Development Through Life

This week was all about how we as humans develop through our lives. Piaget's four stages of cognitive development help us to better understand how the human brain develops through the course of life. Sensorimotor is the first stage. This stage consists of infants from birth to about the age of 2 years. The main way of learning is though the senses, such as: touching, feeling, hearing, seeing, and tasting. Within this stage, babies develop object permanence. This is the ability to realize that just because something is covered, it is still there. The second stage is Preoperational. This stage is from 2 years of age to about 6-7 years of age. This stage is more imaginative than any of the others. Children develop animism in this stage. This is the ability to give lifelike qualities to objects that are otherwise inanimate. This explains why 2-7 year olds are able to use their imagination when playing. This is also the stage where theory of mind develops. Children will think that the world sees everything through their eyes and no other way. It is hard for a child at this age to look at a situation through someone else's shoes. Towards the end of this stage, children finally are able to develop the ability to see things from the point of view of a different person. The third stage of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development is the concrete operational stage. This stage starts around the age of 6 or 7 years. Mathematical comprehension is at full steam during this stage. Children can process the fact that just because you have a certain amount of something, and you break it into more pieces, you don't have more. A good example is if you have two glasses of water with the same amounts, and one is poured into a skinnier taller glass, the child knows that the amount of liquid has not changed pouring it into the skinnier glass. This is much different from the pre operational stage because in the pre operational stage, children are likely to say that there is more liquid in the taller glass, inferencing that there is more liquid in the taller glass because it is taller. The final stage of cognitive development is formal operation.

This stage is entered at around the age of 12 and continues throughout adulthood. Logic and reasoning develop more thoroughly through this stage, allowing us as adults to interpret complex thinking situations. These stages of cognitive development tie into genetics and social environment. Genetics play a large role in the development of any abilities in life. But the living environment you are exposed to growing up in is also a large factor. As talked about in the previous chapter, a child can catch on to many of these stages quicker if exposed to situations in their environments. Children in more enhanced environments will develop faster than someone in a poorer environment.