Piaget provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults, and his research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology.

What did Jean Piaget study? Jean Piaget studied zoology (doctorate, 1918) and philosophy at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and psychology at the University of Zürich (1919) and in Paris under Pierre Janet and Théodore Simon, among others (1919–21).

Piaget discovered that children think and reason differently at different periods in their lives. He believed that everyone passed through an invariant sequence of four qualitatively distinct stages. Invariant means that a person cannot skip stages or reorder them.

Historical origins: The history and theory of cognitive development

Activities – shapes in a shape sorter, learning to ride a bicycle. Creativity – being able to express imaginative ideas in a unique way . Activities – painting, drawing, collage, dance, music, cardboard box toy. Memory – the ability to store and recall information, ideas and events.

Cognitive processes In the taxonomy, intellectual skills such as reasoning, problem solving, concept formation and creative thinking were categorized in terms of increasingly complex behaviors. The categories of intellectual skills were comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Intellectual development: the learning and use of language; the ability to reason, problem-solve, and organize ideas; it is related to the physical growth of the brain. Social development: the process of gaining the knowledge and skills needed to interact successfully with others.

Early child development is underpinned by brain development, by genetic and epigenetic inheritance and by physical development. Two key features of early childhood development that researchers study are ‘self-regulation’ and ‘executive function’. Parental care shapes early childhood development.

This chapter outlines several fundamental themes that arise again and again in the study of child development: nature and nurture, the active child, continuity/discontinuity, how change occurs, the sociocultural context, individual differences, and how research can improve children’s welfare.

Concept Development focuses on strategies the teacher uses to promote children’s higher-order thinking skills and cognition. It is not rote teaching. Instead, it is the method a teacher uses to get children to think about the how and why of learning.

Child development covers the full scope of skills that a child masters over their life span including development in: Cognition – the ability to learn and problem solve. Social interaction and emotional regulation – interacting with others and mastering self-control.