Jean Piaget's cognitive development

Jean Piaget looked into the way that children adapt, more specifically assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is adding a new object into an old skill, whereas accommodation is adjusting an old skill on a new object. For example, assimilation is when a child goes from sucking on a small bottle, to a larger bottle. Accommodation is when a child has to adjust their skill of sucking on a pacifier to sucking on a bottle.
Piaget also noted that throughout a child's life, there are moments when accommodation dominates, when assimilation dominates, and when there is a equilibrium between the two.

From here, he developed the idea of stages of cognitive development:
-The sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) - some language is being developed around this point but the child is mainly learning that they are an agent of action e.g. they learn that they can shake the rattle to make a noise. They also begin to differentiate themselves from the object and around the age of 7 months, gain an idea of object permanence,
-The pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - their language use had matured and they begin to use their imagination and memory. The are still egocentric in the idea that they believe everyone knows what they do. Their thinking is typically done in a non-logical manner and they will classify objects by a single feature (red, big, small etc).
-The concrete operational stage (7-11 years) - they can now have conversations based around number, mass, weight, length, liquid, area, and volume. Their egocentric point of view diminishes. They can think in a more logical manner and can classify objects by multiple features.
-The formal operation stage (11+ years) - They can hypothesise and think about abstract thoughts. They begin to think about the future and ideological problems.

Bibliographyhttp://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/piaget.htmlhttp://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsypiaget.html