The stages of development

Jean Piaget has divided the cognitive development of both children and adolescents in to four main stages. They are sensorimotor (Birth to age2), preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7), concrete operational stage (ages7 to 11) and formal operational stage (ages 11 to adulthood).  “He believed that all the children pass through these stages in order to that no child can skip a stage, although different children pass through the stages at somewhat different rates”(Salvin, 2000). Piaget believed that all the children would pass the stages but different children will pass through the stages at different times. For example a child may not be able to pass through sensorimotor stage although the baby is three year old. This could be due to many reasons like diseases.

Sensorimotor stage (birth to Age 2)

Sensorimotor is the earliest stage in the cognitive development. This stage starts when the baby is born and normally goes on until the baby is 2 year old. In this stage the children uses their senses and movement to learn and to explore new things. “Piaget believed that all the children are born with innate tendency to interact with and to make sense of their environment” (Salvin, 2000). In this stage there would be many dramatic changes.  All the babies have an inborn behavior which is called reflexes. For example if you touch a infants lips or near the baby’s mouth then the baby would try to suck your finger and if you put your finger on their palm then they would hold your finger . This is what we call Reflexes. These behaviors are innate and from this the baby’s first scheme is formed. The children then learned to use these reflexes and they try to explore new things. This learning happens mostly unknowingly. However later they learn through more intentionally trial and error efforts. By the end of this stage the trial and error approach would be better and would also progress to problem solving.

Preoperational stage (Ages 2 to 7)

Normally in this stage the children in their pre-school. In this stage the children develops their ability of using symbols and also to represent objects in the world. Also in this stage the children develop their language and concepts in an unbelievable rate. “Pre-school children use their symbolic thinking ability to solve problems but their use of thinking does not follow the convention of logic and are therefore easily by different perception” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). Earlier Piaget had discovered that young children do not understand the concept of conservation. “Conservation is the concept that certain properties of an object (such as weight) remain the same regardless of changes in other properties (such as length)” (Salvin, 2000). For example if you pour water in to two jar that is same and ask the child which has more water than the child would say it is same. However  if you pour the same amount of water in to a jar that is small and wide and a jar that is long and narrow jar and ask the child which has more water than the child would say that the long and narrow one has more water. Piaget believed that this happen because the children only focus on one aspect. In this example the child only focus on the height of the jar. Another character of the Preoperational children is that the thinking of the children focuses on the state. In the water example the children forgets that it is poured from one container to another and then they only focus on the beginning state that is water in the same type of jars and then the end sate that is water in a long and narrow jar. The nest character of the preoperational children is that they are very egocentric. They believe that everybody thinks the way thinks.

Concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11)

In the concrete operational stage the children’s starts to go to school and they would be in their primary grades.in this stage “They think logically and concretely, they can solve problems through trial and error” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). In this stage the children could solve problems and also can form concepts and also can see relationship between things if only the problems and the objectives are similar or familiar to them. Like the preoperational stage in this stage also the children’s undergo dramatic changes in their cognitive development. In this stage the children would not have a problem in conservation when the children come to this stage they would understand the concept of conservation. In this stage the kids learn seriation or in other words arranging things in a logical way. For example arranging pencil from the smallest to the longest. “Children in elementary grades also moving from egocentric thought to decentered or objective thought” (Salvin, 2000). In this stage the children’s are not ego centered, the children’s in this stage has objective thought and they believe that other will not have the same perceptions that they have.

Formal operational stage (Age 11 to adulthood)

In this stage the puberty of the students starts and also they develop some of the adolescent characteristics. “Adolescents are able to think about abstract hypothetical concepts and are able to think about the long term effects of an action” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). In this stage the children’s think more abstract and also they could think about what will happen in the future if they do a certain action. Another ability of the Formal operational stage children is that they can reason about situations and conditions. They can apply logic to any to any given conditions. According to Salvin (2000) according to Piaget, the formal operational stage brings cognitive development to a close. However the intellectual development will continue to grow beyond adolescent.