What is sensorimotor

This child has not yet mastered the concept of objectpermanence. In older infants, when a toy is covered the child will activelysearch for the object, realizing that the object continues to exist. After a child has mastered the concept of object permanence, the emergenceof " directed groping" begins to take place. With directedgroping, the child begins to perform motor experiments in order to see what willhappen.

During directed groping, a child will vary his movements to observe howthe results will differ. The child learns to use new means to achieve an end.

These are not reflex actions. They are done intentionally — for the sake of the pleasurable stimulation produced. Next comes the stage of secondary circular reactions. It typically lasts from about 4 — 8 months. Now babies repeat pleasurable actions that involve objects as well as actions involving their own bodies.

An example of this is the infant who shakes the rattle for the pleasure of hearing the sound that it produces. The fourth substage from 8 — 12 months is the stage of co-ordinating secondary schemes.

Instead of simply prolonging interesting events, babies now show signs of an ability to use their acquired knowledge to reach a goal. For example the infant will not just shake the rattle, but will reach out and knock to one side an object that stands in the way of it getting hold of the rattle.

Fifth comes the stage of tertiary circular reactions. These differ from secondary circular reactions in that they are intentional adaptations to specific situations. The infant who once explored an object by taking it apart now tries to put it back together.

For example, it stacks the bricks it took out of its wooden truck back again or it puts back the nesting cups — one inside the other. Finally, in substage six there is the beginning of symbolic thought. This is transitional to the pre operational stage of cognitive development. Babies can now form mental representations of objects.

Birth to approximately 2 years is the sensorimotor stage. The preoperational stage ages moves from toddlerhood through early childhood. The concrete operational stage is from ages The formal operational stage occurs from 12 years into adulthood.

Piaget recognized that children could pass through the stages at various ages other than what he proposed as normal, but he insisted that cognitive development always follows this sequence and that stages could not be skipped.

Each stage marked new intellectual abilities and a more complex understanding of the world. Because they can see, hear, taste, and smell from birth, they combine these senses with their emerging physical abilities to interact with objects by grasping, shaking, banging, and tasting them.

Their growing perceptions are based on past experiences, cognitive awareness, and their current use of their senses.