The two major criticisms are that Piaget underestimated children’s abilities,
especially during infancy, and that there does not seem to be evidence
for the unified stages he proposed. More recent research has
demonstrated that infants can form mental representations and
demonstrate object permanence at a much earlier age than Piaget predicted.
Also, they often show performance indicative of several stages
at once, as when a child passes the number conservation task but fails
the liquid task. It seems that progress through the stages is not unified:
It is not shown simultaneously across tasks and contexts. Still, Piaget
left a tremendous legacy for child development. He emphasized the
active, constructive nature of children’s learning, and many of the
cognitive developmental trends he observed have been verified by
research. Egocentrism and intuitive thought decline with development
as the use of objective logic and abstract thought emerge. Piaget’s impact
on educational practice, especially his emp