What is the main characteristic of the sensorimotor stage in Piaget’s theory?

The main characteristic of the sensorimotor stage in Piaget’s theory is the exploration of the world through senses and motor actions. This stage, which occurs from birth to approximately two years of age, is a time when infants learn about their environment primarily through their sensory experiences (what they see, hear, touch, taste, and smell) and their physical interactions (grasping, crawling, and eventually walking). During this period, they develop essential cognitive skills by engaging directly with their surroundings and experimenting with their abilities.

As infants explore, they begin to understand object permanence, which is the awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible. This understanding emerges as they interact with their environment and realize they can manipulate objects in different ways. The sensorimotor stage lays the foundation for subsequent cognitive development, as children gradually begin to form mental representations of their experiences, which will be fully developed in later stages.

The other characteristics listed, such as the development of symbolic thought, the ability to perform mental operations, and understanding abstract concepts, are associated with later stages of Piaget’s developmental theory. Symbolic thought emerges in the preoperational stage, while mental operations and abstract thinking develop during the concrete operational and formal operational stages.