Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development are fundamental to comprehend whether people are improving or negating their understanding of various things. Piaget proposed four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operation, and formal operation. The given stages illustrate the processes of comprehending the various levels of cognitive functioning as development flows from infancy until adulthood. In the following paper, I will look into the process of cognitive development through my own personal experiences. Also, I will examine how the stages of that development prove useful in understanding the evolution, the challenges, and the growth. Via contemplating the phases, I wish to get to grips with how exactly one’s intellectual growth is associated with Piaget’s ideas.
Sensorimotor Stage
The child has reached the age of the sensorimotor developmental stage, which is the stage when the child explores the world through sensations and actions (Babakr et al., 2019). I distinctly recall those days when I was young and doing things that involved touching, grasping, and putting objects in my mouth for a better understanding of their properties. I had to deal with object permanence in particular, which is the thought that objects remain in existence even if they can not be seen. I remember even times when I used to become frustrated because of losing a toy from my point of view, and I remember how I used to feel happy when it reappeared. These encounters helped me master the idea of object permanence and, consequently, my cognitive progress.
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Preoperational Stage
In the preoperational stage, children start working on their language and symbolic thinking, but their logical thinking is not that strong (Babakr et al., 2019). I remember myself as a kid doing such things as adopting the roles of characters from my favorite stories and playing playful imaginary games. The idea of conservation, which states that quantity remains constant even though the shape or arrangement changes, was not new to me. It was, however, a challenge to completely understand the concept. Let me illustrate this concretely by saying that I poured water from a wide container into a narrow one, and I was certain that the amount had changed. The dispelling of this myth was done through the aid of education and hands-on experiences. This ultimately led to a better understanding of conservation principles.
Concrete Operational Stage
In the concrete operational stage, children develop a logical and concrete approach to real objects and become unfamiliar with abstract stuff (Oogarah-Pratap et al., 2020). When I was a child, I was already tuned into understanding cause-and-effect relationships, and I could easily cope with the issues that became increasingly complicated. Nevertheless, I had my share of problems drawing connections between implicit and explicit in-text information on one side and examples outside the world of science on the other. On the contrary, the unforeseen moment was when I realized the cause of my difficulties in translating logic to abstract symbols, and hence, the algebraic equations were making me feel restless. On the road to this illumination, I gradually gained experience and examples, which made abstract thinking an easy and solid step for me as a problem solver.
Formal Operational Stage
Forming the operational stage comes as its beginnings, which is thus characterized by abstract thinking and theoretical reasoning (Oogarah-Pratap et al., 2020). When I was growing up, I had to face things that were difficult and life-changing. Thus, I came across various complex ideas and different viewpoints. A little self-examination and social issues analysis with deeper layers started giving me a usual view of their existential meaning. Nonetheless, I had difficulty on my part in unifying conflicting opinions and synthesizing information from various sources. Through the course of the process, I improved my critical thinking, and I felt able to adopt a critical approach to evaluation and make good decisions. I suppose it was through those experiences that I learned how to view the social world with a more multifaceted approach.
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Analysis
Piaget epitomizes significant contributions to the psychology of learning through a well-elaborated theory of cognitive development stages. The ver
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