In studying cognitive functioning in children, three basic approaches will be briefly

examined, namely:

 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, which examines the development of

children’s logical reasoning abilities and the qualitive changes that occur with age in
how chidren think,learn and understand their world.
 Information processing Theory , which studies human thought by comparing it with
the workings of a computer in wich children input information from the environment.
Process it, and draw upon information stored in memory to make life decisions.
 Sociociltural Theory, which investigates the impact that social interactions and
specific cultural practices have on shaping the development of children’s cognitive
skills.

Piaget’s Theory of cognitive development

Piaget, the swiss-born developmental psychologist, formulated the first

comprehensive theory cognitive development (1970). He believed that all normal, healthy
children go through the same major periods of development, in the same sequence at
approximately the same time (age), and that this developmental process cannot be
significanly accelerated through training. Cognitive development, he stated,occurs in stages,
and children’s understanding of the world is limited by their cognitive structures, wich
change as they develov, becoming increasingly more abstract and complex. Piaget identified
four stages of development:

 Sensorimotor Period (ages 0-2), in which a child’s world is limited to sensory

awareness and motor acts.
 Preoprational Period (ages2-7), in which children are not yet capable of logical or
systematic reasoning but are able to deal with the world symbolically or
representationally using language, mental images, and their imagination.
 Concrete Oprasional Period (ages7-11), in which children begin to demonstrate a
greater capacity for logical reasoning at a very concrete level regarding those areas of
life in which they have had direct personal experience.
 Formal Oprational Period in (ages11 years and older) in which older children,
adolescents, and adults are capable of reasoning logically and systematically about
abstract issues and hypothetical situation.

Middle childhood (ages7-11) is a time when children are facing major challenges in
their lives, the most significant of which is adapting to the rigors of a formal
education that places high demands on their cognitive abilities. The cognitive changes
from early to middle childhood are not beconsidered dramatic or revolutionary, but
rather represent a refinement in skills that begin to evelve during the preschool years
(DeHart,Stroufe,&cooper,2000).
Somewhere between the ages of 5 and 7, children begin to be treated differently with
repost to observeble changes in their c Ognitive skills. Manny cultures