Critically Examine the Contribution of Jean Piaget to Our Understanding of Child Development

This essay shall examine the contribution of Jean Piaget to our understanding of child development. Until the mid 1900's psychologists had no useful theory for explaining how children's minds change as they age. Psychologists interested in this field either has to study it in relation to behaviourism, which emphasises that children merely receive information from the environment, or in relation to the IQ testing approach, which emphasises individual differences in children's development. However developmental psychologist Jean Piaget born in Switzerland in 1896 changed the way we think about children's minds. When Piaget's theories were introduced psychologists the world over embraced his idea that children actively construct their cognitive world as they go through a series of stages. Piaget's theory of cognitive development shall bee discussed in this essay in light of its various processes and the four stages of cognitive development - Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete Operational stage and Formal Operational stage.…