Náležitosti

 
1.2 
Cognitive Development 
Is seems to be practical to start with the quotation of Carol Seefeldt:
Teachers accepting the fact that children are interactive, endose the cognitive 
developmental theory of learning
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. These teachers believe that children are 
action- oriented, searching, seeking, adapting beings. (1980, 31)
According to the cognitive developmental theory of learning ´the concrete operational 
stage´ is the third of the four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory 
occurring from the ages of seven to twelve, and is characterized by the appropriate use 
of logic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_development, page 4) But there are 
some authors disagreeing with some areas of the Piaget´s theory. For example Opal 
Dunn warns
The individual differences and especially cognitive differences between young 
children of the same age are so great… If a child is asked to learn a certain 
skill before he is ready, he cannot do it. The failure results in disappointment 
and sometimes lost of interest… Only a child who has confidence in his own 
abilities can reach out and learn tolerate to others, to try new things, to learn. 
(1983, 12-40)
In the research four important facts concerning the area of cognitive development will 
be taken into consideration. Firstly, learners differ in their abilities, of course not only in 
the area of cognitive development. Secondly, children are action-oriented. Thirdly, 
children do not go through one type of development at one time, as development is a 
1
The theory of cognitive development is a developmental psychology theory developed by Jean Piaget to 
explain cognitive development. The theory is central to child psychology and is based on schemata — 
schemes of how one perceives the world — in ´critical periods´ times, when children are particularly 
susceptible to certain information. Piaget divided schemes that children use to understand the world 
through four main stages, roughly correlated with and becoming increasingly sophisticated with age: 
sensor-motor stage (birth to 2 years), preoperational stage (end of the 2
nd
year – 7), concrete operational 
stage (7-12), formal operational stage (12 - adulthood).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_development. Updated 23 January 2006 [viewed 29 January 2006] 

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complex process. Fourthly, in second language learning only such requirements that 
have already been mastered both in children’s mother tongue and in their cognitive 
development can be practised. With the cognitive development the areas of physical, 
social and emotional, and language development connect closely and these are to be 
discussed too in the following chapters.