The sobering fact of family law is that to be in the business of orchestrating

PIAGET,
FRYE
, AND
DAUBERT
Piaget’s work is among the most researched, most replicated, and most
referenced in the child development literature. In one author’s opinion,
“assessing the impact of Piaget on developmental psychology is like
assessing the impact of Shakespeare on English literature” (Lourenco &
Table 3.1
PIAGETIAN MILESTONES IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
APPROXIMATE
STAGE
NOTABLE MILESTONES
AGE RANGE
Birth through first
Sensorimotor
The world exists as it is directly
year
Period
experienced; object permanence
slowly emerges
2 through 7 years
Preoperational
Symbolic thinking develops but
Thought
conservation fails; thinking is all me-
here-now (immediate and concrete)
7 through 11 years
Concrete
Conservation, seriation, and
Operations
decentration develop as me-here-now
thinking diminishes
11 years into
Formal Operations
Abstract and hypothetical thought,
adulthood
understanding that others have unique
perspectives, and ability to decentrate
Adulthood
Post–Formal
Acceptance of multiple causality,
Operations
paradox, and contradiction
(Post-Piagetian)

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