Jean Piaget’s 4 Stages of Child Development

Welcome to the second installment of developmental stages. If this is your first time here, please look at the posts titled, “Three Theories of Child Development” and “Erik Erikson’s Stages of Development”. These two poses will give you a good understanding of what this upcoming post will entail as well as the general format. For each of the stages within this theory, various substages will be explained and expanded upon so that some information is a bit clearer for the casual reader. I hope that you can gain a new understanding and please leave a comment or email if there is something that isn’t clear. All information is found using the article “Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained” from VeryWellMind.

Stage 1: The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)

This is the first stage of the theory. Due to this being within the age range of birth to two years, the child learns its environment through the five senses it has gained since birth. Through taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight, the child begins to learn about its general surroundings daily. The six substages within this stage are; Reflexes (0-1 month), Primary Circular Reactions (1-4 months), Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months), Coordination of Reactions (8-12 months), Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months), and Early Representational Thought (18-24 months).

Stage 1, Substage 1: Reflexes (0 to 1 month)

This substage is explained as the child learning its environment through sucking objects and looking around. Anyone with children can attest to this time frame where most objects given to the child are instantly put in their mouth. It’s theorized that by doing that, the child is learning what the object is while at the same time attempting to see if it is edible.

Stage 1, Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions (1 to 4 months)

In this substage, the child begins to pick up on certain actions that provided them pleasure and repeat them to gain the same reaction. The example provided is when a child begins to suck their thumb. At first, it was an accidental action of putting their thumb in their mouth but once it is understood to them as pleasurable, it becomes a repeated action throughout their childhood and in some instances, into adulthood.

Stage 1, Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4 to 8 months)

Building on the last substage, the child now begins to do actions to gain a response from the environment around them. This could be certain new sounds or new reactions from their caregivers. For example the shaking of a rattle to hear the sound that it provides or throwing a toy to see what happens afterward. Normally a parent will pick up the toy to give it back to the child or talk to the child to not do it again, only for them to do it again.

Stage 1, Substage 4: Coordination of Reactions (8 to 12 months)

At this stage, the child's actions become less random and more intentional. The child will continue similar behaviors to gain a pleasurable reaction from their surroundings. They will also begin to notice certain objects have intended uses such as the sound that comes from the rattle or a pacifier’s use for calming them down. In this stage, it is also theorized that the child may begin to imitate others in their environment as well.

Stage 1, Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12 to 18 months)

This is the stage where the child begins to do more actions to garner a reaction from their caregivers. It can be said this is the “trial and error” stage. For example, the child may do certain repeated actions or sounds to get a reaction and once there is a reaction that the child deems ideal, they will continue that action. Think of when a child throws their bottle or flips their bowl over to see what type of reaction will come from that action.

Stage 1, Substage 6: Early Representational Thought (18 months to 24 months)

At this last substage, the child begins to show some understanding of the actions that they have been making. Their actions become more conscious as opposed to doing things solely for a reaction. As the title of this substage suggests, the child is now using all the actions they’ve done and the responses that they’ve received to determine what actions are significant for the responses that they now want moving forward.

Point of importance within the Sensorimotor stage

It is noted that during this stage object permanence is what the child learns during this stage. What this means is that the child begins to understand that an object still exists even if they don’t see it. The best way to explain this phenomenon is when you play peek-a-boo with a young child. Depending on their age, once the adult hides their face they see this as the person disappearing and reappearing when they remove their hands. As they get older they understand that the person did not disappear and this translates into other objects that they regularly interact with as well. This also allows the child to begin putting names on the objects that they interact with regularly.

Stage 2: The Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years)

In the second stage of this theory, it is believed that the child begins to talk around this age and starts to engage in “symbolic play”. Symbolic Play in this context is to explain the type of play experiences where the imagination is used to express different symbols within their playtime. For example, think of a child that pretends to be a cowboy. They may use a broom as a horse but they know that the broom is not a horse. This type of play begins at this age. It is also believed that they don’t have a good understanding of logic yet at this stage. There are two substages of focus within this stage; Symbolic function (2-4 years) and Intuitive thought (4-7 years).

Stage 2, Substage 1: Symbolic Function (2-4 years)

At this stage is where the kid is theorized to form mental representations of the objects around them as well as those that are not around them at the moment. This helps with the child’s ability to “play pretend” due to the representations that they were able to form. It is also said that the ability to play pretend assists with solving problems during this stage. If we think about the scenarios that we may think about in our adult life to solve problems, it can be said that we learned how to engage in this problem-solving behavior around this stage of our lives.

