A concise developmental reference for families, educators, and writers to consider when choosing or creating kidlit. The stages, along with age ranges, represent the majority of typically developing children. Some children may accelerate or lag behind, but the goals in each stage are achieved in order.

Sensorimotor

Age range: Birth to 18–24 months  |  Goal for stage: Object permanence

The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring their environment).

During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition (the child realizes that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play.

Cognitive abilities relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally.

At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them, and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

Helping children make a leap

• Imitate actions of adults (kissing babies/others)
• Petting animals, making the animal "voice," and labeling the animal
• Labeling parents/self
• Pop-up or manipulative board books help children process and attain object permanence as well as provide tactile interest
• Mirrors help the child recognize and differentiate themselves from others
• Playing peekaboo or hide-and-seek games helps your child develop their understanding of object permanence, as well as cause and effect.
• For younger babies, hold a blanket or clothe in front of your face. If your baby can grasp and pull, put their hand on the clothe and pull it away. Repeat with toys.

Preoperational

Age range: 2 to 7 years old  |  Goal for stage: Symbolic thought

Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.

During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.

A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. They are not yet capable of logical (problem-solving) type of thought.

Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; they can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.

Children at this stage also demonstrate animism: the tendency to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

Helping children make a leap

• Labeling objects with words to increase vocabulary
• Engage in pretend play (block=car, banana=phone)
• Beware of safety concerns--dishwasher packets look yummy, whirling blades of a fan look fun to touch, pan does not look hot.
• Introduce ideas like Daddy is parent and Daddy is coach or milk is food, milk is a drink.
• Join in play routines, animate toys or use puppets
• Sort objects by color, size, type (car vs stuffie), or function

Concrete Operational

Age range: Ages 7 to 11 years  |  Goal for stage: Logical thought

During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.

Children begin to understand the concept of conservation: understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.

During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (for example, picture a ball of clay returning to its original shape).

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.

Helping children make a leap

• Discuss cause and effect in the child's physical and emotional world. Teaching opportunities are everywhere. (Move from concrete thinking, i.e., Joe hit John. He was wrong. Incorporate cause and effect...First, John grabbed the toy and broke it.) Pose other possible reactions or causes.

• Experiment with the same volume of liquid in different containers

• Visualize the route between home and school both forward and in reverse.

• Start building empathy by asking your child what they would feel like if... ?

Formal Operational

Age range: Adolescence to adulthood  |  Goal for stage: Scientific reasoning

Concrete operations are carried out on physical objects, whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.

During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (for example, they no longer need to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).

They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.

Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems and consider possible solutions. For example, if asked, “What would happen if money were abolished in one hour?” they could speculate about many possible consequences.

Piaget described reflective abstraction as the process by which individuals become aware of and reflect upon their own cognitive actions or operations (metacognition).

Helping children make a leap

• Encourage adolescents to develop long term plans and predict outcomes

• Engage in mental math and manipulate problems systematically

• Challenge adolescents with what-if moral thinking and problem solving based on fiction and non-fiction scenarios.

• Consider our own thought processes and motivations, assimilate knowledge or experiences into new situations, and accommodate changes to existing schemas.

Reference Material

Bukatko, Danuta, and Marvin W. Daehler. Child Development: A Thematic Approach. Houghton Mifflin College Division, 2003.

·      Related desk-reference pages

• Speech and language milestones
• Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
• Symbolic play and preschool play
• Writing resilience (kidlit and protective factors)

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