Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a

child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill,

language learning, and other aspects of brain development andcognitive psychology
compared to an adult's point of view.

Sensorimotor Stage

During the early stages, infants are only aware of what is immediately in front of
them. They focus on what they see, what they are doing, and physical interactions
with their immediate environment.
Because they don't yet know how things react, they're constantly experimenting with
activities such as shaking or throwing things, putting things in their mouths, and
learning about the world through trial and error. The later stages include goal-oriented
behavior which brings about a desired result.
Between ages 7 and 9 months, infants begin to realize that an object exists even if it
can no longer be seen. This important milestone -- known as object permanence -- is
a sign that memory is developing.
After infants start crawling, standing, and walking, their increased physical mobility
leads to increased cognitive development. Near the end of the sensorimotor stage (18-
24 months), infants reach another important milestone -- early language
development, a sign that they are developing some symbolic abilities.

Preoperational StageDuring this stage (toddler through age 7), young children are
able to think about things symbolically. Their language use becomes more mature.
They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the
difference between past and future, and engage in make-believe.But their thinking is
based on intuition and still not completely logical. They cannot yet grasp more complex
concepts such as cause and effect, time, and comparison.

Concrete Operational Stage

At this time, elementary-age and preadolescent children -- ages 7 to 11 --

demonstrate logical, concrete reasoning.Children's thinking becomes less egocentric
and they are increasingly aware of external events. They begin to realize that one's
own thoughts and feelings are unique and may not be shared by others or may not
even be part of reality.

Formal Operational Stage

Adolescents who reach this fourth stage of intellectual development -- usually at age
11-plus -- are able to logically use symbols related to abstract concepts, such as
algebra and science. They can think about multiple variables in systematic ways,
formulate hypotheses, and consider possibilities. They also can ponder
abstract relationships and concepts such as justice.

Although Piaget believed in lifelong intellectual development, he insisted that the

formal operational stage is the final stage of cognitive development, and that
continued intellectual development in adults depends on the accumulation of
knowledge.Deductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion is based on the
concordance of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true. Inductive reasoning is
a logical process in which multiple premises, all believed true or found true most of the time, are
combined to obtain a specific conclusion.With transductive reasoning, a child reasons from case
to case, ignoring important, well-established facts they have yet to learn. For example, a child
might reason that pizza is triangular in shape rather than round, if they have only seen single
slices. Also, a child might reach the conclusion that he is capable of turning into an Asian if he
eats rice, because his friend Larry, who eats rice regularly, is Asian. Both of these cases
exemplify the use of transductive reasoning.
Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the
inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality; an inability to understand or
assume any perspective other than their own.
Sensorimotor Development: Birth to 2 Years

According to Piaget, the most striking characteristics of children's behavior occur in

the first 2 years of life. The child's world is in the here and now, because it cannot yet
be represented mentally. In a very literal sense, objects only exist when the child can
actually sense them and interact with them. When objects are not being sensed, then
they cease to exist to the child. This shows the idea of object permanence; a
realization of the permanence of objects.

The Sensorimotor stage is characterized by the child experiencing their world through
movement and senses. During this stage, the children's thoughts are exceptionally
egocentric, meaning they cannot percieve the world from anothers perspective or
viewpoint other than their own.

The sensorimotor stage is divided into 6 substages:

1.Simple reflexes (Birth - 1 Month Old) Characterized by reflexes such as rooting and
sucking
2. Primary circular reactions (1-4 Months Old) Infants learn to coordination
sensations. A primary circular reaction is when the infant tries to reproduce an event
that happened by accident (ex: sucking thumb)
3.Secondary circular reactions( 4-8 Months Old) Children become aware of things
beyond their own body and become more object oriented. (ex: accidentally shaking a
rattle and continuing to do so for the sake of satisfaction)
4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions(8-12 Months Old) Children start to
show intentionality (ex: using a stick to reach something)
5.Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 Months Old) They start to explore new
possibilities of objects
6.Internalization of schemes(18-24 Months Old) A shift to symbolic thinking

Preoperational Thinking: 2 to 7 Years

This stage brings a marked improvement in the child's increased understanding of the
world from the sensorimotor stage. However, compared to an adults understanding the
child's preoperational thinking still exhibits serious shortcomings.

The preoperational stage is divided into 2 substages:

1. Preconceptual thinking (2-4 years)
This substage is characterized by the child's inability to understand all the properties
of classes. The child has acquired the ability to represent objects mentally and to
identify them based on their membership in classes, however this child now reacts to
all similar objects as if they were identical. This understanding is incomplete because
they cannot yet distinguish between apparent identical members of the same class.

Transductive reasoning is another feature of the child's thinking in the substage.

Transductive reasoning is a faulty type of logic that involves making inferences from
one specific to another. It can lead to correct or accurate conclusions, but it is not
guaranteed to do so.

2. Intuitive thinking (4-7 years)

By this age children have formed a more complete understanding of concepts and
have mostly stopped transductive reasoning. Their thinking has become more logical,
although it is structured more about perception than logic.

Conservation is the term used to to refer to the realization that certain quantitative
attributes of objects remain unchaged unless something is added to or taking away
from them. This includes mass, number, area, and volume are all capable of being
conserved.

Example: Children are shown two identical beakers filled to the same level with
water. The experimenter then pours the contents of one beaker into a tall thing tube.
Participants who had previously said the amount in each beaker were equal are now
asked whether there is as much, more or less water in the new container. At the
intuitive stage, they will almost always say that there is more because the water level
is much higher in the tube. This shows that they are misled by the appearance as well
as by lack of specific logical abilities.

Egocentrism is another type of thinking that is typical of the intuitive substage.

Egocentrism is the inability to easily accept the point of view of other.

Concrete Operations: 7 to 11 Years

In this stage children begin to think logically but remain very concrete in their logic.
This stage is centered around rules that now govern the child's logic and thinking -
rules such as: reversibility, identity, and compensation.

The first, reversibility, emerges when the child realizes that an action could be
reversed and certain consequences will follow from doing so.
Identity is the idea that for every action or operation there is another operation that
leaves it unchanged. For example, adding or taking away nothing produces no change
Compensation is a property defined by the logical consequences of combining more
than one operation or more than one dimension.

Classification is another achievement of this period. This means that children acquire
the skills they lead to the ability to describe things by terms of classes, numbers, and
series.

Seriating occurs when a child can order objects in a series because they have acquired
knowledge of them through experience. The picture above is an example of seriating.
This child has arranged her dolls by height which is a form of seriation.

Formal Operations: After 11 and 12 Years

In this stage children develop abstract thought and can easily conserve and think
logically in their mind. Children directly apply their logic to real objects or imagine
objects. Those who are in this stage also develop propositional thinking. This type of
thinking is not restricted to the consideration of the concrete or the potentially real but
instead deals with hypothetics. Children in this stage can now reason from real to
other possibilities.