In this class we will be focusing on three major cognitive theories or theorists: Piaget's Sensorimotor Stages of Development, Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, and Information Processing.

Let's Begin with Piaget.

Piaget believed that cognitive growth was the result of motor behavior in infants. In other words, children learned through action. He believed children grew through a series of universal stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational. In each successive stage the content and quality of knowledge increased.

Before we look more closely at each of Piaget's stages, it is important to know a few more key terms used often by Piaget: schemas, assimilation, and accommodation. Schemas are organized patterns of sensorimotor functioning. Schemas are mental structures that help us make sense of the world around us. When we encounter new information we either assimilate that knowledge or we accommodate it. Assimilation is the process in which people understand an experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking. Accommodation are changes in our existing ways of thinking that occur in response to encounters with new stimuli or events.

Let's look more closely at each of Piaget's stages of cognitive development. View the video below. Pay particular attention to the capabilities of an infant at each stage and how they differ from other stages. Define object permanence, egocentrism, inductive reasoning, conservation, reversibility, abstract reasoning, and deductive reasoning.

Piaget's Sensorimotor Development

Some studies estimate that 25-60% of college students are not capable of formal operational thought. Adolescents who do acquire formal operational thought may become more argumentative and find flaws in other's arguments or rules, making adolescents more interesting, but also more challenging.

Labouvie-Vief expanded on Piaget's theory adding that young adults are capable of engaging in post formal thought or thinking that acknowledges that some problems are ambiguous. In other words there isn't always a right or wrong solution, rather we must draw from our own experiences to make the best decision on a case by case basis.