Piaget’s Phases of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s
Phases of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor
-
Age: Birth to 2 y/o
-
Description:
Sensory organs and muscles become more functional
·
Stage 1
(Use of reflexes)
-
Age:
Birth to 1 month
-
Description:
Movements are primarily reflexes
·
Stage 2
(Primary Circular Reaction)
-
Age:
1 to 4 months
-
Description:
Perceptions center around one’s body. Objects are perceived as extension of the
self.
·
Stage
3 (Secondary Circular Reaction)
-
Age:
4 to 8 months
-
Description:
Becomes aware of external environment initiates acts to change the movement.
·
Stage 4 (Coordination
of secondary schemata)
-
Age:
8 to 12 months
-
Description:
Differentiates goals and goal-directed activities
·
Stage 5 (Tertiary
Circular Reaction)
-
Age:
12 to 18 months
-
Description:
Experiments with methods to reach goals and develops rituals that become
significant
·
Stage 6 (Invention
of New Means)
-
Age:
18 to 24 months
-
Description:
Uses mental imagery to understand the environment and uses fantasy
Preoperational
-
Age:
2 to 7 y/o
-
Description:
Emerging ability to think and children uses symbolism to represent and
understand various aspects of environment
·
Pre-conceptual Stage
-
Age:
2 to 4 y/o
-
Description:
Thinking tends to be egocentric and exhibits the use of symbolism
·
Intuitive Stage
-
Age:
4 to 7 y/o
-
Description:
Unable to break down a whole into separate parts and able to classify objects
according to one trait
Concrete Operational
-
Age:
7 to 11 y/o
-
Description:
Learns to reason about evets between here and now, can understand the basic
properties of and relations among objects and events in the everyday world.
Also, able to solve concrete (hands-on) problem in logical fashion.
Formal Operations
-
Age:
11 y/o and above
-
Description:
Able to see relationships and to reason in the abstract, Becomes more
scientific in thinking and capable of systematic, deductive reasoning.
