Which statement best describes the cognitive development of a 2-month-old?

Which statement best describes the cognitive development of a 2-month-old?

• A. Preoperational development
• B. Concrete operational development
• C. Sensorimotor development
• D. Formal operational development

Answer: (C)

A two-month-old thinks through the world by sensing and acting, which is the sensorimotor stage. At this age, thinking is grounded in direct experiences—seeing, hearing, touching, and moving—rather than in symbols, words, or abstract reasoning. Infants learn by reflexes and by repeating actions that bring interesting results, gradually linking sensation and movement to anticipate familiar events. They aren’t yet capable of symbolic thought or logical operations about objects, which appear later. The preoperational level comes with toddlerhood and language, the concrete operational level with school-age logic about concrete things, and formal operational thinking with abstract reasoning in adolescence. Therefore, this early infancy cognition fits sensorimotor development.

A two-month-old thinks through the world by sensing and acting, which is the sensorimotor stage. At this age, thinking is grounded in direct experiences—seeing, hearing, touching, and moving—rather than in symbols, words, or abstract reasoning. Infants learn by reflexes and by repeating actions that bring interesting results, gradually linking sensation and movement to anticipate familiar events. They aren’t yet capable of symbolic thought or logical operations about objects, which appear later. The preoperational level comes with toddlerhood and language, the concrete operational level with school-age logic about concrete things, and formal operational thinking with abstract reasoning in adolescence. Therefore, this early infancy cognition fits sensorimotor development.