Piaget
Piagetian stages
Piaget developed four stages of development that describe how children think and acquire knowledge.
Key Piagetian concepts
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)
In this stage, infants begin to learn through sensory observation, and they gain control of their motor functions through activity, exploration, and manipulation of the environment.
The following table illustrates the main aspects of this stage:
A circular reaction is a behavior that produces an event (thumb brushes mouth, kicking moves a rattle) that leads to repetition of the behavior.
Primary circular reactions involve only the infants own body.
Secondary circular reactions are like primary, only the behavior involves external objects (e.g. shaking a rattle).
Tertiary circular reactions involve experiments with the different kinds of effects the same behavior can have (e.g. bouncing a ball down stairs then bouncing lots of other things down stairs).
Stage of Preoperational Thought (2 to 7 Years)
In the preoperational stage, children use symbols and language more extensively. They are unable to think logically or deductively, and events are not not linked by logic.
During this stage, children also use a type of magical thinking, called phenomenalistic causality, in which events that occur together are thought to cause one another (e.g., thunder causes lightning). In addition, children use animistic thinking, which is the tendency to ascribe life to inanimate objects.
The semiotic function emerges during the preoperational period. This enables children to represent something such as an object, an event, or a conceptual scheme with a signifier (symbol). That is, children use a symbol or sign to stand for something else.
Stage of Concrete Operations (7 to 11 Years)
In the concrete operational stage, egocentric thought is replaced by operational thought, which involves dealing with a wide array of information outside the child. Therefore, children can now see things from someone elses perspective.
Children in this stage begin to use limited logical thought and can serialise, order, and group things into classes on the basis of common characteristics. Syllogistic reasoning, in which a logical conclusion is formed from two premises, appears during this stage. For example , all horses are mammals (premise); all mammals are warm blooded (premise); therefore, all horses are warm blooded (conclusion).
Conservation is the ability to recognise that, although the shape of objects may change, the objects still maintain or conserve other characteristics that enable them to be recognized as the same. For example, if a ball of clay is rolled into a long, thin sausage shape, children recognize that each form contains the same amount of clay.
Reversibility is the capacity to understand the relation between things, to realize that one thing can turn into another and back again (e.g. ice and water).
Stage of Formal Operations (11 through the End of Adolescence)
This stage is characterized by the ability to think abstractly, to reason deductively, to define concepts, and also by the emergence of skills for dealing with permutations and combinations. Young people can grasp the concept of probabilities.
Hypotheticodeductive Thinking, the highest organization of cognition, enables a person to make a hypothesis or proposition and to test it against reality. Deductive reasoning moves from the general to the particular and is a more complicated process than inductive reasoning, which moves from the particular to the general
Piaget developed four stages of development that describe how children think and acquire knowledge.
| Stage | age | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Sensorimotor | birth to 18-24 months |
|
| Preoperational | 2-7 years |
|
| Concrete operational | 7-11 years |
|
| Formal operational | 11 years to adolescence |
|
Key Piagetian concepts
- Schema - This is a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge.
- Assimilation - The process of taking new information into an existing schema.
- Accommodation - Altering a schema in view of additional information.
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)
In this stage, infants begin to learn through sensory observation, and they gain control of their motor functions through activity, exploration, and manipulation of the environment.
The following table illustrates the main aspects of this stage:
| Age | Description |
|---|---|
| Birth - 2 months | Use of inborn reflexes (grasping, sucking, and looking) to interact with and accommodate the external world. |
| 2 - 5 months | Primary circular reactions. Co-ordinates activities of own body and senses (thumb sucking). Reality remains subjective (does not seek stimuli outside of visual field. Displays curiosity. |
| 5 - 9 months | Secondary circular reactions. Seeks out new stimuli in the environment. Starts to anticipate consequences of own behaviour and to act purposefully to change the environment. Beginning of intentional behaviour. |
| 9 - 12 months | Shows preliminary signs of object permanence. Has vague concept that objects exist apart from itself. Plays peek-a-boo. |
| 12 - 18 months | Tertiary circular reactions. Seeks out new behaviours and produces novel behaviours. |
| 18 - 24 months | Symbolic thought. Uses symbolic representations of events and objects. Shows signs of reasoning (uses one toy to reach for and get another). Attains object permanence. |
A circular reaction is a behavior that produces an event (thumb brushes mouth, kicking moves a rattle) that leads to repetition of the behavior.
Primary circular reactions involve only the infants own body.
Secondary circular reactions are like primary, only the behavior involves external objects (e.g. shaking a rattle).
Tertiary circular reactions involve experiments with the different kinds of effects the same behavior can have (e.g. bouncing a ball down stairs then bouncing lots of other things down stairs).
Stage of Preoperational Thought (2 to 7 Years)
In the preoperational stage, children use symbols and language more extensively. They are unable to think logically or deductively, and events are not not linked by logic.
During this stage, children also use a type of magical thinking, called phenomenalistic causality, in which events that occur together are thought to cause one another (e.g., thunder causes lightning). In addition, children use animistic thinking, which is the tendency to ascribe life to inanimate objects.
The semiotic function emerges during the preoperational period. This enables children to represent something such as an object, an event, or a conceptual scheme with a signifier (symbol). That is, children use a symbol or sign to stand for something else.
Stage of Concrete Operations (7 to 11 Years)
In the concrete operational stage, egocentric thought is replaced by operational thought, which involves dealing with a wide array of information outside the child. Therefore, children can now see things from someone elses perspective.
Children in this stage begin to use limited logical thought and can serialise, order, and group things into classes on the basis of common characteristics. Syllogistic reasoning, in which a logical conclusion is formed from two premises, appears during this stage. For example , all horses are mammals (premise); all mammals are warm blooded (premise); therefore, all horses are warm blooded (conclusion).
Conservation is the ability to recognise that, although the shape of objects may change, the objects still maintain or conserve other characteristics that enable them to be recognized as the same. For example, if a ball of clay is rolled into a long, thin sausage shape, children recognize that each form contains the same amount of clay.
Reversibility is the capacity to understand the relation between things, to realize that one thing can turn into another and back again (e.g. ice and water).
Stage of Formal Operations (11 through the End of Adolescence)
This stage is characterized by the ability to think abstractly, to reason deductively, to define concepts, and also by the emergence of skills for dealing with permutations and combinations. Young people can grasp the concept of probabilities.
