Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development is constructed of 4 different stages of development in children. It begins with the sensorimotor stage, and then continues throughout age with preoperational, concrete operational, and lastly formal operational. Each stage of Piaget’s theory has an achievement that is accomplished throughout the time frame, as well as several major limitations for each stage. Piaget’s process begins at birth and continue throughout life, beginning and ending at different ages in a child’s development. In the situation given, with Mary being a five year old and being upset at her mother replacing her quarters with a dollar would fall under Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, the Preoperational Stage.
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These limitations include children being “pre-logical”. When a child is pre-logical, they have not yet developed logical thinking. An example of pre-logical thinking can be seen through Piaget’s Liquid conservation experiment. In this experiment, Piaget had children of several ages tell him which container had more or less liquid. He would start with them both in containers with the same volume, and then he would move the liquid into a container with a different volume than the first and ask again. When he asked children under the age of 7, they responded with one of the containers having more liquid than the other, but children who had already developed logical thinking stated that both containers had the same, but the liquid was spaced out differently, due to the containers differing in size and shape. Children in this stage often do not comprehend the topic of conservation, which means that they do not understand that although the appearance of something has changed, does not mean that key properties have …show more content…
Children who are exposed to problems while in this stage often do not know how to mentally reverse things once they occur, and focus more on the start and end states of an experiment, rather than the entire experiment as a whole. This relates to centration, which involves a child centering his or her concentration on one feature of a task, and fails to consider other relevant features. An example from Piaget’s liquid conservation task can be seen when a child concentrates more on the height of the liquid, rather than the shape of each container. They consider how the containers are the same at the beginning, but different at the end and lack the understanding or capability to mentally reverse the liquid back and forth from container to
These limitations include children being “pre-logical”. When a child is pre-logical, they have not yet developed logical thinking. An example of pre-logical thinking can be seen through Piaget’s Liquid conservation experiment. In this experiment, Piaget had children of several ages tell him which container had more or less liquid. He would start with them both in containers with the same volume, and then he would move the liquid into a container with a different volume than the first and ask again. When he asked children under the age of 7, they responded with one of the containers having more liquid than the other, but children who had already developed logical thinking stated that both containers had the same, but the liquid was spaced out differently, due to the containers differing in size and shape. Children in this stage often do not comprehend the topic of conservation, which means that they do not understand that although the appearance of something has changed, does not mean that key properties have …show more content…
Children who are exposed to problems while in this stage often do not know how to mentally reverse things once they occur, and focus more on the start and end states of an experiment, rather than the entire experiment as a whole. This relates to centration, which involves a child centering his or her concentration on one feature of a task, and fails to consider other relevant features. An example from Piaget’s liquid conservation task can be seen when a child concentrates more on the height of the liquid, rather than the shape of each container. They consider how the containers are the same at the beginning, but different at the end and lack the understanding or capability to mentally reverse the liquid back and forth from container to