age | stage | understands world through | learned cognitive capabilities |
0 - 2 | sensorimotor | senses and actions | coordination of senses with motor responses and language used for demands and cataloguing |
2 - 7 | preoperational | mental images and language | symbolic thinking and language with proper syntax and grammar to express full concepts |
7 - 11 | concrete operational | concrete rational thinking and categories | concepts attached to concrete situations |
11+ | formal operational | abstract rational thinking and scientific reasoning | theoretical, hypothetical, and counterfactual thinking, abstract logical reasoning |