Who was Piaget and what are his stages of
development?
Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental
psychologist who studied children in the
early 20th century. His theory of intellectual
or cognitive development, published in
1936, is still used today in some branches of
education and psychology. It focuses on
children, from birth through adolescence,
and characterizes different stages of
development, including:
Piaget’s four stages
Piaget’s stages are age-specific and marked
by important characteristics of thought
processes. They also include goals children
should achieve as they move through a
given stage.
Stage Age CharacteristicsGoal
Sensorimotor Birth to 18–24 months old
Motor activity without use of
symbols. All things learned are based on
experiences, or trial and error. Object
permanence
Preoperational 2 to 7 years old
Development of language, memory,
and imagination. Intelligence is both
egocentric and intuitive. Symbolic
thought
Concrete operational 7 to 11 years old
More logical and methodical
manipulation of symbols. Less egocentric,
and more aware of the outside world and
events.Operational thought
Formal operational Adolescence to
adulthood Use of symbols to relate to
abstract concepts. Able to make hypotheses
and grasp abstract concepts and
relationships. Abstract concepts
Sensorimotor
The sensorimotor stage covers children
ages birth to 18–24 months old.
Characteristics include motor activity
without use of symbols. All things learned
are based on experiences, or trial and error.
The main goal at this stage is establishing an
understanding of object permanence — in
other words, knowing that an object still
exists even if you can’t see it or it’s hidden.
Preoperational
The preoperational stage can be seen in
children ages 2 through 7. Memory and
imagination are developing. Children at this
age are egocentric, which means they have
difficulty thinking outside of their own
viewpoints.
The main achievement of this stage is being
able to attach meaning to objects with
language. It’s thinking about things
symbolically. Symbolic thought is a type of
thinking where a word or object is used to
represent something other than itself.
Concrete operational
Children are much less egocentric in the
concrete operational stage. It falls between
the ages of 7 to 11 years old and is marked
by more logical and methodical
manipulation of symbols.
The main goal at this stage is for a child to
start working things out inside their head.
This is called operational thought, and it
allows kids to solve problems without
physically encountering things in the real
world.
Formal operational
Children 11 years old and older fall into
Piaget’s formal operational stage. A
milestone of this period is using symbols to
understand abstract concepts. Not only
that, but older kids and adults can also think
about multiple variables and come up with
hypotheses based on previous knowledge.
Piaget believed that people of all ages
developed intellectually. But he also
believed that once a person reaches the
formal operational stage, it’s more about
building upon knowledge, not changing how
it’s acquired or understood.
Schema, assimilation, accommodation, and
equilibration
There are a variety of terms Piaget used in
his theory to explain cognitive development
and how it’s achieved at different stages.
Schema is a term he used to represent the
building blocks of knowledge. You may
think of schemas as different index cards
inside the brain. Each one informs the
individual on how to react to new
information or situations.
For example, picture a person visiting the
grocery store to buy milk. In this event, the
schema is a mentally stored pattern of
behavior that can be applied to this
situation. The person remembers how to go
through the aisles, find the milk, select the
preferred kind, and then pay at the register.
Whenever the person is tasked with getting
milk, this particular “script” or schema is
recalled from memory.
Other important terms:
Assimilation is using an existing schema and
applying it to a new situation or object.
Accommodation is changing approaches
when an existing schema doesn’t work in a
particular situation.
Equilibration is the driving force that moves
all development forward. Piaget didn’t
believe that development progressed
steadily. Instead, it moved in leaps and
bounds according to experiences.
How can caregivers use schemas?
Parents and teachers can help build a child’s
various schemas to promote learning and
development throughout the stages. This
can be achieved by giving children plenty of
exposure to the outside world. Being
exposed to a variety of learning-by-doing
experiences from a young age may help
build up those internal index cards. Then, as
children get older, it’s about broadening the
experiences and applying them to new,
even hypothetical, situations.
How to apply Piaget’s stages to learning
and development
So, how exactly can Piaget’s stages be
applied to education? At the root, it’s about
recognizing the stage a child is currently in
and catering to that developmental level.
Teachers and parents can help by providing
children with different experiences or ways
to explore and experiment with their
environments. It’s through these
experiences that children may gain
understandings of different concepts in a
hands-on way.
