Piaget's stages of intellectual development

Question 1

what are the stages of intellectual development in order

Answer 1

1. sensorimotor stage (approximately 0-2 years)
2. pre-operational stage
3. stage of concrete to operations
4. stage of frontal operations

Question 2

when does the sensorimotor stage occur

Answer 2

approximately 0-2 years

Question 3

what is the sensorimotor stage

Answer 3

according to Piaget, a baby focus is on physical sensations and developing some basic physical co-ordination
Children learn by trial and error that they can deliberately move their body in particular ways, and eventually that they can move other objects

The baby also develops an understanding during the first 2 years that other people are separate objects and acquire some basic language

Question 4

what happens 8 months into the sensorimotor stage

Answer 4

object permanence

Question 5

what is object permanence

Answer 5

understanding that objects still exist when they are out of sight

Question 6

how did Piaget observe object permanence and what was his findings

Answer 6

Piaget observed babies looking at objects as they were removed from sight throughout the first year

He noted that before wight months, children immediately switched their attention away from the object once it was out of sight

around 8 months they would continue to look for it. This led Piaget to believe that it was at this age that children understood that objects continue to exist when removed from view

Question 7

what stages does the pre-operational stage occur

Answer 7

approximately around 2-7 years

Question 8

what happens to a child t 2 years

Answer 8

the toddler is mobile and can use language but still lacks reasoning ability

This means that they display some characteristic error in reasoning

Question 9

what occurs in the pre-operational stage

Answer 9

conservation

egocentrism

Question 10

what is conservation

Answer 10

conservation is the basic mathematical understanding that quantity remains constant even when the appearance of an object changes

Question 11

how did Piaget demonstrate conservation

Answer 11

He placed two identical rows of counters side by side
Even young children correctly reasoned that each row of counters had the same number

When two containers are placed side by side with the contents at the same height, most children spotted that they contain the same volume.
However, if the liquid is poured into a taller thinner vessel, younger children typically believed there is more liquid in the taller vessel

Question 12

what were the findings from his conservation study

Answer 12

1. when the counters in one of the rows were pushed together, pre - operational children struggled to conserve and usually said there were fewer counters

Question 13

what is egocentrism

Answer 13

egocentrism is to see the world only from one-s own point of view

Piaget and Inhelder conducted a “three mountain task” to test egocentrism

Question 14

what is the “three mountain task”

Answer 14

children were shown three moutains, each with a different feature:

-a cross
-a house
-snow
A doll was placed at the side of the model so that it faced the scene from a different angle to the child
The child was asked what the doll would “see” from a range of pictures

Question 15

what were the findings of the “three mountain task”

Answer 15

Pre-operational children tended to find this difficult and often chose the picture that matched the scene from their own point of view

Question 16

what is class inclusion

Answer 16

the idea that objects fall into categories

most early pre-operational stage children begin to understand the classification so they cal classify retrievers as dogs

Question 17

how was class inclusion studied

Answer 17

Piaget and Inhelder (1964) showed 7-8 years old children 5 dogs and 2 cats and asked:
“Are there more dogs or animals”
the children tended to respond more dogs

Question 18

what are the findings of the class inclusion

Answer 18

younger children can’t simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class

Therefore, children under the age of 7 struggle with the more advanced skill of class inclusion, the idea that classifications have subsets

Question 19

when does the concrete operations stage happen

Answer 19

7-11 years

Question 20

what can children do when they reach the concrete operation stage

Answer 20

most children:

• conserve
• perform better tasks of egocentrism and class inclusion

they have better reasoning abilities

Question 21

what can children not do in the concrete operation

Answer 21

although children have better reasoning abilities - operations

These are strictly concrete operations meaning they can be only applied to physical objects in the child’s presence
They still struggle to reason about abstract ideas and to imagine objects or situations they cannot see

Those more advanced abilities appear in the final stage of formal operations

Question 22

when does the formal operations stage occur

Answer 22

11+

Question 23

what occurs in the formal operational stage

Answer 23

Piaget believed that from about 11 years of age, children became capable of formal reasoning

This means that children become able to focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content

Question 24

how can we test formal operations

Answer 24

formal reasoning can be tested by means of syllogisms e.g.

“all yellow cats have two heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Chalie have?”

Question 25

how did the children answer the syllogism

Answer 25

the answer is two (Smith et al 1998)
Piaget found that younger children became distracted by the content and answered that cats do not really have two heads

Piaget believed that once children reason formally they are capable of scientific reasoning and become able to appreciate abstract ideas