According to Piaget, a cognitive development begins with the ______stage and ends with the _________stage.

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anonymous · Answer

According to Jean Piaget, cognitive development begins with the sensorimotor stage. This is where they focus basically on what they are directly experiencing. It starts at birth, and extends to about age two. They learn they can interact with their environment by manipulating objects, looking at things, listening to sounds etc. As you can see, these are all skills the baby is born with (unless they are disabled in some way). According to Piaget, object impermanence is one of the most important accomplishments at the sensorimotor stage. This is the ability to imagine things when they are unseen. For example, an older infant knows their mother still exists when she leaves the room: but a younger infant does not. More information on the sensorimotor stage here: http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/p/sensorimotor.htm Cognitive development ends with the formal operational stage. It begins around age 11 and lasts into adulthood. In this stage, people learn how to deal with abstract thinking and such skills as deductive reasoning, logical thought and planning. More information here: http://psychology.about.com/od/piagetstheory/p/formaloperation.htm