Social transmission, the third factor, stimulates cognitive development. The verbal instructions offered by parents and teachers are critical stimulations for cognitive growth. Children must make sense of the various things said to them, reconciling the various messages they receive. When they hear contradictory messages, cognitive conflict is experienced as their sense of equilibration is disturbed. In this sense they may be disequilibrated (not a term used by Piaget, but descriptive of the state) and will seek to find higher levels of understanding that may serve to resolve the conflict and restore them to a state of equi-libration (see Downs’ Teaching for Spiritual Growth and, for more detail, Pulaski’s Understanding Piaget. While Pulaski’s book is currently out-of-print, it is widely available from used book dealers. Two other words that are very helpful are Hans Furth’s Thinking Goes to School: Piaget’s Theory in Practice (Oxford, 1982) and Dorothy Singer’s A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks (Plume Books, rev. ed, 1996).

Thus, the young child is first taught "Jesus is the Christmas baby" who was laid in a manger by his mother. Later the same child is taught "Jesus was God’s Son who died on the cross for our sins," the latter concept introducing God the Father and God the Son, the cross, and sin. These strange, conflicting messages can be resolved only as the child realizes that the baby in the manger grew up to become the man who died on the cross. Thus, equilibration is reestablish-ed when the higher level of thinking is taught and gained.

What was important, and still is, about Piaget’s work is he saw children, not as miniature adults, but as being cognitively different from adults. In other words, he understood that they saw the world in ways different from those of adults, and that these different modes of understanding should be respected. Further, rather than seeking to understand individual differences, Piaget worked to describe ways in which all children are the same. He believed that in all ages and in all cultures there were predictable patterns to the ways children made sense of their environment, that there were sequential stages of "cognitive development" through which all children passed on their journey toward adulthood.

Through extensive observations and interviews with children, Piaget described and refined these stages of cognitive development. They are briefly summarized in the table on the following page.

In the sensorimotor period children decrease their ego-centrism, learning that others exist in the world, and these others must be taken into consideration. They learn that specific actions can produce specific results and that they can influence their environments.