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
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
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