The Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development, as proposed by Jean Piaget, unfolds in four stages: 1. **Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)**: Infants learn through senses and actions, exploring the world around them. 2. **Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)**: Children begin to use language and think symbolically, but their thinking is still intuitive and egocentric. 3. **Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)**: Logical thinking develops, allowing children to understand concrete concepts and perform operations like addition and subtraction. 4. **Formal Operational Stage (12 years and up)**: Adolescents begin to think abstractly, form hypotheses, and reason logically about hypothetical situations.