Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Explained
Background and Key Concepts of Piaget's Theory
Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four
different stages of learning. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children
acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.1 Piaget's stages are:

Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years

Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7
Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11
Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, acting much like
little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the world.
As kids interact with the world around them, they continually add new knowledge, build
upon existing knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to accommodate new information.
The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive
Development
During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge
through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's entire experience at the
earliest period of this stage occurs through basic reflexes, senses, and motor responses.

Birth to 2 Years

 Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:

 Know the world through movements and sensations
 Learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and
listening
 Learn that things continue to exist even when they cannot be seen (object
permanence)
 Realize that they are separate beings from the people and objects around them
 Realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them
 During the sensorimotor stage, children go through a period of dramatic growth and
learning. As kids interact with their environment, they continually make new
discoveries about how the world works.
 The cognitive development that occurs during this period takes place over a relatively
short time and involves a great deal of growth. Children not only learn how to perform
physical actions such as crawling and walking; they also learn a great deal about
language from the people with whom they interact. Piaget also broke this stage down
into substages. Early representational thought emerges during the final part of the
sensorimotor stage.
 Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy, the
understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an
important element at this point of development.
 By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an
existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin
to attach names and words to objects.

The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive

Development
The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but
the emergence of language is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of
development.3

2 to 7 Years
  Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:
 Begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects
 Tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others
 Getting better with language and thinking, but still tend to think in very concrete terms
 At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking
the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea
of constancy.
 Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development,
yet they continue to think very concretely about the world around them.
 For example, a researcher might take a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces,
and then give a child the choice between two pieces of clay to play with. One piece of
clay is rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into a flat pancake shape.
Because the flat shape looks larger, the preoperational child will likely choose that
piece, even though the two pieces are exactly the same size.

The Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive

Development
While children are still very concrete and literal in their thinking at this point in
development, they become much more adept at using logic.2 The egocentrism of the previous
stage begins to disappear as kids become better at thinking about how other people might
view a situation.

7 to 11 Years
 Major characteristics and developmental changes during this stage:
 Begin to think logically about concrete events
 Begin to understand the concept of conservation; that the amount of liquid in a short,
wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for example
 Thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
 Begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general
principle
 While thinking becomes much more logical during the concrete operational state, it
can also be very rigid. Kids at this point in development tend to struggle with abstract
and hypothetical concepts.
 During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how
other people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to
understand that their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else
necessarily shares their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
The Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive
Development
The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive
reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas.3 At this point, adolescents and young
adults become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more
scientifically about the world around them.

Age 12 and Up
 Major characteristics and developmental changes during this time:
 Begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems
 Begins to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues
that require theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begins to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific
information
 The ability to thinking about abstract ideas and situations is the key hallmark of the
formal operational stage of cognitive development. The ability to systematically plan
for the future and reason about hypothetical situations are also critical abilities that
emerge during this stage.

Important Cognitive Development Concepts

It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's intellectual development as a
quantitative process. That is, kids do not just add more information and knowledge to their
existing knowledge as they get older.

Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how children think as they
gradually process through these four stages. At age 7, children don't just have more
information about the world than they did at age 2; there is a fundamental change
in how they think about the world.

Piaget suggested several factors that influence how children learn and grow.

Schemas
A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and
knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the
world.

In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of
obtaining that knowledge. As experiences happen, this new information is used to modify,
add to, or change previously existing schemas.
For example, a child may have a schema about a type of animal, such as a dog. If the child's
sole experience has been with small dogs, a child might believe that all dogs are small, furry,
and have four legs. Suppose then that the child encounters an enormous dog. The child will
take in this new information, modifying the previously existing schema to include these new
observations.

Assimilation
The process of taking in new information into our already existing schemas is known as
assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective because we tend to modify experiences
and information slightly to fit in with our preexisting beliefs. In the example above, seeing a
dog and labeling it "dog" is a case of assimilating the animal into the child's dog schema.

Accommodation
Another part of adaptation is the ability to change existing schemas in light of new
information; this process is known as accommodation. New schemas may also be developed
during this process.

Equilibration
As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain
a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to
account for new knowledge (accommodation).

Piaget believed that all children try to strike a balance between assimilation and
accommodation using a mechanism he called equilibration. Equilibration helps explain how
children can move from one stage of thought to the next.