Jean Piaget’s Theory of Child Development

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Child Development
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Introduction
The Piaget theory of cognitive development argues that a child's intelligence develops as children grow. According to Piaget, it is not just about acquiring knowledge, but one must constrict a mental model of the world. Piaget's theory is not similar to other approaches because it focuses solely on children, development, and discrete stages of intellectual growth marked by a complexity of ideas, behaviors, and concepts (Babakr, Mohamedamin, & Kakamad, 2019). It details the process by which a young child grows into maturity through reason and hypotheses. Ideally, growth, according to Piaget, is a matter of reorganization between a child’s environmental experiences and biological maturation.
Four Stages of Growth and Development
Piaget's theory suggests that children move through four key stages in their intellectual development. Each stage comes with increased mental sophistication. While every child goes through each stage similarly, environmental interaction and biological maturation determine child development (Bhagat, Haque, & Jaalam, 2018). In each stage, the level of intelligence, however, advances. Piaget's four stages are best summarized in the table below:
Piaget’s Four Stages
Stage

Age

Goal

Sensorimotor

Birth to 18-24 months

Children learn about their world using their senses.
It is referred to as the object permanence stage.

Preoperational

2 to 7 years old

Referred to as symbolic thought, children develop skills of seeing the world through imagery and language.

Concrete operational

Ages 7 to 11 years

Considered logical thought, children start engaging rational thoughts on concrete events. They get to know why something looks like it is or feels things.

Formal operational

Adolescence to adulthood

The ...