Jean Piaget - Stages of Cognitive Development

[Music] this is jean piaget he was a swiss psychologist known for his work on child development quote it is with children that we have the best chance of studying the development of logical knowledge mathematical knowledge physical knowledge and so forth in education piaget has been especially influential due to his four stages of cognitive development piaget theorized that all people progress through the same four stages of cognitive development in exactly the same order these stages are generally associated with specific ages but he notes that they are only guidelines and not exact representations for all children of a certain age the first stage is a sensory motor stage found in infancy the child is experiencing the world through their senses in this stage a major milestone is for the child to develop a sense of object permanence if you were to play peek-a-boo with the child would they understand that objects in the environment exist whether they perceive them or not that's object permanent another major accomplishment is for the child to begin logical goal-directed actions for example are they stacking blocks trying to create a tall structure if so they're thinking about a goal of making a tall building and they're possibly ready for the second stage the second stage is the pre-operational stage the child has not mastered mental operations hence the stage is called pre-operational the stage begins when the child starts talking develops language and uses symbols to represent objects often this begins with playing pretend for instance pretending to build a forest filled with dinosaurs or pretending to drink from an empty cup at a tea party during this stage a key idea is whether a child can think backwards or imagine how to reverse the steps in a task for example consider the principle of conservation of things being the same even if the arrangement or appearance changes when you pour a cup of water from a pitcher into another cup does a child understand that there is still the same amount of water in both pitcher and cup thinking through such operations logically may lead to the next stage piaget coined the term concrete operations to describe the stage of hands-on thinking the stage usually begins around grade 1 until early adolescence there is now basic recognition of the logical stability of the physical world the child can reverse a process mentally in the case of conservation tasks such as pouring out a bottle of milk they understand that they can reverse the task resulting in the same amount of the milk in the bottle in this stage we find many classic piaget conservation tasks or tests for instance does the child understand that rolling a piece of dough results in a different shape this is an example of the conservation of mass or another classic piaget task is to see whether a child can understand the conservation of number in this case does a child know that by cutting a potato into smaller pieces the pieces amount to a whole potato piaget notes that some students remain in this concrete operational stage throughout their school years maybe even throughout life but new experiences usually those that take place in school eventually present most students with problems that they cannot solve using concrete operations in many cases progression in cognitive development leads to the last stage known as the formal operational stage this stage is from adolescence to adulthood here the focus of thinking involves hypothetical deductive reasoning or essentially abstract thinking formal operations is a new way of reasoning that involves quote thinking about thinking or mental operations on mental operations students can now think hypothetically consider alternatives identify all possible combinations which is a requirement in math courses in high school or university they are beginning to reason and articulate ideals and develop interest in social issues even when confronted with difference of opinions or alternative views many can discern best options towards ideal solutions this explains why many students at this stage want to create a better world with other people and their cognitive development allows them to do so i hope you enjoyed this short summary of jean piaget and his four stages of cognitive development thanks for watching you