Theories of Cognitive and Moral Development (Essay Sample)

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Institution name:
Student name:
Unit code: PK8/3/SO/004
Name of tutor:
Word count: Q1-1213 words
Q2-777 words
COGNITIVE AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Question 1
Cognitive development is the psychological and neurological study of development of a child in terms of perception, conception and information processing. Interaction between the nervous system and brain with the environment is what contributes to cognitive development. Theories explaining cognitive development are many. However, a few of them are mostly used nowadays and only three are explained in this essay.
The first theory is known as the Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development. This theory was proposed by Jean Piaget, a Swiss scientist, in 1969. According to Jean, the children get to understand the world around them and experience the differences between what they discover in environment and what they have knowledge about. Cognitive development was a continuous maturation of mental processes that results from interaction in environmental. Piaget focused on accommodation and assimilation and that both cannot exist independently. Assimilation means the process of perceiving new information and reinterpreted or adapting it to match existing ideas. For example, children see a dog and they call an animal with four legs a dog (Anon, 2010). Accommodation involves perceiving new information and altering the already existing schemas to match in new information, for example, the same children are able to differentiate a dog and a cat although both of them are four-legged. He believed that a child’s scheme changes age from action-based level to an operational stage.
Piaget proposed that cognitive development takes place in four stages. The first one is the sensorimotor stage and in this is a stage which takes place between 0 to 2 years, children get knowledge and understanding slowly by using their senses like ears, eyes and hands to handle objects. They learn that objects can exist even if they are absent from their senses. Piaget further divided this stage into 6 sub-stages. The first sub-stage is between birth to 6 weeks. In this stage the child coordinates senses and reflexes like following objects in motion with eyes and sucking objects around them. In the second sub-stage between 6weeks to 4 months, the child coordinates senses and two schemas: reflexes and redoing events that had occurred initially by chance. In sub-third stage of 4 to 8 months, a child develops habits and therefore repeats interesting actions. He develops an intention to grasp seen objects. In the fourth stage between 8 to 12months, knowledge of logic develops (Gray and MacBlain, 2015). Children learns to differentiate between ends and means. In the fifth sub-stage between 12 to 18 months, curiosity and tertiary circular reactions develop. In the last sub-stage, creativity and internalization of knowledge develops.
The second stage that takes place between 2 to 7 years is known as pre-operational stage. Piaget explains that children begin to speak. They, however, do not have a capacity to do mental operations and lacks enough understanding of logic. Their thoughts are egocentric and belief in animism. They begin to be inquisitive and playful. Between 4 to 7 years, thinking is centered on conservation and centration. They then develop to a third stage called concrete operational stage. This occurs between 7 to 11 years. Here, children have the ability to consider the view of others, ability to classify items in order of size or appearance and ability to sort items in order of shape or sizes. They are also able to solve numerical problems (conservation) and understand that items can be reversed to the original state. The last stage which occurs after 11 years is known as formal operational stage. In this stage, children are able to use symbols and this is the final stage of development. This theory has strengths which has made it a trustable source of learning child’s development. For example, it helps parents to understand the development of children in different stages since it focuses on different stages. It can also be considered as a breakthrough in research. However, it has some weaknesses. For example, in reality, development does not run smoothly in a manner explained by the theory. Also it does not explain about language like Bruner’s theory. Piaget did not emphasize on effects of external environment like school and family too.
The second theory that explains cognitive development is known as Bruner’s theory of cognitive development. It was proposed by Jerome Bruner, a psychologist. He proposed that knowledge is acquired via three stages involving storage and encoding of information. The stages are not necessarily related to age but are consequential (Goswami, 2014). Each stage constitutes a buildup of information previously acquired. The first stage is called enactive (action-based) stage. Here, experiences are received and decoded via motor activities. Bruner thought that a child begins to learn through actions such as feeling and touching and not via image or words. The second stage is iconic (image-based) stage. He proposed that children in this stage can represent difficult thoughts explained in stage one in form of pictures, images, diagrams, shapes, and graphs. They can draw shapes and pictures of objects on papers. The last stage is the symbolic (language-based) stage. Bruner proposed that in this stage, symbols and words are used to represent pictures and images in the second stage. This theory has strengths that has made it more acceptable for research. For example, it encourages responsibility and motivation. It also promotes skills of creativity and solving problems. Moreover, it eencourages students to actively participate in their learning and is relevant to our life. However, the theory also has some advantages. For example, it consumes time and full of misconception (Goswami, 2014).
The third theory is known as the Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development. It was proposed by Lev S. Vygotsky, a psychologist. He believed that culture and social environment contribute to the cognitive development and did not major in developmental stages. He did not agree that one principle can be used to explain cognitive development. Vygotsky centered on mediation and by using this concept, people have the ability to modify things in the environment to get benefits (Anon, 2010). For example, people go to the river to get water. The language was a key to mediation and this creates a relationship between human beings and environment. He believed that mediation yields to intelligence which leads to higher functions. For example, when a child tries to walk, the mother interprets these movements by demonstrating how to walk. The child comprehends in the brain the demonstration of the mother as a way of walking. He further explained development in a concept called a zone of proximal development. This explains that the development occurs when a child is able to solve a problem by himself without assistance different from how he could initially have solved the problem with assistance. This is known as scaffolding (Anon, 2010).
The theory has kept as a breakthrough in research. This is because it emphasizes on culture and how it affects development. It also places emphasis on the role of social issues in cognitive development and language affecting development. Its disadvantage is that it does not focus on features that children develop at different age. Moreover, children do not have skills of reasoning at same age while Vygotsky explains that social and cognitive factors are related.
I believe that Piaget’s theory is mor