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In toddlerhood, between 18 and 30 months of age, children’s sense of self-awareness expands beyond self-recognition to include a categorical self, a self-description based on broad categories such as sex, age, and physical characteristics (Stipek, Gralinski, & Kopp, 1990). Toddlers describe themselves as “big,” “strong,” “girl/boy,” and “baby/big kid.” Children use their categorical self as a guide to behavior. For example, once toddlers label themselves by gender, they spend more time playing with toys stereotyped for their own gender. Applying the categorical self as a guide to behavior illustrates toddlers’ advancing capacities for self-control.

At about the same time as toddlers display the categorical self, they begin to show another indicator of their growing self-understanding. As toddlers become proficient with language and their vocabulary expands, they begin to use many personal pronouns and adjectives, such as “I,” “me,” and “mine,” suggesting a sense of self in relation to others (E. Bates, 1990). Claims of possession emerge by about 21 months and illustrate children’s clear representation of “I” versus other (L. E. Levine, 1983), a milestone in self-definition and the beginnings of self-concept (Rochat, 2010).

Table 6.3

Source: Adapted from Butterworth (1992).