I chose to write my paper on Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Abilities.
topic because I as well as many people in my family have been labeled "gifted" early on .
in school. I realize that this is a measure of intelligence defined as the potential for .
learning, however none of us labeled gifted have done anything more successful than .
other members of my family. I fact the opposite may be true. Perhaps a gifted labeling .
made us all lazy. Nonetheless, I would like to know how Piaget's theory relates to how .
intelligence is measured.
Piaget became fascinated early in his studies with the discovery that children of the .
same age often gave the same incorrect answers to questions, suggesting that there were .
consistent, qualitative differences in the nature of reasoning of different ages, not simply .
a quanitive increase in the amount of intelligence or knowledge. This discovery marked .
the beginning of Piaget's continuing effort to identify changes in the way children think, .
how they perceive their world in different ways at different points in development. The .
different stages postulated by Piaget help to explain different rates of learning at different .
ages as well as the types of learning possible at different ages for the majority of the .
population. Learning itself is seen by Piaget as a process of discovery on the part of the .
individual, and learning as a formal activity becomes a system of organization, by which .
instruction is enhanced by the way the teacher arranges experience. Learning is thus .
experimental, and Piaget suggests that experiences have meaning to the extent that they .
can be assimilated. There are two principal learning theories in psychology, one of which .
focuses on the learning process while the other focuses on ones capacity to learn. Piaget .
offered a biological theory of intelligence that he presented as a unified approach to .
intelligence and learning. Piaget restricted the idea of learning to an acquisition of new .
