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Piaget spent his career attempting to explain the cognitive development of children. That is, how their intellectual level changes over time. He defined intelligence as a basic life process that is expressed by an animal's ability to adapt to its environment. The impetus for this cognitive development is a need to adapt to one's environment in order to survive, reproduce, live comfortably, etc. Piaget proposed that in order to grow intellectually, children develop increasingly more …

…the person was raised in an adequately stimulating environment. All children should go through the four stages of cognitive development, however people end up with differing schemes or understandings of their environment. This explains the multifarious opinions and thoughts we all have. Individual differences are a result of differing environmental influences. According to Piaget, children are constructivists, meaning that a differing environment will lead to differing scheme organization and therefore differing adaptation, assimilation, and accommodation.