Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s theory used to understand intellectual children development.

First at all, we need to understand Piaget’s theory. Piaget focuses on the mental processes that occur, rather than on the actual measure of the intellect. He uses four developmental stages to define intelligence. These stages are:

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years old)—Piaget said that in this stage the child explores the world with senses rather than through mental operations, she or he is building a set of concepts about reality and how it works. Piaget calls this the sensorimotor stage because the early manifestations of intelligence appear from sensory perceptions and motor activities.

2. Preoperational stage (ages 2-7)—Piaget found that at the end of the second year new psychological functioning occurs; Piaget points that although the child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations she or he can distinguish between small and big, tall and short etc.

3. Concrete operations (ages 7-11)—Piaget affirms that at this stage the child can understand and conceptualize her or his physical experience by the appropriate use of logic for that reason he found that at this stage abstract problem solving is also possible.

4. Formal operations (beginning at ages 11-15 adulthood)—Piaget establishes that during this stage the young adult functions in a cognitively normal manner and therefore is able to understand such things as love, "shades of gray", and values; in addition to this, he says the young adult is also able to think abstractly; moreover, she or he has the ability to formulate hypotheses and systematically test them to arrive at an answer to a problem. (Piaget.)