Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Cognitive Development

Cognitive development refers to the manner in which people learn to think, reason, and use language. It involves a person’s intelligence, perceptual ability, and ability to process information. Cognitive development represents a progression of mental abilities from illogical to logical thinking, from simple to complex problem solving, and from understanding concrete ideas to understanding abstract concepts. The most widely known cognitive theorists is Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980). His theory of cognitive development has contributed to other theories, such as Kohlberg’s theory of moral development and Fowler’s theory of the development of faith. According to Piaget, cognitive development is an orderly, sequential process in which a variety of new experiences (stimuli) must exist before intellectual abilities can develop. Piaget’s cognitive development process is divided into five major phases: the sensorimotor phase, the preconceptual phase, the intuitive thought phase, the concrete operations phase.
Sensorimotor phase, Piaget’s initial period of cognitive development, has six stages; three of which take place during the first year. From 4 to 8 months infants begin to have perceptual recognition. By 6 months they respond to new stimuli, and they remember certain objects and look for them for a short time. By 12 months infants have a concept of both space and time. They experiment to reach a goal, such as a toy on a chair. An infant’s cognitive development also proceeds from flexive ability of the newborn to using one or two actions to attain a goal by the age of 1 year.
According to Piaget, the toddler completes the fifth and sixth stages of the sensorimotor phase and starts the preconceptual phase at about 2 years of age. In the fifth stage, the toddler solves problems by a trial-and-error process. By stage 6, toddlers can solve problems mentally. For example, when given a new toy a toddler will not...