JEAN PIAGET

Jean Piaget was born in August 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. He wrote his first scientific article about albino sparrows when he was only 11 years old. After he completed his high school education in his home city, he graduated from the Field of Natural Sciences at the University of Neuchatel in his home city, as well and then he completed his doctorate. In 1918, he went to Zurich because he was interested in psychoanalysis, and after studying for a certain period of education from Paul Eugen Bleuler, he also studied abnormal psychology and epistemology at the University of Sorbonne in Paris. In 1920, while he was in Paris, he took part in an intelligence test study conducted in the laboratory and this study had a great influence on the theory that he would leave to us in the future. He had three children from his marriage to Valentine Chatenay in 1923, Piaget created the infrastructure for the theories he would form in the future while studying the cognitive and intellectual development of his children. He has been a professor of psychology, sociology, and philosophy of science at the University of Neuchatel for four years. He accepted the post of Director of the International Bureau of Education and then founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology and assumed the presidency until his death. He has received many awards such as the Erasmus Prize in Social and Political Sciences. He died on September 16, 1980 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Theory of Cognitive DevelopmentIn Piaget's theory, Adaptation, Regulation, Adaptation, and Assimilation are the basic concepts.
According to Piaget, all living things pass through the processes of regulation and adaptation by inheritance. The living creature organizes its actions and all its thoughts into groups. In adaptation, the living creature experiences the concepts of adaptation and assimilation: schemes are rearranged with each freshly learned knowledge and experience, this is also called assimilation, if new schemes are created with each freshly learned knowledge and experience, this is also called compliance. Cognitive categories that help a person organize and interpret the information they have acquired in their own way are called schemas. In light of all this, according to Piaget, the system of thought and logic in adulthood and the system of thought and logic in childhood are very different from each other. Piaget has divided the Theory of Cognitive Development into four periods:

1. Sensory Motor Period (0-2 years):
It is the first stage of cognitive development. Piaget argued that babies learn and experience every stimulus in the external environment with their motor skills and senses. The foundation of the later stages of development is laid here, this stage lasts until the baby's language acquisition.

2. The Period before the Procedure (3-7 years):
It is Piaget's concept of ‘Object Permanence‘ or ‘Object Continuity’ that enables the transition from the sensory-motor period to this period. In the case of eliminating any object, the condition in which the object can detect the presence of the object even if the creature is not in the field of view is called object permanence. During this period, Piaget emphasized the child's mental limitations rather than his actions. Since the child cannot perform any action or process during this period, this period has been called the Pre-Process Period. Piaget observed that children are now able to embody knowledge thanks to the language acquired during this period. For example, a child can make bean grains in the water look like fish and make them float. Piaget has examined that the games performed in this way contribute to the strengthening of the child's schemas and contribute greatly to cognitive development. Based on this refinement, he has gained the 'egocentric (egocentric)’ point of view.

This period has been studied in two subgroups within itself:
A) Symbolic Function: It is a subgroup with children between the ages of 2 and 4. It is the lower stage in which the child symbolizes them by ascribing animate features to inanimate objects, and this condition is called animism.
B) Intuitive Thinking: It covers the age range from 4 to 7 years, during this period, children focus on a single feature of any object, so they very often experience a state of centration or focused interest, or they cannot Decipher that the amounts of liquid in two different containers shown are equal, so they cannot acquire the ’conservation property’. This feature is acquired during the Concrete Transactions Period.

3. Concrete Transactions Period (7-12 Years Old):
Children starting school during this period gain the principle of protection that they could not grasp in the previous period during this period. In this way, they can make sense of and solve problems related to concrete issues. Inductive reasoning can be used by taking advantage of all the experiences acquired up to this period. During this period, the child understands that a messy room can become obsolete when it is collected, and he can perceive that a broken vase cannot be the same as before.

4. Abstract Transactions Period (over 12 years):
It is the last period in Piaget's theory of cognitive development, during which the behaviors and thoughts of adolescents, not children, were studied. Abstract information is understood without having concrete information, and the problem can be solved by making an estimate of a problem using ‘deductive reasoning‘. At the last and fourth stage of cognitive development, the adolescent who has now gained abstract thinking is able to understand and interpret the feelings and thoughts of others besides himself.

Criticism of Piaget's Theory:
Although Piaget put forward his own theory, there have been many criticisms of his theory: the most frequently criticized issue is that he did not adequately address the social environment and culture in his theory. According to critics, the influence of social environment and cultural differences had a major impact on Piaget's theory of cognitive development, but Piaget ignored this. Another criticism is that Piaget's theory does not include post-adolescent development. According to critics, in this theory, the detail in which the abilities of the person are taken into account, which we call individual differences, has been ignored. Despite the criticism of Piaget's theory, Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development has made a very important contribution to the Psychology resource and its students.

Bibliography

• biography. info/person/jean -piaget (Accessed: September 13, 2023)
• biography. net. tr/jean -piaget -who is (Accessed: September 13, 2023)
• novarge.com.tr/blog/piaget-in-bilissel-gelisim-kuramı-ve-donemleri.html (Accessed:September 13, 2023)
• dergipark.org.tr piagete-gore-development(Accessed:September 14, 2023)
• evrimagaci.org/piagetin-bilissel-gelisim-teorisi-nedir (Accessed:September 14, 2023)