Developmental patterns in the solution of verbal analogies, especially the recognition of higher-order analogical relations, were traced. The investigation sought to: (1) provide new developmental tests of a componential theory of analogical reasoning; (2) identify strategy changes during the transition from midchildhood (grade 3) to adulthood (college); (3) compare the development of reasoning across five different verbal relations; and (4) to validate a new method (stem-splitting) of isolating component cognitive processes. Twenty subjects in each of grades three, six, nine, and in college were tested on their abilities to solve verbal analogies based on synonymy, antonymy, category membership, linear ordering, and function in three different formats. It was found that the componential theory was successful in accounting for response-time data at all grade levels and error data at all but the college level; third- and sixth-graders used a different strategy from the strategy used by ninth-graders and college students; antonymous and functional relations were the easiest to process at all levels; and the new method of isolating component cognitive processes provided new insights into age-related strategy changes in the solution of verbal analogies. (Author/MH)