Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory

UNDERSTANDING
Cognitive is a process that happens internally in the central nervous system at the time humans are thinking (Gagne in Jamaris, 2006). The term "Cognitive" comes from the word cognition means understanding, understand. Understanding the extent of cognition (cognition) is the acquisition, structuring, and use of knowledge (Neisser, 1976). In further developments, then the term cognitive has become popular as one of the areas of human psychology / single general concept that encompasses all forms of recognition that includes any mental behaviors associated with problem understanding, caring, giving, thought, consideration, information processing, problem solving, deliberate, consideration, imagine, predict, thought and belief. Including mental health centers in the brain is also associated with konasi (the will) and affective (feeling) is concerned with taste. According to experts kognitifis flow of soul, a person's behavior is always based on cognition, the act of knowing or thinking about a situation where the behavior occurred.

BASIC PRINCIPLES Piaget's theory
• Jean Piaget (Swiss psychologist who lived in 1896-1980) is known as a comprehensive theory of intellectual development, which reflects the existence of forces between biological and psychological function.
• Piaget explain intelligence itself as a biological adaptation to the environment. For example: humans do not have a fluffy coat to protect it from cold, people do not have the speed to escape predators, humans also do not have the expertise in climbing trees. But humans have the versatility to produce clothing and vehicles for transportation.

3 Aspects of Intelligence
According to Piaget, intelligence can be viewed from three different perspectives:

1. Also called structure schemes (schemata / Schemas). The structure and organization found in the environment, but the human mind more than imitate the structure of external reality passively. Interaction of the human mind with the outside world, matching the world into a "mental framework" of his own. Cognitive structure is the mental framework which is built one by taking information from the environment and interpret it, mereorganisasikannya and transforming them (Flavell, Miller & Miller, 1993).

2 things vital to remember about building cognitive structures: 1) a person actively involved in developing the process. 2) an environment where people interact is important for structural development.

Piaget did not see the cognitive structure as a biological mechanism outward. He does not believe that children enter the world with the "basic tools" for understanding reality. The children are slowly and gradually build their own perspective on reality. Formation of cognitive structures begin early in life soon after the baby started to have experience with the environment. But is not a new-born baby does not have any experience on the environment? Piaget believed that a baby is not fully experienced a structure which has been formed who programmed them to interact with the environment, this so called physical structures, such as the human brain and nervous system and sensory organ2 specific. And reflexes which is called the "automatic behavioral reactions." Babies train these structures in the interaction with the environment & begin immediately to develop the cognitive structures.

2. Content is also called content, that is specific behavior patterns of individuals when facing something the problem. Is a coarse material, because Piaget less interested in what children know, but more interested in what the underlying thought processes. Piaget saw the "content" is less important than the structure & function, if the content is "what" of intelligence, while the "how" & "why" is determined by the cognitive or intellectual.

3. Called Functions fungtion, which is a process by which cognitive structures are built. All living organisms interact with the environment which has the function through a process of organization and adaptation. Organization: uuntuk tend to integrate themselves and the world into a form of the parts into a whole distinguished meaningfully, as a way to reduce complexity. Adaptation to the environment occurs in 2 ways:

a. organisms manipulate the outside world in a way makes it similar to himself. This process is called assimilation. Assimilation takes something from the outside world and fitting it into the structure which already exists. For example: humans assimilate food by making it into the components of nutrition, the foods they eat become a part of themselves.
b. organism to modify itself so that it becomes more like its environment. This process is called accommodation. When someone accommodate something, they change themselves to meet external requirements. For example: body not only food but also accommodate assimilate by secreting gastric juices to destroy and digest the involuntary contractions of the stomach.

Through the adjustment process, the system is changing and evolving one's cognition that can be increased from one stage to the top. Adjustment process is carried out an individual because he wanted to reach a state of equilibrium, namely a state of balance between the structure of cognition with experience in the environment. Someone will always strive for a balanced state is always achieved by using both the above adjustment process.

Thus, developing one's cognition is not due to receive knowledge passively from the outside but the person is actively constructing knowledge.


 DEVELOPMENT STAGES
Piaget's cognitive development of children divided into 4 main periods that correlate with increasingly sophisticated and as you age:

1. Sensorimotor Period (age 0-2 years)
2. Preoperational period (ages 2-7 years)
3. Concrete operational period (age 7-11 years)
4. Formal operational period (age 11 to adult)

1. Sensorimotor Period
According to Piaget, infants are born with some innate reflex as well as encouragement to explore his world. The scheme was originally formed through differentiation of these innate reflex. Sensorimotor period is the first period of four periods. Piaget argued that this stage marks the development of essential spatial abilities and understanding in the six sub-stages:
a. Sub-reflex schema stage, appearing at birth until the age of six weeks and is associated mainly with the reflex.
b. Sub-stage primary circular reaction phase, from ages six weeks to four months and is associated mainly with the emergence of habits.
c. Sub-stage secondary circular reaction phase, appearing between the ages of four to nine months and is associated mainly with the coordination between vision and meaning.
d. Sub-phase coordination of secondary circular reactions, arise from age nine to twelve months, while developing the ability to see objects as something that is permanent even though it seems different when viewed from different angles (object permanence).
e. Sub-stage tertiary circular reactions phase, appeared at the age of twelve to eighteen months and is associated mainly with the discovery of new ways to achieve goals.
f. Sub-early stages of symbolic representation, associated especially with early stages of creativity.

