Cognitive Development Essays (163 words) - Child Development

Children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. Piaget saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. Cognitive development is the growth in children's ways of thinking about and interacting with their environment. Young children initially learn about the world through active, physical exploration and then gradually develop the ability to think symbolically and logically about their experiences. Children are curious explorers, and their cognitive development involves learning new concepts and testing a variety of ideas. The first stage is the sensorimotor stage. The first stage of Piaget?s Theory begins at birth and last t hrough about two years of age