Piaget's preoperational stage marks a big leap in how kids think. From ages 2 to 7, they start using words and images to represent their world, but their thinking is still pretty limited.

Kids in this stage are super self-centered and struggle with logic. They focus on one thing at a time, can't reverse their thinking, and often give human qualities to objects. But they're also developing cool new skills like pretend play and drawing.

Preoperational Stage Characteristics

Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

• Preoperational stage occurs between ages 2 and 7 when children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings
• Egocentrism causes difficulty taking the viewpoint of others
  • Children tend to believe everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do
  • May talk to themselves frequently because they assume others share their perspective (private speech)
• Centration involves focusing on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features
  • When pouring liquid from a short, wide glass to a tall, thin glass, a child may focus only on the height and believe there is now more liquid
• Irreversibility means children struggle to understand that an operation can go in two directions
  • A child may not recognize that subtraction is the reverse of addition
  • Cannot mentally "undo" actions (folding/unfolding paper)
• Animism involves attributing lifelike qualities to inanimate objects
  • A child may believe their stuffed animal has feelings and thoughts
  • May say things like "the sidewalk hurt me!" after falling down

Symbolic Representation

• Symbolic function emerges, allowing children to represent objects with symbols like words, gestures, and images
  • Dramatic play becomes more elaborate as children take on roles (playing "house" or "school")
  • Drawing and scribbling start to represent real objects and people
  • Language development accelerates rapidly during this stage

Cognitive Limitations

Lack of Logical Reasoning

• Conservation is the understanding that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance
  • Preoperational children struggle with conservation of number, mass, liquid volume
  • May believe a flattened ball of clay has more mass than a spherical one
  • Think spreading out a row of pennies means there are now more pennies
• Intuitive thought substage begins around age 4 as children start to use primitive reasoning
  • Children begin to understand concepts like "more" and "less"
  • Thinking is heavily influenced by appearance rather than logical principles
  • Still lack understanding of conservation and reversibility

Symbolic Thinking

Representational Abilities

• Symbolic function involves the ability to use a mental symbol (a word or image) to represent something in the real world
  • Allows children to engage in pretend play, using objects to represent other things (using a block as a "phone")
  • Empowers language development as words are symbols for actual objects and ideas
  • Enables deferred imitation, copying a sequence of events some time after they occurred
• Symbolic thinking expands memory and imagination as children can represent past experiences and anticipate future ones
  • Can remember and describe events in the past with more detail
  • Can plan for and imagine future occurrences (packing for a trip)