Critical evaluation of Piaget’s theory on cognitive development

 It is argued that one of Piaget’s main criticisms is that he underestimates children in his theory (Lourenco & Machado, 1996).

Donaldson argued that most preschool children are capable of solving problems associated with operational thought if they were given help and was very critical of Piaget’s experimental methodology as situations weren’t presented as optimal and helpful as they could have, not showing us the child’s true potential (Sutherland, 1992).

Though it proves higher competency in children than previously thought by Piaget (see Donaldson, 1978 and Grieve And haghes 1990,

the studies that try to demonstrate operational thought on preoperational children haven’t brought any evidence that these competencies are equivalent to the operational and the logic mathematical competencies which Piaget was interested (Lourenco & Machado, 1996).

Another criticism to Piaget’s theory is that he establishes age norms disconfirmed by data. Operational thought in pre-operational children has been shown to have controversy as it has been theorised that children develop operational thought not in one bunch, but in different areas of cognition (Sutherland, 1992).

Furthermore, the sensorimotor stage has lacked evidence on babies thinking ability (Sutherland, 1992). 

Lourenco and Machado, 1996, argued that Piaget was primarily interested in sequence of changes instead of age attainments.

Furthermore, it is argued that Piaget characterizes development negatively, however, his theory is based on the conception of development as a transition from absence to presence which is what constructivist beyond Piaget claimed.

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