Table : TABLE 3.1 Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age RangeStage and DescriptionKey Accomplishments
Birth to nearly 2 yearsSensorimotor

Experiencing the world through senses and actions (looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping)

  • Object permanence

  • Stranger anxiety

    • About 2 to 6 or 7 yearsPreoperational

    Representing things with words and images; using intuitive rather than logical reasoning

  • Pretend play

  • Egocentrism

    • About 7 to 11 yearsConcrete operational

    Thinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations

  • Conservation

  • Mathematical transformations

    • About 12 through adulthoodFormal operational

    Reasoning abstractly

  • Abstract logic

  • Potential for mature moral reasoning