PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 

Stage 1: Sensorimotor Thought (birth-2 years)

- Babies are stuck in the HERE AND NOW world they “know the world only in terms of their own sensory input (what they see, smell, taste, touch, and hear) and their physical or motor actions on it (e.g. sucking, reaching, grasping)

INFANTS ARE BORN WITH A SET OF CONGENITAL REFLEXES:

1. The first sub-stage, known as the reflex schema stage, occurs from birth to six weeks and is associated primarily with the development of reflexes. Three primaries are described by Piaget: sucking of objects in the mouth, when an object contacts the palm (palmar grasp.) Over these first six weeks of life, these reflexes become intentional grasping.

2. The second sub-stage, primary circular reaction phase, occurs from six weeks to four months and is associated primarily with the development of habits. Primary circular reactions or repeating of an action involving only one’s own body begins. 

3. The third sub-stage, the secondary circular reactions phase, occurs from four to nine months and is associated primarily with the development of coordination between vision and apprehension. 

4. The fourth sub-stage, called the coordination of secondary circular reactions stage, which occurs from nine to twelve months, is when Piaget thought that object permanence developed. 

5. The fifth sub-stage, the tertiary circular reaction phase, occurs from twelve to eighteen months and is associated primarily with the discovery of new means to meet goals.

6. The six sub-stage considered “beginnings of symbolic representations”, is associated primarily with the beginnings of insight, or true creativity. 

Stage 2: Preoperational Thought (2-7 years) 

- The preoperational stage is the second of four stages of cognitive development. By observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to demonstrate that towards the end of the second year, a qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs. (Pre) Operatory Thought in Piagetian theory is any procedure for mentally acting on objects. The hallmark of the preoperational stage is sparse and logically inadequate mental operations.

The Pre-Operational stage of development follows the sensorimotor stage and occurs between 2-7 years of age. It includes the following processes:

• Symbolic functioning -characterized using mental symbols, words, or pictures, which the child uses to represent something which is not physically present.

• Centration – characterized by a child focusing or attending to only one aspect of a stimulus or situation. For example, in pouring of quantity of liquid from a narrow beaker into a shallow dish, a preschool child may judge the quantity of liquid to have decreased, because it is “lower”- that is, the child attends to the height of the water, but not to the compensating increase in the diameter of the container.

• Intuitive thought – occurs when the child can believe in something without knowing why she or he believes it.

• Egocentrism- a version of centration, this denotes a tendency of a child to only think from her of his own point of view. Also, this refers to the inability of a child to take the point of view of others.

• Inability to Conserve- Through Piaget’s conservation experiments (conservation of mass, volume and number), Piaget concluded that children in the preoperational stage lack perception of conservation of mass, volume, and number after the original form has changed. 

• Animism – The child believes that inanimate objects have “lifelife” qualities and are capable of action. 

Stage 3: Concrete Operational Thought (7-11 years) 

- The concrete stage is the third of four stages of human development in Piaget’s theory. This stage occurs between the ages 7-11 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic.

Important processes during this stage are:

• Seriation – the ability to arrange objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different -shaded objects, they make a color gradient.

• Classification – the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size, and other characteristic, including the idea that one set of ·        objects can include another. A child is no longer subject to the illogical limitations of animism (the belief that all objects are alive and therefore have feelings).

• Decentering – where the child considers multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. 

• Reversibility- where the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state.

• Conservation- understanding that quantity, length, or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items. 

• Elimination of Egocentrism- the ability to view things from another’s perspective (even if they think incorrectly). 

Stage 4: Formal Operational Thought (age 12 and up)

- The formal operational period is the fourth and the final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 11 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly, reason logically, and draw a conclusion from the information available. During this stage, the young adult can understand such things as love, “shades of gray”, logical proofs, and values.

5 IMPORTANT HIGHER-LEVEL COGNITIVE ABILITIES                    

1. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning -  “ability to plan systematic tests to explore multiple variables” 

2. Abstract Thought - “Thought about things that are not real or tangible”                       

3. Separating Reality from Possibility - direction of thinking about reality and possibility reverses: … reality is thought of as only one of many possible outcomes”                

4. Combinational Logic - Thinking about multiple aspects and combining them logically to solve problems.

5. Reflective Thinking - Thinking about your own thinking.