This page presents an overview of the development of
intellectual abilities. 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 is based on the work of Jean Piaget. He was
not a psychologist. He was a developmental biologist who
devoted his life to closely observing and recording the
intellectual abilities of infants, children and
adolescents.
The stages of intellectual development formulated by
Piaget appear to be related to major developments in
brain growth. The human brain is not fully developed
until late adolescence or in the case of males sometimes
early adulthood. We often expect children to think like
adults when they are not yet capable of doing so. It is
important that parents know what to expect from their
child as they develop and to be sure that the
expectations they may have for their child at a given
age are realistic.
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Sensory Motor Period
(0 - 24 months)
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Developmental Stage
& Approximate Age
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Characteristic Behavior
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Reflexive Stage
(0-2 months)
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Simple reflex activity such as grasping,
sucking.
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| Primary
Circular Reactions(2-4 months) |
Reflexive behaviors occur in
stereotyped repetition such as opening and
closing fingers repetitively.
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Secondary Circular Reactions
(4-8 months)
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Repetition of change actions to reproduce
interesting consequences such as kicking one's
feet to more a mobile suspended over the crib.
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Coordination of Secondary Reactions
(8-12 months)
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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.
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Tertiary Circular Reactions
(12-18 months)
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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.
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Invention of New Means Through Mental
Combination
(18-24 months)
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Evidence of an internal representational
system. Symbolizing the problem-solving sequence
before actually responding. Deferred imitation.
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The Preoperational
Period
(2-7 years)
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Developmental Stage
& Approximate Age
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Characteristic Behavior
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Preoperational Phase
(2-4 years)
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Increased use of verbal representation but
speech is egocentric. The beginnings of symbolic
rather than simple motor play. Transductive
reasoning. Can think about something without the
object being present by use of language.
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Intuitive Phase
(4-7 years)
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Speech becomes more social, less egocentric.
The child has an intuitive grasp of logical
concepts in some areas. However, there is still
a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of
an object while ignoring others. Concepts formed
are crude and irreversible. Easy to believe in
magical increase, decrease, disappearance.
Reality not firm. Perceptions dominate judgment.
In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to
show principles underlying best behavior. Rules
of a game not develop, only uses simple do's and
don'ts imposed by authority.
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Period of Concrete
Operations
(7-12 years)
Characteristic Behavior:
Evidence for organized, logical thought. There
is the ability to perform multiple
classification tasks, order objects in a logical
sequence, and comprehend the principle of
conservation. thinking becomes less transductive
and less egocentric. The child is capable of
concrete problem-solving.
Some reversibility now possible (quantities
moved can be restored such as in arithmetic:
3+4 = 7 and 7-4 = 3, etc.)
Class logic-finding bases to sort unlike objects
into logical groups where previously it was on
superficial perceived attribute such as color.
Categorical labels such as "number" or animal"
now available.
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Period of Formal
Operations
(12 years and onwards)
Characteristic Behavior:
Thought becomes more abstract, incorporating the
principles of formal logic. The ability to
generate abstract propositions, multiple
hypotheses and their possible outcomes is
evident. Thinking becomes less tied to concrete
reality.
Formal logical systems can be acquired. Can
handle proportions, algebraic manipulation,
other purely abstract processes. If a + b = x
then a = x - b. If ma/ca = IQ = 1.00 then Ma =
CA.
Prepositional logic, as-if and if-then steps.
Can use aids such as axioms to transcend human
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