only by articles that are tangible, and not so much by possibilities. When a child reaches anywhere from ages nine to twelve, the start to border on Piaget's formal operational stage, which is constituted by "a succession of three great periods. Each of these extends the preceding period, reconstructs it on a new level, and later surpasses it to an ever greater degree." (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969, p. 152) This stage truly starts around the age of eleven or twelve, when the child is capable of multiple mental tasks and abstract ideas. Most developmental authorities disagree with the rigidity of levels corresponding to age, saying that around age nine or ten the child achieves a realistic perception of death's finality and invariability. Wolfelt supposes that "it attests to the complexity of death itself--connecting both 'concrete' elements--that is, a body that no longer functions (comprehensible to the 9- and 10-year-old)--and the 'abstract'--that is, a notion of spirituality and life after death (understood by children older than 10)." R. Lonetto, from his 1980 study of children's grief reflected by their drawings, also disagrees with Piaget by saying that "children from nine to twelve years old seem capable not only of perceiving death as biological, universal, and inevitable, but of ...
