ABSTRACT
The inability of younger children to perform Piagetian tasks is due to more general limitations of information processing. Attention, memory and language improve with age. Using tasks more suited to the development of these skills shows earlier apparent cognitive development. Infants and preschool children show development of attention. The transition from infancy to childhood is accompanied by rapid development of language skills, and this permits the child to remember better using words. According to Piaget, during middle childhood children pass from the preoperational stage through stages in which they are able to use two types of operation. In the stage of concrete operations, from about 7 to 11 years of age, children show an increased ability to reason logically. At the end of middle childhood, between about 11 and 15 years of age, a person passes into the stage of formal operations, and this continues through adolescence into adulthood.
