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Cognitive Development And Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development

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The third operation within the Pre-operational stage is ‘Class Inclusion’. This is when children begin to understand classification, for example, Dalmatians, Greyhounds and Spaniels would be ably classed as dogs. Children who had not reached this stage would struggle with the concept that categories may be divided into subsets, for example, a dog is also an Animal. However, a study by Sugier and Svetner (2006) found children as young as 5 to have an understanding of class inclusion, when presented with a class inclusion test, whereas Piaget believed this wouldn’t happen until the child is 7 years old. (younger children, within this stage or before? Or that they still do struggle within this stage?)

The third stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is the Stage of concrete operations. Within this stage, children still struggle with abstract ideas and concepts, as well as imagining objects or situations they cannot see. In addition, Piaget claimed for his theory to be universal, however research suggests that not everyone reaches the stage of concrete operations. Research by Maclean (2001) found that the concrete stage has more to do with culture and school rather than brain maturation. Therefore, if cognitive development was purely biological, theoretically, late school-starters, and those in poverty with a lack of education (which is important in rational thinking) should have the same level of logical thinking. (?)

The final stage in Piaget’s theory is the

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