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Many theorists have developed various developmental theories to explain the cognitive developmental stages. One of the famous theorists is Jean Piaget, a Swiss national born to Rebecca Jackson and Arthur Piaget. At age ten, he was interested in animals and wrote a scientific paper on an albino sparrow. He studied at the University of Neuchatel and later studied psychology at the University of Zurich (Sanghvi, 2020). He wrote Piagets theory based on direct observations of his children. Piaget proposed four developmental stages in his theory which include sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational (Marwaha, 2017). Each stage has distinct cognitive development, which can be seen in most children. According to Piagets theory, the development of children is the same despite being in different environmental and cultural contexts in the world (Marwaha, 2017). This paper will present my autobiography, integrate it with Piagets development theory and evaluate if the theorists ideas are fully developed or if he missed some of the points.
According to Piagets developmental stages, the concrete stage is between seven to eleven years. Children begin to have logical reasoning during this stage and drop their egocentric thoughts (Babakr et al., 2019). This is where they drop their egocentric logic of thinking that the world thinks like them and starts accommodating new ideas (Sanghvi, 2020). During this stage, my parents divorced; however, their divorce did not significantly impact me because I did not understand the logic of being brought up by a single parent. Although I could understand what was happening, I could not contemplate its effects on me. I think this divorce affected the later stage of my life because, according to Piaget, a child does not process information the way an adult does (Marwaha, 2017). Thus, my mum, whom we were left with, had to keep assuring me everything will be all right. Children need communication for them to understand different perceptions. This enables me to understand why my mum kept on asking me if I was fine to know if there was anything I wanted to talk about.
The next stage is the formal operational stage which spans from 12 years upwards. This is the last stage in Piagets theories, allowing individuals to think abstractly and understand ideas (Sanghvi, 2020). In this stage, children or adults can see solutions from multiple points. Having grown up in Chicago, I agree with Piaget that children can reason abstractly during the formal operational stage (Sanghvi, 2020). At this age, I understood several things in my life that I could not see in my previous stage. For instance, the impact of the divorce hit hard during this period when I could see other children being visited by their parents. I could see them interact with their dads, which got me thinking about my father and how life would be if we all lived together as a family. This implies that I could see things abstractly and make sense of life situations.
In addition, during the formal operational stage, I could solve problems. During this age, I was in my 12th grade and was performing very well in school. I could solve non-complex numerical problems using different methods and was very good at science. According to Piaget, adolescents begin to have inductive and deductive reasoning in solving problems during this stage (Sanghvi, 2020). Some common problems I could solve at this age include the pendulum and the testing of different hypotheses. For instance, I understood the different forces responsible for the pendulums movement. In addition, I could formulate a hypothesis and test them, which shows that Piaget was correct that a person can think abstractly during this stage.
Piagets developmental stages capture most of the cognitive developments that happen during a childs growth. The four stages, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational, have distinct differences which are notable in any child across different cultures. This implies that although the study was conducted on western children only, they are equally applicable to children in other parts of the world (Sanghvi, 2020). For instance, although my parents had divorced during the concrete operational stage, I could not contemplate the effects of the event on my life as I could during my formal operational stage. This shows that between these two periods, several cognitive changes have occurred. In the formal concrete stage, I had more understanding of the things surrounding me than when I was in the concrete stage.
However, Piagets development theory does not come without its drawbacks. According to Piaget, children who could not meet the definition of various cognitive stages had missed the previous stages (Marwaha, 2017). This may not be right for every child because underlying factors may cause some changes. For instance, after the divorce of my parents, I was not doing well in class because of the social difficulties facing me. Although I could not notice it, the divorce impacted my development and may have delayed the transition from the concrete operational stage to the formal operational stage. This implies that not all children unable to perform various tasks are affected by their previous stage (Marwaha, 2017). Some may be affected by other social, cultural, or educational issues within them. After some while, I recovered my studies and continued performing well, which shows that having delays in some cognitive stages does not necessarily mean that a child missed the previous stage.
The other main issue in Piagets theories is that his theories ignored culture and diversity. For Piaget to develop his developmental stages, he had to ignore the social, educational, and cultural background of a child (Sanghvi, 2020). Instead of examining children from diverse backgrounds, Piaget only investigated children in western society. Childrens life patterns and cultural context significantly shape their future lives (Babakr et al., 2019). For instance, children in nomadic life find more difficulty in dealing with numbers than children from western countries. My parents divorced when I was young, which has impacted my cognitive development. I do not expect to behave like a child with both parents because of the social differences. Children raised by single parents are likely to have more developmental challenges than those brought up by both parents (Babakr et al., 2019). Thus, Piaget should have considered the cultural aspect in formulating his theories because people live in diverse cultural places.
The other criticism of Piagets theory is the distinct stages he classifies development. Many people question whether the developmental stages in children take place in sequential stages. Although Piagets developmental stages are common in most students, it does not imply that they have to take place sequentially (Babakr et al., 2019). For instance, due to the diversity, I overstayed the concrete stage elaborated in Piagets developmental stages. According to the formal operational stage definition and distinctions, I started to think abstractly when I was fifteen (Marwaha, 2017). Some children in school were in lower grades but could conduct arithmetic problems better than I. This implies that the stages do not have to be sequential, as Paiget put them, because some children are more talented than others and may have more understanding of some phenomena before they reach the age described in the stages (Babakr et al., 2019). For instance, I was good at science and could easily formulate a hypothesis and test them before I was the age of 12 years. However, during the same time, I could not solve arithmetic problems which show that the stages do not have to follow a specific sequence.
I have learned various things from his theories, such as not all children undergo the said stages. Some children are talented and may have specific skills earlier than others. However, I have learned that the theory has various drawbacks such as Piagets theory does not factor different cultures and social factors in his theories. He standardizes all children in his theory which is why the theory may not apply to some children, such as the nomads. In addition, Piagets theory assumes that if a child does not meet the explanations of a certain stage, they must have missed the previous stages, which is incorrect because sometimes they may miss them to societal and social factors. Finally, Piagets theory relies on childrens sequential development, which is incorrect because some children may have talents in some activities and develop them before others. This study has not focused on the sensorimotor and preoperational stages because they are at a time when a person cannot observe and note changes within themselves because they are too young.
References
Babakr, Z. H., Mohamedamin, P., & Kakamad, K. (2019). Piagets cognitive developmental theory: Critical review. Education Quarterly Reviews, 2(3), 517524. Web.
Marwaha, S. (2017). Prevalence of principles of Piagets theory among 4-7-year-old children and their correlation with IQ. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, 11(8). Web.
Sanghvi, P. (2020). Piagets theory of cognitive development: A review. Indian Journal of Mental Health, 7(2), 9096. Web.
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