Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Stage 1. Sensori-motor Stage. The first stage corresponds from birth to infancy. This is the stage when a child who is ini. tially reflexive in grasping, sucking and reaching becomes more organized in his movement and activity. The term sensori-motor focuses on the prominence of the senses and muscle movement through which the infant comes to leam about himself and the world. In working with children in the sensori-motor stage, teachers should aim to provide a rich and stimulating environment with appropriate objects to play with.

Object permanence. This is the ability of the child to know that an object still exists even when out of sight. This abil. ity is attained in the sensory motor stage. (Please refer to Unit 2, Module 13 for more notes.)

Stage 2. Pre-Operational Stage. The preoperational stage covers from about two to seven years old, roughly corresponding to the preschool years. Intelligence at this stage is intuitive in nature. At this stage, the child can now make mental representations and is able to pretend, the child is now ever closer to the use of symbols. This stage is highlighted by the following:

Symbolic Function. This is the ability to represent objects and events. A symbol is a thing that represents something else. A drawing, a written word, or a spoken word comes to be understood as representing a real object like a real MRT train. Symbolic function gradually develops in the period between 2 to 7 years. Riel, a two-year old may pretend that she is drinking from a glass which is really empty. Though she already pretends the presence of water, the glass remains to be a glass. At around four years of age, however, Nico, may, after pretending to drink from an empty glass, turn the glass into a rocket ship or a telephone. By the age of 6 or 7 the child can pretend play with objects that exist only in his mind. Enzo, who is six, can do a whole ninja turtle routine without any costume nor "props." Tria, who is seven can pretend to host an elaborate princess ball only in her mind

Egocentrism. This is the tendency of the child to only see his point of view and to assume that everyone also has his same point of view. The child cannot take the perspective of others. You see this in five year-old boy who buys a toy truck for his mother's birthday. Or a three year old girl who cannot understand why her cousins call her daddy “uncle” and not daddy

Centration. This refers to the tendency of the child to only focus on one aspect of a thing or event and exclude other aspects. For example, when a child is presented with two identical glasses with the same amount of water, the child will say they have the same amount of water.However, once water from one of the glasses is transferred to an obviously taller but narrower glass, the child might say that there is more water in the taller glass. The child only focused or "centered" only one aspect of the new glass, that it is a taller glass. The child was not able to perceive that the new glass is also narrower. The child only centered on the height of the glass and excluded the width in determining the amount of water in the glass.

Irreversibility. Pre-operational children still have the inability to reverse their thinking. They can understand that 2 + 3 is 5, but cannot understand that 5-3 is 2.

Animism. This is the tendency of children to attribute human like traits or characteristics to inanimate objects.When at night, the child is asked, where the sun is, she will reply, "Mr. Sun is asleep."

Transductive reasoning. This refers to the pre-operational child's type of reasoning that is neither inductive nor deduc-tive. Reasoning appears to be from particular to particular i.e., if A causes B, then B causes A. For example, since her mommy comes home everyday around six o' clock in the evening, when asked why it is already night, the child will say, "because my mom is already home." (For more notes on the cognitive development of the toddler, refer to Unit 2.)

Stage 3. Concrete-Operational Stage. This stage is characterized by the ability of the child to think logically but only in terms of concrete objects. This covers approximately the ages between 8-11 years or the elementary school years. The concrete operational stage is marked by the following:

Decentering. This refers to the ability of the child to perceive the different features of objects and situations.No longer is the child focused or limited to one aspect or dimension. This allows the child to be more logical when dealing with concrete objects and situations.

Reversibility. During the stage of concrete operations, the child can now follow that certain operations can be done in reverse. For example, they can already comprehend the commutative property of addition, and that subtraction is the reverse of addition. They can also understand that a ball of clay shaped into a dinosaur can again be rolled back into a ball of clay.

Conservation. This is the ability to know that certain properties of objects like number, mass, volume, or area do not change even if there is a change in appearance. Because of the development of the child's ability of decentering and also reversibility, the concrete operational child can now judge rightly that the amount of water in a taller bul narrower container is still the same as when the water was in the shorter but wider glass. The children progress to attain conservation abilities gradually being a pre-conserver, a transitional thinker and then a conserver.

Seriation. This refers to the ability to order or arrange things in a series based on one dimension such as weight, volume or size.

Stage 4. Formal Operational Stage. In the final stage of formal operations covering ages between 12 and 15 years, thinking becomes more logical. They can now solve abstract problems and can hypothesize. This stage is characterized by the following:

Hypothetical Reasoning. This is the ability to come up with different hypothesis about a problem and to gather and weigh data in order to make a final decision or judgment.This can be done in the absence of concrete objects. The individuals can now deal with "What if' questions.

Analogical reasoning. This is the ability to perceive the relationship in one instance and then use that relationship to narrow down possible answers in another similar situation or problem. The individual in the formal operations stage can make an analogy. If United Kingdom is to Europe, then Philippines is to ______. The individual will reason that since the UK is found in the continent of Europe then the Philippines is found in what continent? Then Asia is his answer. Through reflective thought and even in the absence of concrete objects, the individual can now understand relationships and do analogical reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning. This is the ability to think logically by applying a general rule to a particular instance or situation.