2. Preoperational stage of
This stage is the second phase of four phases. By observing the order of play, Piaget was able to show that after the end of the age of two qualitatively new kind of psychological functions emerge. Thought (Pre) Operations in Piaget's theory is a procedure mentally action against the objects. The hallmark of this stage is a rare mental operations and logically inadequate. In this stage, children learn to use and represent objects by images and words. His thinking is still egocentric: children difficult to see from others' viewpoints. Children can classify objects using one characteristic, such as collecting all the red objects even though the shape of different objects or collect all round even though the color is different.

According to Piaget, the stages of pre-operational following the sensorimotor stage and appear between ages two to six years. In this stage, children develop skills berbahasanya. They began to represent objects with words and pictures. However, they still use intuitive rather than logical reasoning. At the beginning of this stage, they tend to be egocentric, that is, they can not understand his place in the world and how they relate to each other. They have trouble understanding how the feelings of those around them. But as the maturation, the ability to understand another person's perspective, the better. Children have a very imaginative mind in the moment and regard every living thing that does not even have feelings.

3. Concrete Operational Stage
This stage is the third stage of four stages. Appear between the ages of six to twelve years and has characteristics of an adequate use of logic. These processes are important during this phase are:

Sequencing-ability to mengurutan objects by size, shape, or other characteristics. For example, when given the objects of different sizes, they can be sorted from the largest object to the smallest.

Classification-the ability to name and identify a set of objects according to appearance, size, or other characteristics, including the idea that a series of objects can include an object into the circuit. Children no longer have the limitations of logic in the form of animism (the notion that all living things and callous)

Decentering children begin to consider some aspects of a problem to solve. For example, the child will no longer consider a wide but short cup less content than the small cups are high.

Reversibility children begin to understand that the amount or objects can be changed, then returned to the initial state. For that, children can quickly determine that 4 +4 equals 8, 8-4 will equal 4, the number earlier.

Conservation-understanding that quantity, length or number of objects is not related to the setting or appearance of the object or objects. For example, if the child is given a cup the size and contents are the same lot, they will know when water is poured into another glass of different size, the water in the glass will remain the same lot with another cup.

Removal of the nature of egocentrism-the ability to see things from the viewpoint of others (even when people are thinking the wrong way.) For example, show that showed Siti comic store doll in the box, and then left the room, then Ujang move the doll into a drawer, only then Siti back into the room. Children in the concrete operations stage will say that Siti would continue to treat the doll in the box even though the boy knew that the mannequin was transferred into a drawer by Ujang.

4. Formal Operational Stage
Formal operational stage is the final period of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage began to experience the child in the age of eleven (at puberty) and continues into adulthood. Characteristics of this stage is to get the ability to think abstractly, reason logically, and draw conclusions from available information. In this stage, one can understand such things as love, logical proof, and value. He does not see things only in black and white, but there are "shades of gray" in between. Viewed from a biological factor, this phase appears at puberty (when there is a variety of other major changes), marking its entry into the adult world in physiological, cognitive, moral reasoning, psychosexual development, and social development. Some people do not fully achieve the progress to this stage, so he does not have the skills to think as an adult and still use the reasoning from the concrete operational stage.

General information about the stages
The fourth stage has the following characteristics:
• Although the stages can be achieved in the age varies but the order is always the same. No stage is skipped and there is no order to retreat.
• Universal (not related to culture)
• Can be generalized: representation and logic from existing operations in a person applies to all concepts and content knowledge
• The stages in the form of an organized whole is logically
• A sequence of hierarchical stages (each stage includes the elements of previous stages, but more differentiated and integrated)
• Stages represent qualitative differences in the model of thinking, not just a quantitative difference

CRITICISM OF THE THEORY Piaget
Most psychologists fully accept the general principles of Piaget that children's thinking is fundamentally different from adult thinking, and kind of logic that children change with age. However, there are also researchers who fuss about the details of Piaget's findings, especially regarding the age when children are able to accomplish specific tasks.

1. In a classic study, McGarrigle and Donalson (1974) states that children are able to understand conservation (conservation) in a younger age than the age which is believed by Piaget.
2. Another study that criticized Piaget's theory is that children are just reaching an understanding of object permanence at the age of 6 months. Balillargeon and De Vos (1991); 104 children were observed until they were 18 years old, and tested with a variety of formal operational tasks based on the tasks used by Piaget, including the testing of hypotheses. The majority of the children did not reach the formal operational stage. This is consistent with studies McGarrigle and Donaldson and Baillargeon and DeVos, who stated that Piaget underestimated the ability of small children and too high to assess the ability of children who are older.
3. And recently, Bradmetz (1999) to test Piaget's statement that the majority of children reach the formal at the end of childhood.