Summary of the Contributions and Shortcomings
Of Piaget’s Theory.

This essay will be summarising the contributions and shortcomings of the Cognitive-Developmental theory and firstly explore the background and key concept’s of Piaget’s work behind child development. Secondly Piaget’s ideas about cognitive change and the four stages of development from birth which are the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage and how this impacts development. Thirdly the main weaknesses of the cognitive theory and why, and look at whether any studies/theories support or refute Piaget’s theory and if they are credible to apply to real life. Finally determining whether Piaget’s theory …show more content…

Psychologists such as Samuel and Bryant challenged Piaget’s idea and replicated his experiment which they found that areas of Piaget’s theory did support their findings however they did highlight that Piaget's theory of cognitive development places too much emphasis on maturational factors, and believed that children learn as individuals. Piaget also states that egocentrism in children started later on in development 7-12 years old, but Samuel and Bryant experiment proved otherwise and argued that children started to think for themselves a lot earlier on. They also highlight that ‘children do not learn in isolation and that they learn far more readily and efficiently when they are working together than when they are alone’ (J.McShane). This next paragraph is going to look at the positive aspects of the cognitive theory and how Piaget theory has made a great impact in child development.

Although not all of Piaget work has been supported it has been very beneficial in the area of child psychology. He was among one of the first psychologists to describe and explain development which was the starting point on the research of cognitive development. What his theory has accomplished is it’s made an influence in education and