Analyzing Piaget's Cognitive Theory Of Development

The Cognitive theory was developed by Piaget. In this theory Piaget insisted that children are not born with instinctive ideas of reality. Piaget viewed development as a process that helped humans relate to their environment. With this he felt that children actively create new ideas based on previous experiences or observation. Piaget believed that we gained knowledge through active exploration that takes the form scheme. A scheme is a cognitive structure or organized patter of action that people construct to interpret their actions. Piaget believed that all schemes, which were forms of understanding that, are created though the operation of inborn intellectual functions. He called these functions organization and adaptation. Organizations
are how children systematically combined existing schemes into more complex ones. Adaptation is the process to the demands of your environment, this occurs through to complentary processes, assilmation and accommodation. Assilamtion is a process in how we interpret our new experiences in terms of existing schemes or cognitive structures. Accommodation is the process of modifying existing schemes and making them better to fit new experiences. Thru the development of intelligence and the interaction of the individual and the environment nature provide the complementary process of assilmation and accommodation with make adaptation to the environment possible. As a result to the interactions, humans progress through 4 stages of development. The 4 stages are sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years) pre operational state (2 to 7 years), the concrete operation stage (7 to 11 years) and the formal operation stage (11 years and beyond). However depending on experiences children might progress at different rates through these stages. As children progress through the sensorimotor period by perceiving and acting on the world, they progress by using their reflexes to adapt to their environment, using symbolic or representational thought to solve problems in their heads.
In the pre operational stage children make use of their symbolic capacity but are limited by their dependence on appearance, lack of logical mental operation and ego centrism. They fail to grasp the concept of conservation because they centraiton, irreversible thinking and static thought. In the concrete operational stage most of the problems in the pre operational stage are solved. Concrete operational students can reverse thought and can understand change, Cognitive changes result in other developmental advances and my contribute to confusion, rebellion, idealism, and adolescent egocentrism. Adolescent ego centrism leads to imaginary audiences and the personal fable. The imaginary audience involves confusion with your own thought, for example, a child might feel that people are staring at them, but it is usually exaggerated thoughts. Personal fable is best described by a teenage girl who feels that her mother has never felt the same feelings that she is currently feeling. In formal operations adults are most likely to display the best skills in their area of expertise. Some adults will revert back to formal operational thought, however some back to concrete thought state, not all adults go through this
change.

Vygotsky's theory believed in social learning, he believed in culture and sociality was the key to learning.
Vygotsky believed that we learned best in the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is the gap between what the learner can accomplish independently and what they can accomplish with guidance of a more skilled partner. Vygotsky believed that knowledge depends on social experiences. He believed that cognitive development varied from society to society depending on mental tools, cultural values that were readily available. Children acquitted mental tools by acting with parents and members of the culture. Vygotsky believed children's private speech, which is speech to ones self that guided one's thoughts and behaviors. He did not view this as cognitive immaturity; he saw this as a major step in the development of mature thoughts. Vygotsky believed that children were imitating social activity and that social learning was essential to how well a child would
advance. Vygotsky believed in development is different in social and historical contacts; Piaget believed cognitive development is the same universally. Vygotsky believed in analysis of the social cultural and historical context in which the child develops. Piaget believed in the analysis the individual child. Vygotsky believed in the cognitive growth through social interactions. Piaget believed in the cognitive growth from the child's explorations of the independent world. Vygotsky believed that children and their partners co-construct knowledge. Piaget believed that each child constructs their own knowledge.

Vygotsky has criticized Piaget for placing too much on the individual and not enough on the social environment. Piaget criticized Vygotsky for placing too much on social interactions. Piaget believed children talk to themselves or had imaginary participation through this children were acting egocentristically. Vygotsky believed that children were imitation social actively and that social actively is how a child would advance. This is one of the major disagreements that Vygotsky and Piaget had.