Question

1. Describe Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of cognitive development, being sure to include the terms assimilation and accommodation in your response. What is the major milestone that needs to be achieved at this stage?

2. Describe Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development, and explain what it means to say that children in this stage are egocentric and lack conservation.

3. What critical ability distinguishes children in the concrete vs. formal operational stages in Piaget’s theory of

cognitive development?

Answer 1

Piaget developed a stage theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages. He divided them on teh basis of age. The stages are as follows:

• The Sensorimotor Stage: It ranges in children with age from birth to 2 years. The major characteristics and developmental changes that take place in this stage are as follows:
  • The infant knows the world through their movements and sensations.
  • Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening.
  • Infants learn that things continue to exist even though they cannot be seen
  • They realize that their actions can cause things to happen in the world around them.
  • During this earliest stage of cognitive development, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects.
  • It is during the sensorimotor stage that children go through a period of dramatic growth and learning. As kids interact with their environment, they are continually making new discoveries about how the world works.
• The Preoperational Stage: It ranges between ages from 2 to 7 years. The major characteristics and Developmental Changes associated with this stage are as follows:
  • Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.
  • Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of others.
  • The foundations of language development may have been laid during the previous stage, but it is the emergence of language that is one of the major hallmarks of the preoperational stage of development.
  • Children become much more skilled at pretend play during this stage of development, yet still think very concretely about the world around them.
  • At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. They also often struggle with understanding the idea of constancy.
• The Concrete Operational Stage: It ranges between ages of 7 to 11 years. The major characteristics and Developmental Changes associated with stage are as follows:
  • Children begin to thinking logically about concrete events.
  • They begin to understand the concept of conservation
  • Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but still very concrete.
  • Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from specific information to a general principle.
  • During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.
• The Formal Operational Stage: It ranges between ages of 12 and Up. The Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes with it are as follows:
  • At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical problems.
  • Abstract thought emerges.
  • Teens begin to think more about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.
  • Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a general principle to specific information.
  • The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple potential solutions to problems and think more scientifically about the world around them.