Examine Piaget's four stages of cognitive development.

Piaget asserts that intelligence unfolds in four distinct stages or

periods between early childhood and adolescence namely: The
sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), The preoperational stage (2
to 7 years), The stage of concrete operations (7 to 11 years) and
The stage of formal operations (11 years to 21 years)
Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2 years)
The sensorimotor stage maintained that children are relying on
behavioural schemata as a means of exploring and understanding
the environment. Sensorimotor child is characterized by sense of
perception and vocalization.
Operational Stage (2 to 7 years),
The intuitive period or stage of pre-operational (from age 4 to age
7) is marked by more social or communicative speech and greater
dependence or intuitive thinking rather than just on perception.
This stage marks the movement toward greater decent ration. The
child is able to see more than one factor at a time that influences
an event. The mental activities which are necessary for schooling
begin to develop various kinds of conservation as quantity,
length, number etc and by appearance; density and seriate objects
in order and size starting with the smallest to the largest etc.

Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years)

About 7 years to 12 years. The concrete operations stage
emphasized the children capability of performing operations that
are directly related to objects. Children can now conserve,
classify, seriate, decentre, accommodate and participate in the
most of the things required of them at school. Piaget noted that
one of most significant characteristics of cognitive activity at the
concrete operations stage children’s achievement in number,
mass, weight and so on. Children at this stage increase in
knowledge and skills and decrease in egocentrism or self-
centredness.
Formal Operational Stage (11 years to 21 years)
About age 11 to age 15 plus). This stage according to Jean Piaget
is the cognitive development in adolescents and relationship with
other developmental and cultural phenomena.
The term formal is used by Piaget because adolescence at this
level of thinking possesses the ability to consider the possible,
and therefore, is able to reason about the form of an argument
apart from its contents.