Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

The Theory of Cognitive Development was created by Jean Piaget. It proposes that there are four distinct stages of mental representation that children pass through on their way to an adult level of intelligence. The first stage is the Sensorimotor Stage which is where infants learn an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. The second stage is the Preoperational stage which by observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to show that towards the end of the second year, a new kind of psychological functioning occurs. The Concrete operational stage is the third stage where kids between the ages of 7 and 11 years are characterized by the appropriate use of logic. The Formal Operational stage is the fourth and final stage which starts at around 11-15 years of age and continues into adulthood. In this stage they move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.