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Piaget's Four Stages Of Cognitive Development

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According to Mind on Science - Piaget 's four stages of cognitive development. Piaget identified four stages or patterns of reasoning that characterized human cognitive development. Piaget viewed these as qualitative differences in the way humans think from birth to adulthood. At each of these stage the individual is able to perform operations on the environment in order to develop cognitive structures. Sensorimotor stage. Beginning at birth to about 2 years, the first stage is characterized by perceptual and motor activities. The behavior of children during this stage can be described as nonverbal, reflex actions, play, imitating others, and object permanence. Early in this stage of development, if an object which the child has seen is removed from view, the object is forgotten (Out of sight, out of mind). However, later in this stage, if a child was playing with an object, and it gets hidden from view, the child will look for the object. Preoperational stage. During the preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7 years), the child 's intellectual abilities expand greatly. The child, during this stage, is able to go beyond direct experience with objects. The preoperational child is able to represent objects in their absence, thereby developing the ability to manipulate in the mind. Thus the child can engage in activities such as symbolic play, drawing, mental imagery and language. Concrete operational stage. The concrete operational stage begins around the age of seven, and extends
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