Piaget's cognitive theory

For the Final Major Project I have chosen the 5 -11years age range. However I believe this age range is to broad. After some research I have found that Piagets cognitive theory splits this age range into three stages.

At age 4-7 children are at the the Pre-operational stage.. This means they have good knowledge but don't understand how they know it, so they become curious and ask questions. At this age imaginations are developed. The child's thinking is influenced by imagination (the way they’d like things to be)and the child assumes that others see situations from they're viewpoint. The child takes in information and then changes it in his mind to fit his idea. Piaget noted that children in this stage do no yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information. Children’s increase in playing and pretending takes place in the Pre-operational stage.


7-11 is when children are at concrete operational stage. Children in this stage can only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks. Intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. The child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgements about concrete or observable phenomena, which in the past he needed to manipulate physically to understand.


11years on-wards is the beginning of the formal operational stage. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.  Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions. They use hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses or best guesses, and systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem. During this stage the young person begins to entertain possibilities for the future and is fascinated with what they can be.


I've decided for my project I will focus on the age range of 5-7, which is within the age range stated in the brief and within the Pre-operational stage of Piaget's theory.


I got the information on Piagets Theory from here.