Human Cognitive Development Essay

The paper is designed to discuss human cognitive development through the prism of various perspectives. Apriori, developmental psychology is nowadays dominated by Piaget’s views, so the essay provides a detailed examination of his theory, including it basic assumptions, the connection between human physiology and cognitive development and the four stages of progress of cognitive abilities: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Beyond the major focus, the essay also discusses four alternative approaches to cognitive development, including relevant research, conducted by the founders and followers of rational-constructivist, social learning, information-processing and sociocultural perspectives and the differences between traditional Piagetian views and these alternative positions. The author uses three articles from different psychology-oriented journals: â€Å"Personal cognitive development and its implications for teaching and learning† be Ferrari and Mahalingam (1998), â€Å"Commentary on Vygotsky† by Jean Piaget (2000) and the article, written almost immediately after the emergence of Piaget’s stage theory – â€Å"The development of formal operations in logical and moral judgment† by Kuhn, Langer, Kohlberg, and Haan. Developmental psychology is a vast area of knowledge that seeks to explore and explain various aspects of human psychosocial development, including its moral, emotional and cognitive components (Ferrari and Mahalingam, 1998). Cognitive development refers to the development of human intellect, abstractive, critical and creative thinking that provide successful cognition and comprehension of the world of objects. The most prominent and popular theory of human cognitive development was created by Jean Piaget, whose approach to the progress in this context is constructivist, so that the scholar views the construction of cognitive abilities as self-motivated action (Piaget, 2000). As Kuhn et al (1977) assume, â€Å"Piaget’s research methods are based primarily on case studies [they were descriptive]. While some of his ideas are supported through more correlational and experimental methodologies, others are not. For example, Piaget believes that biological development drives the movement from one cognitive stage to the next† (Kuhn et al, 1977, p. 98). Nevertheless, although Piaget’s investigation basically refers to physiology rather than psychology, the scholar manages to link biological and cognitive progress through the description of the transformation of reflexes into formal operations. Initially, he describes two major processes that occur in individual when adapting to the environment: assimilation and accommodation. Both of them condition the complication of their manner of adaptation and therefore determine cognitive development (Piaget, 2000). Accommodation refers to the alteration of cognitive abilities in response to the requirements of the environment for the purpose of gaining something from the surrounding world. Assimilation, in turn, refers to the transformation of the environment with further placing it into preexisting cognitive schemes and constructs (Piaget, 2000). Due to the fact that life situation and the corresponding requirements from the environment tend to complicate through the life course, the individual is forced to respond to complex stimuli and construct hierarchical cognitive structures (for instance, from general to concrete) (Piaget, 2000; Ferrari and Mahalingam, 1998). Piaget distinguishes and describes four stages of cognitive development. Sensorimotor stage, or infancy lasts from the birth to 2 years, has six sub-stages, associated with gradual development of reflexes, focus of vision and coordination in movements. Intelligence is manifested through the progress in motor activity, but the individual uses no social symbols (e. g. language) during this period. The exploration of world is very dynamic, but the related knowledge remains limited because of the weak cognitive abilities. The outcomes of this stage are the emergence of basic creativity or insight (understanding of pictures and language) as well as the progress of symbolic abilities (Piaget, 2000).