Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

►Sensorimotor

►Preoperational

►Concrete Operational

►Formal Operational

Piaget hypothesized that children progress through four stages of cognitive development, each building on the previous one.

Sensorimotor Stage

►The Sensorimotor Stage is from approximately birth to 2 years of age.

►Babies take in the world purely through their senses- looking, hearing, touching, mouthing and grasping.

They are learning to sense,They are learning to move.

Sensorimotor Stage

►At 4 to 8 months of age, your child will learn that she can make things move by banging them and shaking them. (Example--shaking a rattle, banging on toys, banging on tray of high chair)

Stranger Anxiety

►The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Stranger Anxiety

Object Permanence• THE major cognitive ability gained at this stage.

• Definition - objects that are out of sight still exist.

• Before Object Permanence- what is out of sight, is gone from the universe forever.

• Children younger than 6 months of age do not grasp object permanence

A baby with no object permanence

3/9/2016

1. Which reflex probably helps prevent falling?a. Morob. Rootingc. Palmard. Sucking

2. A child and her father are walking. The child knows there are such things as birds but has never seen a bluebird before. Upon seeing one, she says, "See the birdie," and her father replies, "Yes, that's a bluebird." This example demonstrates

a. assimilationb. accommodationc. habituationd. Implicit memory

3. Eliska is 9 months old. One of her favorite games is peek-a-boo, and recently she has begun to pry at her mother's fingers when Mother covers her face. Eliska has developed _______________.

4. The fetal period begins at which week of pre-natal development? #_______

Preoperational Stage

►The Preoperational Stage is from approximately 2 to 7 years of age.

► A mix of impressive cognitive acquisitions and equally impressive limitations.

A notable acquisition is symbolic representation, the use of one object to stand for another, which makes a variety of new behaviors possible

“Pretend you are brushing your teeth”

- Use finger to stand-in for a toothbrush. (3-4)

- Hold a pretend toothbrush (5-6)

Preoperational Stage►LIMITATION:

►Children in the preoperational stage are egocentric (the inability to take on another’s point of view).

“Do you have a brother?“Yes.”“What’s his name?”“Jim”“Does Jim have a brother?”“No.”

Egocentrism

Theory of Mind: The ability to consider their own and others’ mental states and processes.

Autism: This is absent in many autistic children. (when asked where Sally will look when she returns to the room, autistic children will say in the blue cupboard.)

Preoperational StageLIMITATION: 2 - 4ACQUISITION: 4 +

Theory of Mind

Preoperational StageLIMITATION:

Centration - the tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event.

►Leads to an inability to understand the concept of conservation.

Concrete Operational Stage►7-11 years old

►Understand concept of conservation.

►Can think logically, use analogies, and perform mathematical transformations (5+9 is the same as 9+5) also known as reversibility.

►Can classify objects based on certain properties

►Lacks abstract thought

Piaget Stage 3: Concrete Operational (7 – 12 yrs)

Children learn how various actions or “operations” can affect or transform “concrete” objects

Conservation - the ability to understand that a quantity is conserved (does not change) even when it is arranged in a different shape.

Which glass contains more?

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Procedures Used to Test ConservationThe idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not

change their key properties

© 2009 Pearson Education Canada Inc.

More Conservation Tasks

Formal Operational Stage

►What way do you best learn? (metacognition)

►What would happen if people stopped having children?

► If you had a third eye, where would you put it?

► 11-15 years old

►Abstract reasoning

►Manipulate objects in our minds without seeing them (no need for “symbols”)

►Hypothesis testing

►Trial and Error

►Not every adult gets to this stage