Important Concepts

To better understand some of the things that happen during cognitive development, it is
important first to examine a few of the important ideas and concepts introduced by Piaget.

The following are some of the factors that influence how children learn and grow:

 Schema
 Assimilation
 Equilibration

The 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

~ Jean Piaget
The Sensorimotor Stage
Ages: Birth to 2 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations
 Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking,
and listening
 Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen (object
permanence)
 They are separate beings from the people and objects around them
 They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them
The Preoperational Stage
Ages: 2 to 7 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.
 Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of
others.
 While they are getting better with language and thinking, they still tend to think about things in
very concrete terms.
The Concrete Operational Stage
Ages: 7 to 11 Years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes

 During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events
 They 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
 Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete
 Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general
principle
The Formal Operational Stage
Ages: 12 and Up

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

 At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about
hypothetical problems
 Abstract thought emerges
 Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that
require theoretical and abstract reasoning
 Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information
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CONCEPT

Sensorimotor stage: 
The first stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, in which thinking is organized by motor schemes and a
major accomplishment, is object permanence.

CHARACTERS
Motor Schemes
Patterns of action used to interact with the environment developed during the sensorimotor stage of
cognitive development.

Infants acquire sensorimotor schemes use sucking, crying, or grasping.

Example: 
Infants initially suck their fingers instinctively. Eventually, sucking becomes a strategy for exploring new
objects in the environment, a sensorimotor scheme.

Object Permanence
A child's understanding that objects continue to exist regardless of whether or not the child can see or touch them.
Example: 
Imagine a game of peek-a-boo, for example. A very young infant will believe that the other person or object has
actually vanished and will act shocked or startled when the object reappears. Older infants who understand object
permanence will realize that the person or object continues to exist even when unseen.

ADDITIONAL READING
Substages of the Sensorimotor Stage:
The sensorimotor stage can be divided into six separate substages that are characterized by the development of a
new skill.

Reflexes (0-1 month):

During this substage, the child understands the environment purely through inborn reflexes such as sucking and
looking.

Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months):

This substage involves coordinating sensation and new schemas. For example, a child may such his or her thumb by
accident and then later intentionally repeat the action. These actions are repeated because the infant finds them
pleasurable.

Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months):

During this substage, the child becomes more focused on the world and begins to intentionally repeat an action in
order to trigger a response in the environment. For example, a child will purposefully pick up a toy in order to put it in
his or her mouth.

Coordination of Reactions (8-12 months):

During this substage, the child starts to show clearly intentional actions. The child may also combine schemas in
order to achieve a desired effect. Children begin exploring the environment around them and will often imitate the
observed behavior of others. The understanding of objects also begins during this time and children begin to
recognize certain objects as having specific qualities. For example, a child might realize that a rattle will make a
sound when shaken.

Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months):

Children begin a period of trial-and-error experimentation during the fifth substage. For example, a child may try out
different sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver.

Early Representational Thought (18-24 months):

Children begin to develop symbols to represent events or objects in the world in the final sensorimotor substage.
During this time, children begin to move towards understanding the world through mental operations rather than
purely through actions.

CONCEPT

Preoperational stage: 
The second stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, in which thinking benefits from the development of
symbolic schemes.

CHARACTERS
Symbolic Schemes
Cognitive structures, developed during the preoperational stage of cognitive development, that allow the
representation of objects or events by means of symbols such as language, mental images, and gestures.
 The child is demonstrating symbolic representation in her play by
fantasizing that she is an elf princess by using her magic stick.

Deferred Imitation
The ability to represent learned behaviors mentally so that the behavior can be imitated long after it was witnessed.

LIMITATION
Egocentrism
The inability to perceive the perspectives of others. They view situations primarily from their own perspective and are
unable to understand a situation from another person's point of view.

Conservation
- Lack of reversibility
- Lack of compensation
Animism
The belief that inanimate object are alive.

This child thinks the toy bear is her patient.

CONCEPT

Concrete operational stage: 

The third stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, in which concrete operates can apply cognitive
operations to problems involving concrete objects.

CHARACTER
Class Inclusion
The ability to answer questions about subset relationships between groups of items

Children can answes questions correctly such as: 

"Does the number of cats more than the number of dogs?"

Conservation Limitation
- Understand reversibility - Thinking only in concrete terms
- Understand Compensation - Thinking about only two attributes at
once
Seriate
The ability to order objects on some dimension.

Children can order objects on some dimension such as from large to

smaller.

CONCEPT
Formal operational stage: 

The last stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, in which thinkers are capable of complex problem solving
and of "thinking in possibilities", "thinking ahead", and "thinking in hypotheses."

CHARACTER
 Thinking in possibilities
 Thinking ahead
 Thinking in hypotheses

Children can seriate on several dimensions simultaneously. For example, they can correctly arrange figures in order
of color, size, and shape.
HORIZONTAL DÉCALAGE
In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the inability of individuals to master all problems requiring the same
logical operations at the same time.
Common Examples
The best known example of horizontal décalage is the invariance of quantity, which is typically mastered around the
age of 6 or 7 when matter is concerned, at the age of 9 or 10 when weight is concerned, and around 11 or 12 years
old when the invariant is volume. A 7-year-old child understands that when one of two equivalent balls of clay is
transformed into a sausage-shape, the two lumps still consist of equal amounts of clay. The child, however, fails to
correctly comprehend that the differently shaped clumps of clay weigh the same. Both tasks are similar, but the child
is clearly unable to apply his understanding about the first situation to the second situation. 

A comparable phenomenon can be seen in a child’s increasing ability to perform seriation tasks, which consists of
ordering objects according to increasing or decreasing size. The ability to arrange rods in order of
decreasing/increasing size is always acquired prior to the capacity to seriate according to weight. 

A commonly cited example of vertical décalage “can be observed between the constitution of practical or
sensorimotor space and that of representative space ” For example, at the age of 2, a child can navigate around a
familiar environment, such as their home. It is not until years later that they can represent this knowledge symbolically
by drawing a map. There is vertical décalage between a problem that a child can physically master and their ability to
solve it in an abstract manner.