Selected Theories of Cognitive Development

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Cognitive development refers to the growth and change in a child’s mental abilities, including their capacity to learn, think, reason, remember, and problem-solve (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019). It encompasses the development of a wide range of intellectual skills such as reading, writing, mathematics, attention, metacognition, critical thinking, and executive function. Recognizing and understanding the phases and patterns of cognitive development is important for educators, as it enables them to tailor their teaching methods and materials to suit the evolving cognitive capabilities of their students. Further, understanding cognitive development can help teachers identify when a student might need additional support to ensure their success, both in and outside the classroom. Cognitive development is an exciting and much explored topic within psychology and education. As a result, covering all the major theories in this area is beyond the scope of this text. Instead, we will focus on two historical theories that are still referenced in modern education: Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development and Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory.

Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was a mid-20th century Swiss psychologist who theorized that children actively construct knowledge as they explore and interact with their world (Smith, 2017).  He believed that cognitive development occurs across four stages:

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years): During this stage, children learn about their world through motor movement (e.g., grabbing objects and putting them into their mouth, crawling and pulling up on furniture, etc.). They also develop object permanence, an understanding that physical items continue to exist even when they are not visible.
2. Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years): During the preoperational stage, children begin to engage in symbolic play, for example, pretending that they are having a phone conversation by holding a block to their ear. They are beginning to think logically but are likely to struggle with causal relationships and understanding others’ perspectives. Thus, children within this age range tend to be highly egocentric and are likely to engage in animism (treating inanimate objects as if they were alive); they are also likely to engage in magical thinking (believing that their thoughts and wishes can cause real-life events to occur).
3. Concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years): Children at this stage begin to think more logically about concrete events and can use this understanding to engage in more effective problem-solving. They may still struggle to think abstractly and may benefit from hands-on activities using physical objects when learning complex ideas.
4. Formal operational stage (12 years and up): At this stage, children’s cognitive abilities have developed to approximate adult levels, which allows for abstract thinking, logical reasoning, and problem-solving. They can be expected to understand metaphors, deduce hypotheses, and plan systematically.

These stages were first proposed as universal and invariant, with Piaget hypothesizing that they should occur in the same order and pace for all children, regardless of cultural background or experiences. However, more recent research has suggested that a variety of factors might influence the pace at which children progress through the stages (Lally & Valentine-French, 2019).. Thus, Piaget’s stages are best thought of as guidelines for how cognitive development will generally progress rather than specific age-related milestones.

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky, an early-20th century Russian psychologist, offered a different perspective on cognitive development by emphasizing the social and cultural context in which children grow and develop. According to Vygotsky, cognitive development is driven by the child’s interaction with more knowledgeable others (MKOs) – peers, parents, or teachers – who provide support during the learning process. He hypothesized that a gap exists between the tasks a child can perform independently and those that they can perform with support, which he termed the Zone of Proximal Development. By providing learning support or scaffolding, MKOs can help advance a child’s development on a task directly; over time, the amount of scaffolding required should decrease to the point where the child can perform the task independently (Pagano & Parnes, 2022).

Vygotsky’s theory suggests that effective learning happens through social interaction and collaboration, which would mean that cognitive development can be impacted by the frequency and types of experiences children have with MKOs (Pagano & Parnes, 2022). This highlights the role of a child’s environment in their development and offers a strategy that parents and teachers can use to help promote positive learning experiences.

A Way Forward

Taken together, Piaget’s stage theory can help educators by offering a general, expected progression of cognitive skills, while Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory can be used to design classroom activities that support students as they continue to develop more advanced cognitive abilities. For example, Piaget’s theory would suggest that a pre-operational child may struggle with the idea of reversibility when solving a math problem (e.g., if 3 + 4 = 7, what does 7 – 3 equal?). Therefore, when designing a lesson on this concept, a teacher might initially provide a great deal of guidance to scaffold the learning experience but reduce the amount of support provided over time until the student can solve the problem independently.