FTCE Professional Education Practice Exam

In the concrete operations stage of Piaget's cognitive development, children have the ability to arrange objects in sequential order, known as what?

1. Class inclusion

2. Centration

3. Seriation

4. Reversibility

The correct answer is: Seriation

In the concrete operations stage of Piaget's cognitive development, children demonstrate the ability to organize and arrange objects in a logical sequence based on a specific characteristic, which is referred to as seriation. This skill enables children to understand and apply relationships among physical objects, such as ranking items by size, height, or weight. Seriation reflects the child's growing cognitive abilities, allowing them to manipulate and transform objects in their mind. This stage typically occurs between the ages of 7 and 11, during which children move beyond egocentric thought processes and start understanding the relationships between different items. The other terms, while also associated with cognitive development, refer to different processes. Class inclusion involves understanding that a category can include multiple subcategories; centration is the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation while neglecting others; and reversibility is the understanding that objects can be changed and then returned to their original state. Each of these concepts contributes to a child's overall cognitive development, but seriation specifically pertains to the ability to arrange objects sequentially based on a shared attribute.