Piaget's Four Stages of Development (AQA GCSE Psychology): Revision Note

Sensorimotor stage

• The sensorimotor stage spans the ages from birth to around 2 years old and is marked by:

  • The child’s body schema

  • Physical schemas e.g. sucking, grasping

  • The child’s physical exploration of their environment

  • The child’s trajectory schema for example, the child derives pleasure from throwing their food dish onto the floor 

• The sensorimotor stage child begins to relate what their senses are telling them e.g. ‘This is my hand’ to what they can do e.g. ‘I can use my hand to grab this teddy’

• A key marker of this stage is object permanence (acquired around 8 months):

  • The child understands that something/someone still exists even if they can’t see the thing/person any more

  • Object permanence can be tested using the ‘A-not-B’ task

    • The ‘A-not-B’ task involves hiding a toy under location A in front of the child several times in a row

    • The child is then asked to find the toy

    • The toy is then hidden under location B If the child continues to look for the toy under location A they have failed the task (i.e. they have not acquired object permanence)

Pre-operational stage

• The pre-operational stage is probably the most-researched of Piaget’s stages:

  • Children achieve the most marked developmental milestones during this stage e.g. learning to talk, read etc.

  • Children in this stage are easier to test as they have more cognitive skills

  • Children in this stage still do not think like adults which makes findings from researching them informative and useful

• The pre-operational stage spans the ages of 2-7 years old

• Children in this stage:

  • develop increasingly sophisticated schemas e.g. for concepts such as ‘being a good boy/girl’

  • engage in pretend play e.g. ‘I’ll be a pirate, I’ve just captured you’

  • Key markers of this stage comprise:

    • Egocentrism – they lack the ability to see the world from another person’s perspective

    • Conservation – they lack the ability to appreciate that objects or materials remain the same even when their appearance changes

Concrete operational stage

• The concrete operational stage spans the ages 7-11 years and is marked by:

  • being able to pass tests of egocentrism and conservation

  • being able to classify and categorise objects more accurately e.g. ‘These are daffodils and these are tulips: they are both types of flower’

  • an inability to think in completely abstract ways, preferring more concrete ideas and solutions

• Children in this stage can perform mental operations e.g. basic mathematics but they lack a systematic approach to problem-solving

Formal operational stage

• The formal operational stage spans the ages 11+ years and is marked by:

  • increasingly systematic and sophisticated mental operations

  • the ability to engage in abstract thought

  • the ability to engage in scientific reasoning

  • the ability to debate and manipulate ideas and principles

Evaluation of Piaget’s four stages of development

Strengths

• Piaget’s stage theory has great application to education:

  • It sets out the benchmarks for educators and health professionals to use to assess progress

  • It can help to flag any developmental delays in a child

  • The child can then receive intervention to enable them to progress

• Piaget introduced standardised tests for each of his four stages which are replicable which increases their reliability

Weaknesses

• Children do not develop skills at exactly the same time:

  • it does not account for special educational needs i.e. some children are highly advanced whilst others require more support

  • Piaget’s theory therefore lacks some validity

• Piaget did not consider the role of the environment on cognitive development e.g. parents, neighbourhood, peers, education etc.