Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland on August 9th 1896 and died on September 16th 1980. Piaget believed that all children learn in stages, it is called the stage theory of cognitive development. Piaget said that the thought process in children was different to adults. He believed that children learn best through action such as manipulating objects.

Piaget says that there are four stages in the cognitive development of children. The first stage is called the sensory motor stage, the second is the pre-operational stage, then the concrete operational stage and finally the formal operations stage.
While in the sensory motor stage the child explores using his/her senses, and they initially have a sucking or grasping reflex. This stage is based on schema. Schemas are mental representations about what things are and how to deal with them. Piaget said that the first schema is to do with movement. A few weeks after birth a baby begins to understand information which comes from its senses and begins to use some muscles and limbs for movement.
In the pre-operations stage the toddler can understand language and the use of symbols. The child develops Animism, this is where the child believes that inanimate objects have feeling. For example if a child hurts them self on a chair, they would say 'bad chair'. They also develop ego-centricism. so they only see the world from their point of view and believes that everyone shares this view. During this stage is when decentering occurs, which is when the child stops believing they are the center of the world and that someone or something could be the center of attention.
The concrete operational stage is where the child starts to think more maturely and act more rationally. The child can develop logical thought about an object, if they can manipulate it. Animism and ego centric thought usually starts to decline during this stage. The child can also learn about reversibility which is where they understand that if you move objects around they will still be the same as before. For example they understand that if you spread a group of objects out, they are still the same in quantity.
The formal operations stage is where most of the characteristics that were mentioned have now fully developed. The child starts to develop logical thinking and is able to work through problems without concrete manipulation. The child also starts to use trial and error before trying something out in the real world.
There are two characteristics of the formal operations stage, one is hypothetical-deductive reasoning. This is where adolescents come up with a general theory of factors that may affect the outcome and understand what might occur.
The other is propositional, this is where adolescents can evaluate statements by considering them against concrete evidence.

This is a video about Piaget's Stages of Development