n is also brought into play. These two processes begin during this first stage, but do not start to develop until later in the childs life and in a later period in development. During preoperational stage of cognitive development, as defined by Piaget, children begin to assimilate as a way of adaptive behavior. They are at the age now where they can begin to really take in new knowledge and new things. They are able to go back to their previous way of thinking, but with some new information. The formation of stable concepts and beginnings of mental reasoning are characteristics of this stage. The child begins to acquire new information and assimilates this information to reach a level of stability. Childrens thinking during this period is illogical and they lack the ability to make connections between categories. An example of assimilation would be a child being outside during the day and seeing the bright circle of light coming from the sky and being told by their parent that it is the sun. One night the child is outside and sees the bright circle of light coming from the sky and says it is the sun. The child associates any bright circle of light coming from the sky the sun. The child has not yet distinguished between the sun and the moon. As this period shifts over to the next stage of concrete operations, the child begins making accommodations. This causes the child to make categorical links between their previous knowledge and their newly learned knowledge. The child also starts to think logically, but only to a certain degree. This also helps the childs accommodation skills. To give an example of accommodation, I will refer to the example I used to show assimilation. A child is outside during the day and sees the sun and at night the child sees the moon. The child notices that the light source during the day is a lot brighter than of the light source during the night. The child is able to distinguish between the ...