For young children entering preschool and
kindergarten, Piaget’s theories align more
with play-based school programs, or
environments where kids are offered
opportunities for trial and error, and
interaction with the real world.
Piaget’s philosophy can be incorporated
into any education program.
Examples include:
Providing chances for trial and error. Focus
on the process of learning versus the end
result.
Providing children with visual aids and other
props, like models, to illustrate different
ideas and concepts.
Using real-life examples to paint complex
ideas, like word problems in math.
Providing chances to classify or group
information. Outlines and hierarchies are
good examples and allow kids to build new
ideas from previous knowledge.
Offering problems that necessitate
analytical or logical thinking. Brain teasers
can be used as a tool in this instance.
You can also help your child throughout the
stages by catering to their specific learning
style at the time:
Sensorimotor
Use real objects in play activities.
Connect play to the five senses.
Implement routines for the youngest
children. They are predictable and may be
highly useful with developing
communication.
Preoperational
Children learn best by doing. Allow them to
actively interact with a variety of things in
their environments, including books,
people, games, and objects.
Ask questions while children are engaged in
daily routines and allow them to come up
with their own ideas.
Point out new things and encourage
children to question you about those things.
Concrete operational
Create timelines, three dimensional models,
science experiments, and other ways to
manipulate abstract concepts.
Use brain teasers and riddles to foster
analytical thinking.
Focus on open-ended questioning.
Formal operational
Offer step-by-step explanations of concepts
and utilize charts and other visual aids.
Explore hypothetical situations. You may
relate them to current events or social
issues.
Broaden concepts whenever possible. For
example, if talking about the Civil War,
discuss other issues that have divided the
country since that time.
Cons of Piaget’s theory
There are some criticisms of Piaget’s stages.
In particular, researchers in the 1960s and
1970s argued that Piaget may have
underestimated children’s abilities by using
confusing terms and particularly difficult
tasks in his observations. In other studies,
children have been successful with
demonstrating knowledge of certain
concepts or skills when they were
presented in a simpler way.
Piaget’s theory also expects children of a
certain stage to primarily be at that stage
across the board with all tasks presented to
them. Other researchers uncovered that
there is a range of abilities with cognitive
tasks. In other words, some children may
excel or struggle in one area over another.
Piaget’s theory also explains that trying to
teach children particularly advanced
concepts would be unsuccessful. Yet in
some cases, children may be able to learn
advanced ideas even with brief instruction.
Children may be more adaptable and
competent than Piaget’s stages give them
credit for.
Last, Piaget primarily examined white,
middle-class children from developed
countries in his work. As a result, his
findings may be skewed to this subset of
people, and may not apply as directly to
other groups or locations.
What did Jean Piaget study?
Jean Piaget studied zoology (doctorate,
1918) and philosophy at the University of
Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and psychology at
the University of Zürich (1919) and in Paris
under Pierre Janet and Théodore Simon,
among others (1919–21).
Where did Jean Piaget work?
Jean Piaget served as director of studies at
the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in
Geneva (1921–25; codirector after 1933)
and held professorships at the University of
Neuchâtel (1925–29) and the University of
Geneva (1929–71; emeritus 1971–80). He
held professorships at the University of
Lausanne (1938–51) and the Sorbonne
(1952–63).
What did Jean Piaget write?
A prolific author, Jean Piaget wrote scores and differences and the emergence of
of important works, including The Language elementary logical abilities; and advanced
and Thought of the Child (1923), Judgment reasoning, including manipulation of
and Reasoning in the Child (1924), and The abstract ideas.
Origins of Intelligence in Children (1948).
Jean Piaget, (born August 9, 1896,
Why is Jean Piaget famous? Neuchâtel, Switzerland—died September
16, 1980, Geneva), Swiss psychologist who
Jean Piaget pioneered the study of
was the first to make a systematic study of
children’s intellectual development. He
the acquisition of understanding in children.
argued that children’s understanding of the
He is thought by many to have been the
world progresses through four stages:
major figure in 20th-century developmental
sensorimotor development and self-
psychology.
awareness; representational thought,
including by means of language;
classification of objects by their similarities