Piaget's Concrete Operations Stage. Stage 3

Piaget's third stage of cognitive development is referred to as the concrete operations stage. This generally occurs between the ages of 7-12 years, however each individual reaches this stage and completes it at different rates. At this stage, the child is able to understand the cause and effect of his/her actions, but he/she can still not think abstractly. The child, at this stage, is able to manipulate the environment internally.

Children at this stage are fairly good at thinking logically about concrete events, and they use inductive logic. Inductive logic is when you use a specific experience and relate it to a general principle. However, children have difficulties using deductive logic, which uses a general principle to determine an outcome of an event. Children also begin to understand the concept of reversibility, or that things are the same even if you say it backwards. An example of this is saying that she is my sister, I am her sister, we are family, and the child at this stage is able to understand that these three sentences mean the same thing.

This video shows the girl understanding the concept of reversibility because she can understand that the liquid was poured from one glass into another, but it is still the same amount of liquid even though the glass shape is different. In the stages before this, children think that the taller glass has more liquid in it, even when they saw the experimenter pour it from one glass to another, based on it being taller so it looks like it has more in it.

This video also shows reversibility because the two kids are able to understand what the experimenter means when she says, "If you hit a glass with a hammer, the glass will break. Dawn hit a glass with a hammer. What happened to the glass?" The child responded, "It broke," because he was able to understand how to draw a conclusion based on cause and effect.

When children are learning during this stage, the teachers are encouraged to give them the opportunity to ask a lot of questions and to have the children explain things back. This way, they understand and can mentally manipulate the information.