Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget

1. Sensorimotor (Birth - 2 years)

   • Use of eyes, ears, hands and mouth to interact with the world.
   • Invention of ways to solve problems for example pressing a button to make a jack in a box jump up.
   • At 18 months babies may begin to remember and think about their world

2. Preoperatonal (2 - 7 years)

   • Use of symbol to represent earlier discoveries
   • Development of language and make-believe play
   • They may be able to count but not split numbers into equal sets or groups
   • Use egocentric behaviour which means the child is unable to see a situation from another point of view.
   • Speech is often used to externalise thinking rather that to communicate with others

3. Concrete Operational (7 - 11 years)

   • Development of understanding logical principles.
   • Reasoning becomes logical providing they have a suitable stimulus on which to base their reasoning. For example if they can physically compare sizes or count objects.

4. Formal Operational (11 - 18 years)

   • Individuals also allows individuals to see a range of outcomes for the same problem.
   • Abstract thinking allows individual to apply reason to theoretical objects and problems.

5. Schemas

   • Referred to his stages as schemas
   • These schemas are catagories of knowledge as well as the process of aquiring knowledge
   • If a child uses an existign schema to deal with a new object of situation it is known as assimilation
   • The concepts a child develops are known as a state of equilibirium
   • As new information is accomodated tyhe schemas are modified so the equilibrium is reached again