Which cognitive development stage comes after the Sensorimotor stage?

The stage that comes after the Sensorimotor stage is the Preoperational stage. This stage, as defined by Jean Piaget, typically occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 years. During this phase, children begin to use language and engage in symbolic play, which signifies the development of their cognitive abilities beyond mere sensory experiences and motor actions. They start to think in more abstract ways about the world around them, though their reasoning is intuitive and not yet logical.

Children in the Preoperational stage demonstrate characteristics such as egocentrism, where they have difficulty seeing perspectives other than their own, and animism, where they attribute human-like qualities to inanimate objects. These developments are crucial as they lay the foundation for more advanced thinking in later stages.

The other stages mentioned do not follow the Sensorimotor stage directly. The Concrete-Operational stage comes after the Preoperational stage, and the Formal Operations stage follows the Concrete-Operational stage. The Transitional Stage is not a recognized term in Piaget’s theory and does not represent a specific cognitive development phase. Thus, considering all these factors leads to the conclusion that the Preoperational stage is the correct answer as the immediate successor to the Sensorimotor stage.