Overview of the development of intellectual abilitis. Children are not little adults. Until they reach the age of 15 or so they are not capable of reasoning as an adult. The following information which will present here is based on the work of Jean Piaget. He was a developmental biologist who devoted his life to closely observing and recording the intellectual abilitis of infants, children and adolescents.
-It is important that parents know what to expect from their child as they develop and to be sure that the expactations they may have for their child at a given age are realistic.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensory Motor Period (0 – 24 months)
Stage-Age | Characteristic Behavior |
Reflexive Stage (0-2 months) |
Simple reflex activity such as grasping, sucking. |
Primary Circular Reactions(2-4 months) |
Reflexive behaviors occur in stereotyped repetition such as opening and closing fingers repetitively. |
Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 months) |
Repetition of change actions to reproduce interesting
consequences such as kicking one’s feet to more a mobile suspended over
the crib. |
Coordination of Secondary Reactions (8-12 months) |
Responses become coordinated into more complex
sequences. Actions take on an “intentional” character such as the infant
reaches behind a screen to obtain a hidden object. |
Tertiary Circular Reactions (12-18 months) |
Discovery of new ways to produce the same consequence
or obtain the same goal such as the infant may pull a pillow toward him
in an attempt to get a toy resting on it. |
Invention of New Means Through Mental Combination (18-24 months) |
Evidence of an internal representational system.
Symbolizing the problem-solving sequence before actually responding.
Deferred imitation. |