Jean Piaget Stages Of Cognitive Development

In the early 20th century, the field of psychology had begun to bloom with multiple prominent names and figures trying to understand the human nature by proposing theories and establishing experiments. Chief among them was Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist and development biologist most notable for his theory of cognitive development of children, in which he became the first psychologist to refute the long-standing notion that children were inferior to adults in terms of thinking. Piaget argued that children tend to think in a very remarkable way in comparison to adults and correlating to their age. What interested him greatly was not how children were able to learn how to read or count, but rather, how they processed different abstract concepts,
The main characteristic features of this stage are the development of object permanence, or knowing that objects persist across time and space (even if they are hidden from sight) and are subject to causality rules, and mental representation. In the early period of this stage, infants only focus on the immediate relations of their environment and later on try to learn about the world around them through trial and error. Infants start to learn through adaptation, or acclimatization to the environment. According to Piaget, this is brought about by two main processes: assimilation, or organizing new situations into already-built schemas, or a pattern of though and behavior, and accommodation, when schemas have to be modified to match the new situation. The first substage of these six is modification of reflexes (birth – 1 month), in which reflexes become voluntary in response to repeated stimuli. For example, the palmar grasp reflex would later on become an intended action. Primary circular reactions (1 to 4 months) are schemes that are repeated because they are interesting and serve to explore the world. For example, and infant might continuously push his or her tongue against the roof of the mouth to discover what actions might be done with it. Secondary circular reactions (4 – 8 months) are marked by the organization of schemes in order to produce a specific desired outcome and the development of habits. For instance, an infant would intentionally grasp a rattle, shake it, and learn that it produces sound. Stage 4, which Piaget calls the “first proper intelligence” is coordination of secondary schemes (8 – 12 months) where secondary circular reactions become more coordinated and means-end behavior is established to achieve that goal. At this stage, the infant commits what is known as