Piagets stages of cognitive development Flashcards
What are the 4 stages of cognitive development?
- Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years).
- Pre-operational stage (2-7 years).
- Concrete operational stage (7-11 years).
- Formal operational stage (11+ years).
What happens at the sensorimotor stage?
- Focus is on physical sensations.
- Baby recognises that they are able to act intentionally; the baby relates what they see (sensory) with what they can do (motor).
What skill is acquired at the sensorimotor stage?
Object permanence: the ability to realise that an object still exists even when it passes out of the visual field (develops at around 8 months).
What happens at the pre-operational stage?
- Toddler is mobile, language is developing but lacks reasoning skills.
What are the 2 skills acquired at the pre-operational stage?
Conservation= the ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or group of objects changes (develops at 7 years).
Egocentrism= child’s tendency to only be able to see the world from their own point of view (up to 7 years + then child may decenter).
What happens at the concrete operational stage?
- Child is able to think logically- e.g. now has skills of conservation and performs well on egocentrism tasks.
- BUT: these ‘operations’ are concrete- so only applied to physical objects.
- No abstract reasoning yet.
What skills is acquired during the concrete operational stage?
- At this stage a child master the ability to compare both the whole and the parts that make up the whole.
- This is class inclusion.
What happens at the formal operational stage?
- Abstract and hypothetical thinking develop, children are now capable of focusing on the ‘form’ of an argument and not get distracted by its content.
What skills are acquired at the formal operational stage?
- Piaget believed that the children at this stage are capable of scientific reasoning and can appreciate abstract ideas.
