The cognitive development of children determines their ability to understand certain concepts. Adults often experience situations where they try to describe something to a child, but the child does not understand something that seems obvious. Children may lack understanding of what adults say to them, which is determined by what stage of growth they are experiencing. Piaget studied cognitive development and developed sets that a child goes through as they grow up. The experiment examines Piaget’s four stages related to the growth of children: the sensorimotor, the preoperational, the concrete operational, and the formal operational.
The sensorimotor stage is where the child learns about their environment through senses and motor activities. The stage flows from zero to two years, within which their behavior moves from being reflex-driven to more abstract. At first, the children use their reflexes as they cannot consolidate information into a unified concept; eventually, they can rely on mental abstractions to solve problems. Adults can test this stage by putting a child’s favorite object, such as a toy, behind a screen where they can reach it. When they reach the object behind the screen, they will have reached the object permanence stage, which marks the end of the sensorimotor stage.
In the preoperational stage, children use mental presentations instead of physical appearances of objects and people. Piaget posited that children’s thinking develops from one stage to the next, and their behavior changes and reflects these cognitive developments (Alicia Nortje, 2022). Some significant cognitive advancements are that children understand causality and learn more about categorization. The preoperational stage occurs between the ages of two and seven years (Crosby & Bergin, 2019).
Causality refers to a situation where one event leads to the production of another, the cause is responsible for the outcome, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. The design of process outcome studies incorporates features such as various approaches to causality (Barkham et al., 2021). Youngsters at this stage can be tested by engaging them in pretend play, where they should pick roles, such as acting as a mom or dad and act accordingly. Success in engaging in pretend play shows that the child has reached the preoperational stage.
In the concrete operational stage, children are capable of considering numerous outcomes and are, therefore, able to solve problems. Piaget’s cognitive development stages significantly impact the development of psychology (Babakr et al., 2019). The numerical and categorization abilities improve and the children perform more complicated mathematical operations and relate objects with each other. The concrete operational stage can be tested by showing them two glasses of water, each half full and getting them to identify if the glasses contain the same amount of water. The adult should then pour the water into a taller, thinner glass and ask the kid whether the two glasses contain the same amount or whether one has more. A child who recognizes that the taller glass contains a similar amount of water to the two that were half full attains the concrete development stage because they can understand concrete measures and consider many outcomes.
The formal operational stage allows children to approach problems logically and use their learned skills to solve them. Corresponding experience determines the organization of abstract knowledge into different dimensions grounded in the brain regions (Conca et al., 2021). Children here can be tested by giving them mathematical tests such as fractions for them to solve. The adolescents can be tested with debate topics in which they should develop logical reasoning on social and political issues. The ability to solve mathematical problems through formal operations and demonstration of proportional reasoning shows that the adolescent has reached the formal operational stage.
The experiment examines Piaget’s four stages related to the growth of children: the sensorimotor, the preoperational, the concrete operational, and the formal operational. They are analyzed to establish why children behave a certain way even when adults direct them on the correct behavior. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development help adults understand that children think differently and comprehend things more clearly as they grow up. Adults should strive to understand children’s way of thinking instead of forcing them to behave in a manner that exhibits maturity.
References
Alicia Nortje, P. D. (2022). Piaget’s stages: 4 stages of cognitive development & theory. PositivePsychology. Web.
Babakr, Z. H., Mohamed Amin, P., & Kakamad, K. (2019). Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory: Critical review. Education Quarterly Reviews, 2(3). Web.
Barkham, M., Lutz, W., & Castonguay, L. G. (2021). Bergin and Garfield’s handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change, 7th edition. Wiley. Web.
Conca, F., Borsa, V. M., Cappa, S. F., & Catricalà, E. (2021). The multidimensionality of abstract concepts: A systematic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 127, 474–491. Web.
Crosby, B. C. A., & Bergin, D. A. (2019). Child and adolescent development in your classroom: Chronological approach. Cengage.