| Age | Name of Stage | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sensorimotor | The baby manipulates objects to pin down the basics of physical reality. This stage, ending with the development of language, will be described in Chapter 3. | |
| Preoperations | Children’s perceptions are captured by their immediate appearances. “What they see is what is real.” They believe, among other things, that inanimate objects are really alive and that if the appearance of a quantity of liquid changes (for instance, if it is poured from a short, wide glass into a tall, thin one), the amount actually becomes different. You will learn about all of these perceptions in Chapter 5. | |
| Concrete operations | Children have a realistic understanding of the world. Their thinking is really on the same wavelength as adults’. While they can reason conceptually about concrete objects, however, they cannot think abstractly in a scientific way. | |
| 12+ | Formal operations | Reasoning is at its pinnacle: hypothetical, scientific, flexible, fully adult. The person’s full cognitive human potential has been reached. We will explore this stage in Chapter 9. |
Table 1.3 Belsky, Experiencing The Lifespan, 4e © 2016 Worth Publishers | ||