Types of Intellectual Development from Adolescent Stage to Adulthood: Critical Analysis

Introduction:

The article I’ve written for this classic research article was Intellectual Evolution from Adolescence to Adulthood, by J. Piaget. The purpose of this research article was to differentiate the intellectual growth from the teen years to adulthood, though the article does mention children between 7 and 10 years of age, as well as children younger than 7, this article mostly focuses on the intellectual growth development from the adolescent stage to the adult stage. Also in this research article, Piaget also explained the principle characteristics of the many intellectual characteristics from 12-15 and the results that were hypothesized differently.

The Structures of Formal Thought:

Some of the key information mentioned in this article was the Structures of formal thought and the problems of the passage from adolescent to adult thought. From the structures of formal thought, Piaget explained that the rate at which a child progresses through developmental succession varies, especially from one culture to another. This will be explained later on in this paper. Piaget also explained that there really isn’t a period that separates adolescence from adulthood and that very little is known.

It was also mentioned that the psychology of adolescence is often reduced to the psychology of puberty, and how the psychology of adolescence is often forgotten. This could be because the different formal stages of adolescence aren’t usually covered in the sense that puberty is covered. Many intellectual changes occur from 12-15 years of age. The growth of intellectual structures tend to slow between the period of 12-15 years of age, but the speed of development varies from one person to another. The article also mentions that some children advance quicker than others, but all children will pass the formation of the sensorimotor stage.

The acquisition of language, mental imagery and the formation of the symbolic function can sometimes be incomplete until a child reaches 7 and 8. The child usually lacks comprehension of ideas at this stage. Stable and coherent structures play a big role in the logic of reversible actions between 7-8 and 11-12. The article mentions that the child can still reason through objects, classes and numbers, but the hypotheses are often lacking and will take awhile before they’re known to be true or false. Children who are capable of concrete reasoning associate terms with other terms they’re most familiar with and no specific class relates in the way of different objects.

Also mentioned in this research article is at 11-12 years of age to at least 15, this stage highlights a series of novelties and more a more complete logic of equilibrium tend to develop at this stage as well. The principle of novelty is when one has capability to reason in terms of verbally stated hypotheses, but not on concrete objects as children are usually well passed this stage. At 7-8, the child can obtain some logical reasoning, but this is only to the extent of applying certain operations to certain concrete objects and events.

Piaget also explained that adolescents can understand and even construct their own theories into events relative to the society they live in and the understanding of the adults around them. In some circumstances, some adolescents can have a desire to create a new society in their own imaginations, mostly due to them already being at the formal reasoning stage by this time.

The Problems of Passage from Adolescent to Adult Theories:

These experiments unfortunately came with some challenges. The article mentioned that students from different schools and or different social environments tend to come up with results that were different than the ones that were normally indicated. It was also mentioned that many of the students experimented even stayed at the concrete level, even well into adolescence. These studies were done in Geneva, France and New York, and it shows various results on intellectual development. Some groups showed slower growth development than other groups. The four periods of development were distinguished; sensorimotor stage before language, the preoperative period from 1-2 to 6-7, and the period of concrete operations from 7-8 and 11-12. It was also demonstrated that the age at which children go through each of these stages varied, as they also consisted of different social environments and schools as well, and country. The development of the first 3 periods will also slow if stimulation and activity are poor, but if the stimulation and activity are in good standing, the development of the first 3 periods will likely increase.

Mathematics, Physics, and logical reasoning was also mentioned in this article and they made a big difference in concrete structures of children in 7-10 than literary or artistic abilities. The demonstration of concrete structures was less general in literary and artistic abilities than math, physics, and logical reasoning and it solely depended on whether part 1 appeared or didn’t appear in children 14-15 years of age. The rapid growth of diversification plays a major role in under-development or normal development, as it also mentioned that children from poor backgrounds tend to be more under-developed than children from higher backgrounds.

Piaget also used examples of apprentices, carpenters, locksmiths, and mechanics, who also had limited general education. Piaget concluded they could reason in a “hypothetical” manner in their specialty. Piaget also concluded that they could think formally in their particular fields, but they would often lack knowledge and many of the ideas familiar to children who are in high school or college, they would often forget. These individuals were concluded on being at the concrete level

Conclusion:

Piaget concluded that the passage from adolescence to adulthood needed to be further studied, as there were many unresolved questions and overall, the study wasn’t completed in greater detail. Piaget asked the question “Can one demonstrate, at this level of development as at previous levels, cognitive structures common to all individuals which will, however, be applied or used differently by each person according to his particular activities?” Piaget’s answer was positive, but he stated that the experimental methods in psychology and sociology must also be established in order to get proper and more accurate results. If this subject matter was well known, the differentiation would have been better analyzed because studies like this would’ve been done more frequently.

The Author’s Purpose:

The author’s purpose for writing this article was to distinguish the different types of intellectual growth from the adolescent stage to adulthood. This could be a very important study because, it would need to be determined the types of intellectual development is taking place from youth to adulthood, as well as the pace of intellectual development and the variations between social environments, and the schools where children come from. These variables provide good examples on how to properly conduct research on intellectual development.