My view of Jean Piaget's Stages

Jean Piaget (cognitive theorist)

Piaget’s Stages

1. Sensorimotor:

• Occurs from birth until age 2

1. Pre-operational: 

• occurs from ages 2-7
• beginning of symbolic thinking, language use and interaction with the world in an intuitive way. 
• egocentrism- child doesn’t appreciate different perspectives. 

1. Concrete Operational: 

• occurs from ages 7-11
• can perform operations; mental operations that are reversible.
• reasoning through problems from distinct; reasoning must be tied to concrete or physical things.
• are able to classify objects
• seriation 
• transituity can start to tell the difference between similar objects. Beginnings of conductive reasoning.

1. Formal Operational: 

• Ages 11-15 and continues into adulthood
• beginnings of hypothetical deductive reasoning 
• see a new form of egocentrism (adolescent egocentrism) child thinks everyone is as interested in them (the child) and their lives as the child is.

I see issues with Piaget's stages. The biggest problem I have Is that he doesn't take into account the many external factors that can effect children throughout these stages. For example the way they are raised can completely change the way they will move from one stage to the next. Another influence would be the culture in which they grow up in. Another problem is that some children will enter stages at different times and ages. Some might go into the stages in different orders as well. I like the flow that Piaget has throughout the stages and for the most part agree with him I just feel there are some problems that should have been addressed. As a consumer of information we will always find ways to critique input information. However, I feel the biggest problem with this theoretical model is the formal operational stage. It leaves so much room for people to fit into it. It says that it will continue on into adulthood, which is hypothetically ideal but not all will ever reach this stage. An so much of it can be determined upon how one views and understands this stage. What is true cognitive reasoning? What does it mean to be able to make deductive reasoning decisions? With the amount of issues that exist in our society to day I believe there are a lot of individuals who have not yet reached the full potential of this stage and may never do so.
Overall I think Piaget had a good theoretical model.