Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments (AEPA) Practice Exam 2025 - Free AEPA Practice Questions and Study Guide.

The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the way infants interact with the world primarily through their senses and motor skills. This stage, which occurs from birth to approximately two years of age, is critical for infants as they learn about their environment through direct physical interaction. During this time, they explore objects through actions like grasping, throwing, and examining, which helps them understand basic concepts of permanence and causality.

Through sensory experiences, such as sight, sound, and touch, and through active motor interventions, infants begin to build a foundation of knowledge about their surroundings. For example, when a baby shakes a rattle, they learn that the sound is a result of their action. This stage is essential for cognitive development, as it sets the groundwork for later stages of cognitive understanding, where children begin to think more logically and abstractly.

The other stages mentioned, such as the pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages, pertain to older children and adolescents and involve more complex forms of thinking and reasoning that go beyond basic sensory and motor interactions.