Intelligence

Intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However, most psychologists prefer not to include these traits in the definition of intelligence.

Intelligence Stages:

During the first year of your child's life you will see a change in their actions towards objects. Up to about 8 months sucking on an object is done simply as material for their own actions. From that time forward a child seems to become more curious about objects, looking at them longer, feeling them, exploring their surfaces and edges and turning the object around and around.
Here is a summary of the timeline of various motor intelligence stages:-
For the first 6 weeks of life,the ready-made reflexes of sucking, grasping, swallowing, etc. Basically infants acts first and thinks later.
Then for the next 4 months actions are coordinated into primary circular reactions i.e. habits or routines.
Up to about 9 months infants seek 'to make interesting sights last'. For example, if an infant notices that waving their arms about makes a string of rattles shake and sound, they will continue waving their arms.
In the last few months of their first year, infants begin to take more notice of the connection between a specific action and a specific effect. They will now actively search for an object when it goes out of sight.
Infants become mobile at 12 to 18 months and as such become active investigators of anything interesting that is going on. Novelty is now sought for its own sake.
Finally between 18 months and 2 years, infants think before they act and are able to think about a sequence of actions in their minds before carrying the action out.
PLAY
In play, assimilation is the most predominant intellectual process since it involves the child taking in information about their environment and modifying it to fit with their own knowledge and experience.
During the motor skills stage of development (0-2 years), the type of play is largely repetitive with the infant attempting to master and control their movements. They explore their environment with all of the available senses and note what effect their behavior has on objects around them.
During the pre-operational stage of intellectual development (approximately 2-7 years) a child enacts make-believe play. At this stage the child can use symbols to stand for things in play - for example, a box can be a boat or a space rocket. Basically, in this type of play the child has the mental ability to change themselves or an object into something else.
Finally the operational stage of intellectual development (7 years onwards). A child's thinking is now more logical and this is reflected in his play so that games with rules take over from games of make-believe.