Typical Age Range |
Description of Stage |
Developmental Milestones |
Birth to about 2 years |
Sensorimotor: Children experience the world through senses and actions
(looking, touching, sucking, etc.) |
- Object Permanence
- Stranger Anxiety
|
About 2 to 6 years |
Preoperational: Children
represent things with words and images, but lack logical reasoning. |
- Pretend Play
- Egocentrism
- Language Development
- Private
Speech
- Theory of Mind
|
About 6 years to 11 years |
Concrete Operational: Children
can think logically about
concrete events and can perform arithmetical operations. However, they
have problems with abstract thought (i.e., analogies and metaphors). |
- Logical Thought
- Conservation
- Mathematical Transformations
- Reversibility
|
About 12 to Adulthood |
Formal Operational: Individuals can logically explore both concrete
and abstract concepts. They can systematically think about all
possibilities, project into the future or recall the past, and reason by
analogy and metaphor. |
- Abstract Reasoning
- Potential for Mature Moral Reasoning
|