Background information on Piaget
Piaget was a renowned scholar in the field of psychology, especially in the area of development among the children. His work and ideas on cognitive development has exhibited significant impacts in the fields of child psychology, education and in a wide array of different fields. (Mussen, 1983).
Born in 1896, the Swiss Biologist cum botanist developed an interest with nature at the tender age of seven. His interests and thereafter achievements in psychology and botany were inspired by his mother who was said to be energetic and intelligent and somewhat overanxious. At age ten, he was already putting his efforts into writing one of his first scientific papers. He later joined Neuchâtel University where he graduated with a first degree in zoology in 1918. (Mussen, 1983).
As a result of being fascinated by nature and being considered adept in this field, he published a lot of scientific papers with vigor, predominantly publications that were related to the mollusks.
After his graduation, Piaget proceeded to study psychology under Carl Jung in Zurich and later to Sorbonne in Paris where he got an opportunity to work along with Binet Aflred, another psychologist. Binet Alfred together with Piaget evaluated the test results on intelligence among the children which were already designed and administrated by Binet.
In his continued involvement with Binet, it came to the notice of Piaget that there exists a correlation between the age of a child and nature of error that the child was likely or more inclined to make.
Interestingly, he was massively spellbound after having co-jointly found out that a selection of errors occurred unsurprisingly at a certain stage and age.
This inspired Piaget to the extent that he dedicated most of his energy and time conducting supplementary investigations on the mystery surrounding this phenomenon. As such, he shepherded several interviews with children under questions that were devised and were of different sorts. These questions were carefully constructed and were meant to test the judgment of children in relation to the different perspectives, from which they view things, how they ‘conserve’ volume, how they understand naturally existing or occurring phenomena, amongst other questions.
Enchanted and captivated with the innovative yet incorrect/ erroneous responses/ answers from the children, he regularly invited them to give simple explanations behind the logic surrounding their answers. The findings from the nature of their explanations provided an insight into the reasoning and the thought process of a child. Their explanations also exhibited almost a similar pattern and thought strategies.
Finally, Piaget arrived to the powerful conclusion that the reasoning power of children is not flawed in any way. Contrary to adults who have adequate information on the social and the natural world around them, children have not accumulated and processed adequate information concerning the social and the natural world around them hence children can neither come up with similar conclusions as adults nor imbibe them with some biases. (Piaget, 2001).
Contrary to expectations, Piaget did not come to the conclusion that children should therefore be compelled to take in a lot of facts at a tender age. He believed that doing this would make the children more dependent on answers from others, depriving them of their ability to acquire creativity in their initiatives. (Bjorklund, 2004).
Moreover, Piaget believed that adults are obliged to exercise a lot of restraint when correcting notions that are based on wrong opinions among the children. They should be aware that if they do it too severely or inhospitably, or in a manner that is denigrating, such kind of corrections are most likely to shame them into intellectual inactiveness/ passivity. This makes them to dispose of their instinctive urge to make/ work out things on their own, and to get their hands on novel and innovative ideas.
Furthermore, Piaget stressed that acquisition of knowledge and understanding is not all about taking in huge amounts of facts and that regurgitating the facts that have been acquired is not an application of real knowledge and intelligence. (Piaget, 2001).
He argues that knowledge is about the structures that one develops and how he/she fits the facts together by the use of mental prototypes that allow an individual to truthfully, perfectly and correctly assimilate further information and be able to make important and positive conclusions after predictions. (Biggs & Collis, 1982).
Piaget advocates for an environment that is child-friendly since children enter the world basically as “physical beings” and that their understanding of the world around them starts with their individual understanding of it, based on their emotional and physical exploration. From these explorations, they are then able to build representations which increases in abstraction and complexity. (Piaget, 2001).
It is therefore imperative that early educators refrain from introducing concepts that are highly abstract to children since this only result in acquisition of knowledge in a rote manner through memorizing, which is not stored permanently and is also not genuine method of learning. (Biggs & Collis, 1982).
Explanation of cognitive development
Cognitive development is a theory on how human beings acquire intelligence and awareness on things found in their natural world. This theory was developed by Piaget and deals extensively with the uniqueness surrounding knowledge and its acquisition by human beings at lower stages of development, specific constructs that are attributed to it and how they apply it in their daily life situations.
Thornton (2003), in presenting the ideas of Piaget claims that cognitive development refers to how one perceives, develops thoughts and an understanding of the world as a result of an interaction between nature and nurture. That this includes centers of information processing, memory, development of language, intelligence and levels of reasoning.
Piaget’s theory dispelled the myth that was widely held before that infants lacked any ability to think about ideas or make them more complex and that they remained short of cognition until they acquired their first language.
According to Piaget, cognitive development among the children is not a one-off process but undergoes four stages of sensorimotor, preconventional, concrete operational and formal operational stages of development respectively. (Mussen, 1983).
Why cognitive development is considered important
Cognitive development plays a pivotal role in the life of a child. Cognitive development of a child during the early years normally includes building skills, for example vocabulary, language, pre-reading and numeracy which begins from the time a child is born. (Mussen, 1983).
As have been espoused by scientists, the brain normally acquires a lot of information on the first language during the early years when he/she develops cognitively. Therefore, there exists a strong connection between cognitive development in a child during the early stages of life and his/her level of achievement in adult life.
A child’s brain is said to be very plastic during his/her early life stages. Therefore the environment should be stimulating and challenging to the child so that she/he can develop cognitively. Such environments should be rich in interactions in form of literacy and language and replete with opportunities to listen and constantly use language during their cognitive developmental stages. From this they acquire the vital building blocks that will enable them to learn how to read and write which are vital at school going age. (Bjorklund, 2004).
Failure to acquire cognitive skills at this age may make the child’s lag behind in class because of the delayed process of cognitive development. Hence, the success or failure of a child in his/her adult life, to a great extent is shaped by his/her level of achievement in terms of cognitive development. This is true because cognitive development fosters divergent and flexible thinking in children from an early age. (Bjorklund, 2004).
This enables them to make sense of the world around them and be able to explain the facts behind certain phenomena. They also develop a cultural and social understanding that enables them to express their feelings and thoughts in a logical manner hence enabling them to be well established in solving problems later in life. (Thornton, 2003).
Criticisms of cognitive development
Despite having made impressive strides in shaping the environment that children should be exposed to, Piaget’s work has been widely criticized on grounds that his methods were not scientific. His work lacked controls and used small samples without any statistical analysis which is in utter disregard of the current procedures of research. (Biggs & Collis, 1982).
Piaget’s work has also been criticized for having made inaccurate assumptions of the cognitive abilities of young children and overlooked the effects of culture and social groupings of a child which can have an impact on their reasoning. (Biggs & Collis, 1982).
References
Biggs, J. & Collis, K. (1982). A system of evaluating learning outcomes: New York: Academic
Press.
Bjorklund, D.F. (2004).Children's thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences.
Stamford, CT: Wadsworth Publishing.
Mussen, P. (1983). Piaget's theory: A Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th
edition. Vol. 1. New
York: Wiley.
Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Thornton, S. (2003). Growing Minds: An Introduction to Children's Cognitive Development.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
