ABSTRACT
Educators have a basic understanding of cognition, but in this section, cognitive development throughout childhood and early adolescence is reviewed within the context of grief experiences. Descriptions of the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages are provided as summary information, but loss will provide the focus in these descriptions. Piagetian concepts such as reversibility, object permanence, and fantasy will be described as they pertain to a child’s cognitive attempt to reconcile a death. Acceptance and understanding will also be viewed within the framework of information-processing theory, as children learn to process the concepts of death and dying through development. This chapter offers supportive evidence that children may need to reprocess an early loss at each stage of development.
