What occurs during the equilibrium stage?

During the equilibrium stage, a child's understanding of the world aligns with their experiences, leading to a sense of balance between their existing knowledge and new information. This is a stage where the child can successfully assimilate new experiences into their existing cognitive framework without feeling a need to adjust or change those schemas.

When children are in equilibrium, they are able to incorporate new information from their surroundings that fits seamlessly into what they already understand. For instance, if a child who knows how to identify and interact with a certain type of animal encounters a similar animal, they will easily fit the new experience into their existing knowledge without questioning or altering their understanding.

Regarding the other choices, they represent stages that typically lead to equilibrium rather than describing what happens during it. A conflict with existing theories would indicate the child is in a stage of disequilibrium, suggesting they need to adapt their thinking. Creating a new schema also occurs as the child moves through this cognitive development process, but it is not a feature of the equilibrium stage itself. Lastly, the concept of object permanence and knowing objects exist even when unseen relates more to cognitive development achieved before reaching equilibrium in the context of understanding the permanence of objects.