Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory proposes that children's thinking develops through four distinct stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. In each stage, cognition transforms significantly from the previous stage as children progress from learning about the world through senses alone to eventually gaining the ability to think logically about abstract concepts. The stages generally occur in a fixed order and help children incorporate new ways of thinking as they mature cognitively.

1. Cognitive Stage Theory
Jean Piaget

2. Cognitive Stage theory
• According Jean Piaget, learning is proceeded
by interplay of assimilation and
accommodation. This process of learning
leads to long term developmental change.

3. • Cognition develops through four distinct
stages where,
1. It happens in the same order
2. No stage is skipped
3. Each stage is a significant transformation of
pervious stage
4. Each later stage incorporates previous stages
to itself.

4. Four stages
1. Sensorimotor intelligence
2. Pre operational thinking
3. Concrete operational thinking
4. Formal operational thinking.

5. Sensorimotor stage
• This stage occurs from to birth to age 2.
• Child learn about the world through senses
like touching, chewing, looking etc.
• This actions help child to represent objects
and events.
• Object permanence, a belief that an object
exists whether or not it is present, is major
achievement of sensorimotor stage.

6. Pre operational stage
• This stage lasts from age 2 to 7
• The children use their new ability to represent
objects in a wide variety of activities, that are
not fully organised or logical. For example
dramatic play.
• They think in two levels-one imaginative and
other realistic and this dual processing of
experience is called meta-cognition is the
major attainment of this stage.

7. Concrete Operational thinking
• This stage is from age 7 to 11
• They are able to represent ideas and events more
flexibly and logically. They exhibit basic thinking
pattern and are successful with many academic
tasks. They operate on concrete objects and
events.
• Concrete operational thinking differs from
previous stage in two aspects, reversibility
(thinking in reverse order)and decentration
(following a set of instruction).

8. Formal operational thinking
• It happens from above age 11.
• In this age a child able to solve not only
concrete problems, but also hypothetical or
abstract concepts.
• According Piaget, this thinking is useful only in
solving scientific problems and scientific
experiments. Hence many people may not use
this thinking constantly or fully.