During the preschool years from ages 2-7, children go through Piaget's stage of pre-operational thinking. In this stage, symbolic thinking grows but children still cannot perform operations. They focus on appearances and have difficulty understanding transformations or other perspectives. However, recent research has found that Piaget underestimated preschoolers' capabilities. Language development and curiosity help push cognitive development forward in this important pre-school period.

1. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN THE
PRESCHOOL YEARS
By: Daniella Leon

2. Piaget’s Stage of Pre
operational Thinking
Preschool years is an important time of stability and change. Piaget
suggested that preschoolers from the age 2-7 years go through a stage
called Pre operational stage.
This stage lasts all through the preschool years ranging from 2-7. During
this stage children’s use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning
emerges, and the use of concepts increases. They begin to grow less
dependent on sensorimotor activity. Although this does not mean that
they are capable of operations.
Instead of being totally capable of operations they deal with a Pre
Operational thought called symbolic function. Which is the ability to
use mental symbols, an object to represent something as an example.

3. Subsets linking to Pre Operational Thinking
- The Relation Between Language and Thought
- Centration
-Conservation
-Incomplete Understanding of Transformation
-Egocentrism
-The Emergence of Intuitive Thought

4. The Relation Between Language and
Thought
Children in preschool make great progress in language
skills.
Children using language allows them to think above
and beyond, out side the box.
Language and thought are linked (according to Piaget)
and because of this it improves the type of thinking
children do. Going back to thinking out side the box.
Piaget believes that improvement during the earlier
sensorimotor period are necessary for language
development.

5. Centration: What You See Is What You Think
Centration: The process of concentration on one limited
aspect of a stimulus and ignoring other aspects
*Preschoolers won’t consider all the information provided, they instead will concentrate
on the obvious provided element/s on what they see and go by that intuition.
*They tend to focus more on appearance.

6. Conservation: Learning That
Appearances Are Deceiving
Conservation: The knowledge that quantity is
unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance
of objects.
Most kids at this age group have not yet developed this
trait. Which allows them to understand the change in
appearance.
Piaget believes that this happens because of their lack
of centration prevents them from putting their
attention on relevant appearances

7. Incomplete Understanding of Transformation
Transformation: The process whereby one state is changed
into another.
-Meaning: That children in the pre operational stage do
not comprehend or don’t recall the steps in between.

8. Egocentrism: The Inability to
Take Others’ Perspective
Egocentrism: Thinking
that does not take the
viewpoints of others
into account.
-This means that children do not have any remorse of
the effect something may have on others.
-2 Forms of Egocentrism: One, the lack of awareness
that others see things from a different point of view.
Two, that others might have a different physical
perspective as well.

9. Intuitive Thought
Intuitive Thought: Thinking that
reflects preschoolers’ use of
positive reasoning and their avid
acquisition of knowledge about
the world.
-This means that children, naturally, are curious.
-By becoming curious and trying things out
children begin to push towards the end of this
phase and begin to learn functionality, and they
also begin to show identity.

10. All together Piaget’s
Approach...
Pre Operational period is far from idle. There are many
cognitive skills preschoolers still have to master.
And even though Piaget believed and suggested all
these things recent studies have found that he
underestimated these young little rascals and that they
are very capable to do some of the things he mentioned
at an early age.

11. Resources
Child Development (Fifth Edition) Robert S.Feldman
Google Images