PRINCIPLE OF PIAGET THEORY

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages : Birth to 2 years
Major Characteristics & Development Changes:
 The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions
(moving around and exploring its environment).
 During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop.
These include: object permanence; self-recognition; deferred imitation; and
representational play.
 They relate to the emergency of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity
to represent the world mentally.
 At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects, and they will
still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they
disappear.

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2-7 years

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
 Infants at this stage demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to
think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.
 Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world
through language and mental imagery.
 During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the
ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other
than itself.
 A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It
is not yet capable of logical (problem solving) type of thought.

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7-11 years
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
 During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.
 Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that,
although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the
same.
 During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g. picture a ball of
plasticine returning to its original shape).
 During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think
about how other people might think and feel.

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Over
Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:
 Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations
are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from
physical and perceptual constraints.
 During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer
needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand
division and fractions).
 They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms
of specific examples.
 Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible
solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money were abolished in
one hour’s time? They could speculate about many possible
consequences.
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The Sensorimotor Stage
This stage is consisting children from birth until 2 years. The infant learns about the
world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring its
environment). During this stage the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a
mental picture of the world stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of
object permanence. During the sensorimotor stage a range of cognitive abilities
develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition; deferred imitation; and
representational play. If it cannot see something, then it does not exist. This is why you
can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not search for the object once
it has gone out of sight. They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function,
which is the capacity to represent the world mentally. The main achievement during
this stage is object permanence - knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden.
It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object. At
about 8 months the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will
still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they
disappear. Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins to appear
where children show in their play that they can use one object to stand for another.
Language starts to appear because they realise that words can be used to represent
objects and feelings.
The Preoperational Stage
This stage is consisting children from 2 – 7 years old. Infants at this stage also
demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects
(such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s. Toddlers and young children
acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental
imagery. By 2 years, children have made some progress towards detaching their
thought from physical world. However, have not yet developed logical (or
'operational') thought characteristic of later stages. During this stage, young children
can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a
word or an object, stand for something other than itself. A child’s thinking is dominated
by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem
solving) type of thought. Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgements
about situations) and egocentric (centred on the child's own view of the world).
The Concrete Operational Stage
This stage is consisting children from 7 – 11 years old. During this stage, children
begin to thinking logically about concrete events. The stage is called concrete because
children can think logically much more successfully if they can manipulate real
(concrete) materials or pictures of them. Children begin to understand the concept of
conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain
properties remain the same. Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point
in the child's cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or
operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head
(rather than physically try things out in the real world). During this stage, children can
mentally reverse things (e.g. picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation
is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its
appearance changes. During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin
to think about how other people might think and feel. But operational thought only
effective here if child asked to reason about materials that are physically present.
Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to
reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.
The Formal Operational Stage
This stage is consisting children from 12 years and over. Concrete operations are
carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal
operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints. From
about 12 years’ children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference
to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract
concepts, and logically test hypotheses. During this stage, adolescents can deal with
abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets
to understand division and fractions). They can follow the form of an argument without
having to think in terms of specific examples. Adolescents can deal with hypothetical
problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money
were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible
consequences. This stage sees emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract
theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.