Stage 2, Substage 2: Intuitive Thought (4-7 years)

In this stage, it is believed that the child begins to use logic to solve their day-to-day problems. They may not be able to fully explain why they chose the course of action to do so, however, if watched you may see some level of effort to consciously make the decisions to reach a solution.

Two Interesting Concepts During This Stage

The first interesting concept is the concept of egocentrism. This is defined as a person’s inability to understand a point of view outside of their own. This is where the term self-centered or egocentric derives from. Around this stage, children are believed to be almost always egocentric. Because I’m not trying to get a slew of emails from parents that say that their child is the most selfless child in the world or people providing articles of children during this age thinking about other people before themselves, remember this is a theory I’m discussing. Not my personal views about the subject. The next concept discussed around this stage of a child’s life is the concept of conservation. It is theorized that the children have difficulty understanding that when there are two things of the same weight (ex. Water) if moved to a different container it doesn’t change the weight of the item just the container that holds it. As the disclaimer above states these beliefs don’t not come without their share of criticism. Just keep in mind this is just a theory and not a blueprint as to what to completely expect of your children.

Stage 3: The Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years)

Building upon the previous stages, during this stage the thinking of the child becomes more concrete. This means that their thinking becomes even more logical. Even though their thinking may become more logical, they still experience some difficulties depending on the type of logic we are talking about. The two types of logic discussed in this theory are inductive and deductive. Inductive logic for this theory is the ability to draw a conclusion based on the facts that they assume to be true. VeryWellMind provides the example that a child may notice that they are always sneezing and itching around the family cat. They may conclude that they are allergic to cats because they only sneeze and itch profusely around the family cat. During this stage Piaget claims that children get a good handle on this concept however when it comes to deductive logic, they may hold some difficulties. Now the easiest way to explain deductive logic would be to use the example from the same resource above, if A=B and B=C then A=C. I wanted to use another example as well that explains the same thing. A use of deductive logic that would be correct would be to say “I have a dog, dogs have four legs, my neighbor’s dog has four legs” However a child can easily get this incorrect using the same type of logic to state “my dog has four legs, dogs are animals, all animals have four legs”. Same thought process however it is incorrect to make this type of assumption using this type of logic.

Now in contrast to the previous stage, a child during this stage begins to grasp the theory of conservation. Using the same example from the previous stage moving water from one container to another, a child may now begin to understand that the amount of water doesn’t change based on the type of container that it is in. Also in this stage, egocentrism begins to decrease and children are better able to understand the points of view of other individuals better. This is also in contrast to the previous stage where their point of view is the only one they can understand.

Stage 4: The Formal Operational Stage (12 and up)

This is the last stage of this theory. This is the stage that continues into adulthood. Like the previous stage, there are no substages within this stage of development. At this stage in this theory, the child begins to expand on some of the concepts introduced in the previous stage. For example, children are theorized to begin using logic to explain situations in the previous stage however have some difficulty with deductive logic. This stage would be when a child is now able to use deductive logic to understand the situations around them. Due to this newfound ability to be able to use logic more readily, they can expand their problem-solving skills as well. If you remember the earlier stages when the topic of problem-solving was discussed, the children expressed this skill through trial-and-error. Now the use of logic helps to figure out the answers to issues they are now having at this stage in life.

Another skill that is introduced during this stage of life is the skill of abstract thought. What this means is that the child can understand life through a complex thought process as opposed to relying solely on past experiences. This type of thought process also aids in being able to problem solve more effectively.

I hope that you have a better understanding of this theory of development. The next and last theory that I will discuss regarding child development would be Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development. After that outline, I will discuss some of the criticisms of each of those theories. One major takeaway from these theories is that they are theories. Nothing in life is ever that black and white, especially a child's development. Some children grow at different paces due to different factors (environmental, familial, etc.). Understanding this and keeping this in mind while reading through these theories and others like this is very important to help with your general understanding. If you have any questions about the content, concerns about the information presented, or topics you’d like to see covered please don’t hesitate to reach out, otherwise have a great day.

Resources used for those interested

https://www.verywellmind.com/piagets-stages-of-cognitive-development-2795457