PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

During childhood children pass through different stages of their Cognitive Development in which the abilities associated with memory, reasoning, problem-solving and thinking continue to emerge throughout of it. According to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children move through four different stages of mental development which are Sensorimotor Stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete Operational Stage, and Formal Operational Stage. Next, I will present with many details one by one the four stages of cognitive development according to Jean Piaget.

Sensorimotor Stage

The first stage is the Sensorimotor which last from the birth until 2 years old and it is centering on the baby trying to make sense of the world. Thus, during this stage, an infant's knowledge of the world is limited to his or her sensory perceptions and motor activities. It means that the behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli. Moreover, childeren utilize skills and abilities taht they were born with (such as looking, sucking, grasping, and listening) in order to learn more about the environment.This stage is divided in to six separate sub stages that are characterized by the development of a new skill. Next, it is going to be presented the six sub stages.

Substages:

Reflexes (0-1 month):

During this substage, the child understands the environment  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 baby 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. 

Preoperational Stage

This stage lasts from 2 to 7 years old, so it occurs during the early childhood. In this stage children begin to represent the world in a symbolic way. Therefore, they represent the world with images, words, and drawings. Moreover, children begin to reason but like in a rustic way because the are some factors such as egocentrism, animism and magical beliefs that do not let the child to reason formally. Finally, the preoperational stage emphasizes that children do not yet perform operations which means reversible mental actions like mentally adding and subtracting numbers. This stage is divided into two substages which are the symbolic function substage and the intuitive thought substage.

Substages:

The Symbolic Function Substage

It substage occurs in the ages between 2 and 4. During this period of time, children develop the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present, so they start to use scribble designs in order to represent people, objects, and animals and so on. Therefore, during this stage children make a big progress on their cognitive development, but their thoughts still has limitations such as egocentrism which means that children see the things only from their point of view. Another limitation is animism which is the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities.

The Intuitive Thought Substage

This substage occurs between 4 and 7 years old. It is essentially based on that children begin to use primitive reasoning which still have limitations such as centration which is the focusing of attention to only property of the things, and lack of conservation which is the awareness if you alter an object’s or substance’s appearance it does not change its basic properties.

Concrete Operational Stage

This stage lasts from 7 to 11 years old. During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events. They begin to understand the concept of conservation, so they know that the amount of liquid in a short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass. Moreover they have the ability to divide or classify things into different sets and they are capable of seriation which is the ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension. For example children are able to order sticks by length. In addition, children in the concrete operational stage are very good at the use of inductive logic which involves going from a specific experience to a general principle. On the other hand, children at this age have difficulty using deductive logic which involves the use of a general principle to determine the results of a specific event.   

Formal Operational Stage

This stage begins at approximately age twelve and lasts into adulthood. During this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems. Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning also emerge during this stage. Moreover, the ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical way emerges. Children at the formal operational stage of cognitive development are often able to quickly plan an organized approach to solving a problem.

References: 

http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/p/formaloperation.htm

Santrock,John W.Children. pp.281-286 & 384-386. Mc Graw Hill.USA,2010.

http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/l/bl-piaget-stages.htm