Human Growth and Development / Unit 18 HGD 2555 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Piaget's Stages in Order
The idea
Piaget's four stages, entry 0031, run through four units. The sensorimotor stage, birth to about two, builds understanding through the senses and action, in six substages ending in symbolic thought and deferred imitation, entry 0351. The preoperational stage, about two to seven, brings symbolic representation and pretend play, but also egocentrism and centration, entry 0627. The concrete operational stage, about seven to eleven, brings conservation, reversibility, class inclusion and seriation, entry 0915. The formal operational stage, from about eleven or twelve, brings reasoning about possibilities, entry 1237.
In practice
The same child at two, five, nine and fourteen, answering one puzzle in four different ways, the picture entry 0031 draws.
Where people slip
The ages are approximate, entry 0031 warns, and sources differ by a year at the boundaries. Exam items name a behaviour and ask for the stage: object permanence points to sensorimotor, failing conservation to preoperational, logic about real objects to concrete operations, and hypothetical reasoning to formal operations.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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