Piagetian Periods of Concept

Development and Thought

Munira Juma
H00354304
Constructivism :

Jean Piaget came to the "that people

construct their own under- standings by
attaching new experiences to experiences
they already hold in such a way that the
resulting conceptualizations make sense to
them"
Sensorimotor period (from birth to about age 2):

Children begin to learn about the world. They use all their sensory
abilitiestouch, taste, sight, hearing, smell, and muscular.
They use growing motor abilities to grasp, crawl, stand, and
eventually walk.
Children in this first period are explorers, and through activities
where they use their sensory and motor skills to learn basic skills
and concepts that absorb a great deal of information.
By the end of this period, the child is aware of the existence of
things even when they are out of sight, and learn how to
recognize objects by using the information they have acquired
about features such as color, shape, and size.
preoperational period (from ages 2 to 7):

Children begin to develop concepts that are more like those of

adults, but these are still incomplete in comparison to what they
will be like at maturity.
Children begin to use concept terms such as : size, weight, shape,
time, length, and so on.
Children also use symbolic behavior in their representational play,
where they may use sand to represent food, a stick to represent a
spoon, or another child to represent father, mother, or baby.
When the physical arrangement of material is changed,
preoperational children seem unable to hold the original picture
of its shape in mind. They lack reversibility; that is, they cannot
reverse the process of change mentally
concrete operations period (from ages 7 to11):

Children are becoming conservers. They are becoming more and

more skilled at retaining the original picture in mind and making a
mental reversal when appearances are changed.
The time between ages 5 and 7 is one of transition to concrete
operations.
they will be able to mentally manipulate groups that are
presented by number symbols with a real understanding of what
the mathematical operations mean.
formal operations period (from age 11 through adulthood):

Children can learn to use the scientific method independently;

that is, they learn to solve problems in a logical and systematic
manner.
They begin to understand abstract concepts and to attack
abstract problems.
They can imagine solutions before trying them out.
This period may be reached as early as age 11; however, it may
not be reached at all by many adults without problem-solving
training or brain-twister activities.