ABSTRACT
The capacity for abstract thinking, the improved ability to remember and the broadened horizons of adolescent interest enable a kind of knowledge that serves as a defense mechanism without the adolescent's intention or knowledge. Piaget recognized that although a child's knowledge determined his answers, there exists a biological process of maturation that makes it easy for him to understand the world no special teaching is required. Maturation, according to Piaget, is not comparable to genetically determined neurophysiological programming of instincts, since biology merely paves the way for how the individual deals with them. In the sensomotoric stage, the baby/young child employs its tactile and oral faculties to investigate the world: thus, a contribution from the outside is necessary in order to develop inner structures. In the pre-operational stage, the child becomes capable of imagining inner symbolic representations with the help of language.
