Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
The founder of cognitive development theory, Piaget showed that the way children understand the world changes qualitatively with age. He proposed four stages of cognitive development, from the sensorimotor stage to the formal operational stage.
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Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
A Swiss developmental psychologist and the founder of Cognitive Development Theory. He systematically demonstrated that the way children understand the world is fundamentally different from adults, and that it changes qualitatively across developmental stages.
Piaget divided cognitive development into four stages. During the Sensorimotor Stage (0–2 years), children explore the world through senses and actions. In the Preoperational Stage (2–7 years), symbolic thinking develops but remains egocentric. The Concrete Operational Stage (7–11 years) brings logical thinking, and the Formal Operational Stage (11+) enables abstract and hypothetical reasoning.
He also explained how children construct knowledge through key concepts such as Schema, Assimilation, Accommodation, and Equilibration. Piaget's theory became the foundation of constructivist education and revolutionized our understanding of children's capacity for active learning. — Mindy
💡 Real-Life Example
Children are not small adults. They have their own unique ways of thinking.
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