II.

PREOPERATIONAL (2-7 yrs old)

In contrast to the sensorimotor, the childs thinking in the next stage does not
occur through actions, but rather functions in a representational and conceptual
framework. That, is the child is now able to employ mental symbols to re-create or
represent previous or current experiences.
A. SYMBOLIC FUNCTION ability to represent mentally an object that is not present
Ex. Between the ages of two and seven, these mental abilities come to
unfold fully as advances in language devt and imagination enable the child to
think and play in new ways. Whereas the 2 yr old is likely to put a cup on a saucer
and pretend to drink, the 4 yr old can pretend play and transform the cup and
saucer into anything. Then, the child may turn these tea partys materials into
imaginary hat or spaceship. By six or seven, the objects of pretend play may exist
solely in their mind.
B. EGOCENTRISM tendency of young children to assume that everyone views the
world in the same way they do; They cannot put themselves in others shoes or
see someone elses perspective.
Ex. Consider a 4 yr old who can label his right and left hand, but cannot
identify a friends left and right hand. Another example (see ppt) is the experiment
of Piaget and Barbel Inhelder called the three mountain tasks. In this experiment,
the child is seated on one side, then a doll on the other side. Then, the child is
asked what view the doll is seeing.
C. CENTRATION tendency to focus on one perceptual aspect of an event to the
exclusion of others (explain example)
(add) Ex. Another example, 4 or 5 yr old child is presented two rows of
objects in which one row contains nine objects and a second, but longer row,
contains seven objects. The preoperational child selects the longer row thinking it
has more than the other.
D. INABILITY TO REVERSE OPERATIONS (CONSERVATION) inability to realize
that certain properties of an object remain the same regardless of changes in its
other properties; they lack the idea of conservation
Ex. (explain pic) In the case of the graduated cylinder, they center on height and
not on surface area
E. ANIMISM childs tendency to attribute life to inert objects
Ex. They tend to pretend objects as a real being; doll into a baby; toys into a friend
F. TRANSDUCTIVE REASONING child neither reasons deductively or inductively
Ex. By Piaget to her daughter: when his daughter failed to take a nap one
afternoon, she said, I havent haad my nap, so it isnt afternoon. In this stage,
their thinking is like: A causes B, then B must cause A.

III. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL (7-12 yrs old)

In this stage, children engage in logical thought to solve concrete problems.
A. DECENTERING capable of employing all of perceptual feature of an experience
in order to derive logical solutions to concrete problems

Ex. Going back to the three mountain tasks, at age six and seven, they would
realized that the dolls view would be different from their own, but it was until the
ages of seven and nine that children were able to decenter, pr focus on multiple
aspects.
B. REVERSIBILITY (explain picture;)
They now can understand that airplane made of clay can e turned into clay again;
knows subtraction
C. CONSERVATION (explain again the inability to reverse operations: the graduated
cylinder)

D. CLASSIFICATION grouping object into categories

Take the case of the child who has brother and sisters, and assumes that all
brother and sisters belong to the category child. They believe that before this
stage, adults cannot be brother and sisters.
E. SERIATION arranging objects in sequential order according to one aspect
(explain picture) They can arrange a series of elements according to size, volume,
weight, or some other dimension.

IV. FORMAL OPERATIONAL (12 & up)

In this stage, development provides the ability to reason and construct logic useful
for all classes of problems. They are not bound to content and available experience,
rather, they are free to conjecture, to hypothesize, and to deal in the what if.
A. HYPOTHETICAL REASONING transcends perception and memory and deals
with things not in the realm of direct experience
Ex. For instance, if you ask a concrete operational child, What if the sun
disappeared, they would answer, It would get dark. On the other hand, a formal
operational child will be able to hypothesize a number of consequences such as
destruction or transformation of plant, animal, and human life.
B. ANALOGICAL REASONING heuristic in which one limits the search for solutions
to situations that are similar to the one on hand
This is when children can fully explain why an analogy works and how each part of
the analogy is connected to the other. Consider the analogy: Dog is to hair as bird
is to feathers. It focuses on the relationship between dog-hair and bird-feathers.
C. DEDUCTIVE REASONING reasoning from general to specific
Ex. All women are mortal. Joan of Arc was a woman. Therefore, Joan of Arc was
mortal.
D. REFLECTIVE ABILITIES
For instance, they are able to systematically generate all possible solutions to a
problem or engage in combinatorial reasoning. They use combinatorial logic to
solve the problem.