I chose to write my paper on Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Abilities. I chose this


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...