stages of cognitive development: stage 3 & 4

formal operations 11+

children can/start to think abstract.
an idea of an abstract concept is a schema

the test in this stage is the "third eye test"
this involves asking children where they would put an extra eye.
9yrs- placed the eye on the forehead that is similar to their existing eyes
11yrs- placed it one the hand so that they coud see around corners

concrete operations 7-11yrs

they can perform logical operations as long as they are concrete.


an example of an operation is CONSERVATION (keeping things the same)
being able to understand that if you spread the material out that it does not affect the mass,volume or number.

Not only can the children answer the conservation question correctly, they can give sound logical reasoning as to why the amounts of liquid are the same in the beakers, such as that it is higher in one glass because that one is thin whereas the other is wide.


Multiple classification is mastered by children in the concrete operational stage. This is when children have the ability to classify objects on more than one dimension such as colour and size.
Class inclusion is also another classification system that is understood by children in this stage. In the earlier example in which oranges and apples were used to illustrate the principles of class inclusion, the concrete operational child would now be able to tell you that there are more pieces of fruit than there are apples.
The egocentricity of the preoperational stage is almost non-existent, the child is now able to place herself in the positions of others and can solve the Three Mountain Problem in which the child can tell the experimenter the view the doll situated on one of the mountains has. The child is able to make a mental shift to the position of the doll.