Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory!!!!

Cognition is how people think and understand.
Piaget broke down his theory into four stages:
.Sensori-motor stage
.Pre-operational stage
.Concrete operational stage
.Formal operational stage

Sensori-motor stage is from 0-2 years of age when the child explores his/her environment through their senses such as sucking, grasping and reaching out for objects. Object permanence also happens in this stage and this is when the baby can not understand that the object still exists when out of sight but when the baby reaches the age of about 9 months, they will understand that the object/ person still exists out of sight.

Pre-operational Stage is from 2-7 years of age when the child understands the use of symbols and language such as symbolic thinking like pretend play. They develop animism and egocentrisism at this stage also. Animism is when the child believes that inanimate objects have feeling like they do such as "bad table." Egocentrisism is when the child can only see from their point of view such as the mountain task when the child was given a picture of the mountains from above it and asked if it was the same mountain where the child answered no as the appearance had changed. The child could not understand that only the appearance of the mountain had changed, not the mountain intself.

Concrete operational Stage is from 7-11 years of age. This is when the child can now conserve. Coservation is the awareness that the quantity stays the same despite a change in its appearance. Blank & Rose criticised the age Piaget said children can conserve from as he asked difficult questions of the children and they might not have been able to understand the question completely so when Blank & Rose replicated the experiment with simpler questions, they found that the percentage of 6 year olds being able to conserve increased.

Formal operational Stage is from 11-16 years of age and the child now shows logical thinking and is able to work through problems without the presence of concrete manipulation.