development of Piaget’s Thought”. N Y: Cambridge University Press.

Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology 4^th Ed. N Y: Worth Publishers

Piaget, J., (2007). The Essential Piaget. N Y: Basic Books.