Human Growth and Development / Unit 5 HGD 0627 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Preoperational Thought
The idea
Preoperational thought, from about two to seven, is powerful and limited at once. Symbolic representation lets words and objects stand for other things, fuelling pretend play. Animism attributes life and feeling to objects. Egocentrism makes it hard to take another's perspective, as in the three-mountains task. Centration fixes attention on one feature at a time, so conservation tasks fail: poured into a taller glass, the same juice looks like more.
In practice
One four-year-old in an afternoon: a block becomes a phone, the tricycle is scolded, the doll sees what she sees, and the tall glass wins.
Where people slip
The stage is named for what children cannot yet do, but its gains are real: symbolic thought is the foundation of language and imaginative play. Operations, logical reversible actions, arrive with concrete operations. Later research also finds that preschoolers take others' perspectives earlier and more skilfully than Piaget's tasks showed.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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