Piaget's approach to Human Development

Piaget’s approach to human development has to do with stages in our life. These include the sensory motor stage (birth to about age 2), preoperational stage (begins about the time the child starts to talk to about age 7), concrete stage (about first grade to early adolescence) and formal operations stage (adolescence). The sensory motor stage states that the child learns about himself and his environment through motor and reflex actions. The preoperational stage states that the child begins to use symbols to represent objects through language learnt over time. In this stage the child has little to no sense of time and is oriented in the present. Children in this stage also think about things they way they want it be; sort of like a fantasy. The concrete stage states that the child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgments about concrete or observable events. Children in this stage no longer need to physically inspect events or objects in order to understand them. Finally, the formal operations stage states that the person no longer requires concrete objects to make rational judgments. At this point, he or she is capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. It is possible that people may not reach this stage because of things such as a mental handicap, or prolonged social isolation.