The document outlines Piaget's four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage from birth to 2 years where infants learn about themselves and their environment through their senses; pre-operational stage from 2 to 6 years where children develop language and represent objects with symbols; concrete operational stage from 6 to 12 years where children develop logic and understand concepts like reversibility and spatial relationships; and formal operational stage from 12 years on where abstract thinking, logical reasoning, and cognitive maturity emerge.

1. MENTAL HEALTH
NURSING
FOUR
STAGES OF PIAGET’S THEORY OF
DEVELOPMENT

2. STAGES & APPROXIMATE AGE
Sensorimotor
Birth to 2 years
EXPECTED COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
 Uses sense to learn about self
 Develops a sense of self as
separate from the external
environment
 Develops a greater
understanding regarding
object within the external
environment and their effect
upon him or her

3. Develops the ability to
express self with
language of symbolic
gestures and begins to
classify objects
Pre-operational 2 to 6 years

4. Concrete operation 6 to 12 years
 Learns to apply logic to thinking;
develops understanding to reversibility
(modifiable) and spatiality
(Occupying),and is increasingly social
and able to apply rules
 Able to think about past present events
but not future , however , thinking is
still concrete

5. Formal operation 12 to 15 years and
beyond
Learns to think and reason
in abstract term, further
develops logical thinking
and reasoning , and
achieves cognitive maturity