Question

A child sees a piece of bread go down in a toaster, then turns away believing it no longer exists. According to Piaget, this child has not yet achieved ______________ and is in the ______________ stage of cognitive development.

Answer 1

Answer:

Object permanence

Sensorimotor.

Explanation:

Jean Piaget was a psychologist who developed a theory on cognitive development in kids and teenagers. According to him, cognitive development happens through different stages in which the way of thinking gets more rational and complex.

One of the milestones of cognitive development is object permanence, which refers to the understanding that objects keep existing even when we don't see them or they are out of our eyesight. When babies are younger, they think that when they cannot see something, then it doesn't exist (that's why babies enjoy playing Peek-a-boo so much, they think that the person just disappeared).

According to Piaget, the sensorimotor stage is the first stage of cognitive development and it takes place since birth until 2 years of age and it's at the end of this stage that the babies develop object permanence.

In this example, a child sees a piece of bread disappear in a toaster and he believes it no longer exists. We can see that he thinks it doesn't exist because he cannot see it anymore, therefore, he has not yet achieved object permanence. Since this milestone is reached at the end of the sensorimotor stage (and this is the first stage of development) we can say that he is in the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development.