Correct Answer - Option 2 : 7 to 12 years
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, has made a systematic study of cognitive development in his theory that is categorized in four stages.
- He observed his children and their process of making sense of the world around them and developed a model of how the mind processes new information encountered.
Concrete Operational Stage:
- 'Concrete Operational Stage' lasts around 7 to 11/12 years of age which refers to the late childhood stage of child development.
- In this stage, children can classify objects into groups and subgroups and gain the abilities of conservation of number, area and volume.
- Children show attainment of the concept of reversibility, seriation, transitivity as a cognitive capacity.
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Reversibility is the understanding that a child develops to know that things that have been changed can be returned to their original state.
- Children can conserve numbers (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even when its appearance changes.
Hence, it could be concluded that according to Piaget 7 to 12 years is the average age limit of the child during concrete operational period of cognitive development.
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development:
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Stages of Development
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Characteristics
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Sensorimotor
(birth to 2 yr)
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- Experiences the world through senses and actions (looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping)
- Cognitive development begins with the baby's use of senses and movements
- Develops object permanence
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Pre-Operational
(2-7 yr)
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- Learns to use language to represent objects by images and words
- Classifies objects by a single feature.
- Thinking is ego-centric; has difficulty taking in the point of view of others.
- Develops symbolic thought
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Concrete-Operational
(7-11/12 yr)
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- Thinking logically about concrete events, performing concrete arithmetic operations
- Achieves conservation of number (age-6), mass (age-7), and weight (age-9)
- Develops operational thought
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Formal Operational
(11/12 yr and above)
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- Potential for more mature moral reasoning
- Becomes concerned with hypothetical, future, and ideological problems
- Develops abstract concepts.
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