Cognitive Development

While children are physically growing, their brains and their cognitive abilities mature too. Early childhood is not only about physical changes but it is also a time in which extraordinary mental development occurs. Cognitive development refers to abilities such as reasoning, memory, metacognition, language and thinking. Those skills are not only acquired during school age, those skills are part of us and developing since the day we are born.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is a very important person in the development of cognitive theories. He came up with different stages: Sensorimotor stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete Operational stage and finally: Formal Operations stage. I will discuss each stage in detail ahead.

Sensimotor Stage

(Birth to 2 years)

Sensory stimuli leads the motor responses of the child, they are limited to their perceptions and motor activities such as sucking a nipple. In this time children develop object permanence which is a realization that things exist even if they cannot see them. In this stage children like to experiment with trial and error which helps them determine crucial things.

Preoperational Stage

(2 to 6 years)

In this time, children learn how to use language but they are not able to understand concrete logic yet. They are able to think and talk about things that they have not yet experienced but not with logic like an adult would. This stage is known for a noticeable change in vocabulary, a lot of pretend play and lot of intuition. This three things go together because children learn a lot while playing and do things intuitively rather than with a conscious awareness of why.

Concrete Operational Stage

(6 to 7 years)

In this stage children are able to use logic similar to an adult but they are only able to use it based on concrete, real-life situations. They also understand that there are several perspectives to what they see or think and star to understand how opinions can be different. They are also able to classify objects into more than one category and finally, they acquire conservation. Conservation is: the realization that if nothing is added or taken away, amount stays the same. Here is an interesting video regarding conservation.

Formal Operational Stage

(11 to adulthood)

They finally develop an ability to think about abstract concepts and are able to use reasoning and logical thoughts. They acquire capabilities that are essential for advanced reasoning needed in mathematics or science. In this stage the following develop: Reasoning about abstract hypothetical and contrary-to-fact ideas, separation and control of variables, proportional reasoning and idealism.