Question

in this piagetian stage, children begin to employ symbols

Answer 1

The preoperational stage is the second stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development. This stage begins around the age of 2 as a child starts to talk and last until the age of 7. During this stage, children begin to engage in symbolic play and learn to manipulate symbols. Children are able to think about things symbolically. Their language use becomes more mature. For example, they talk about a ball and form a mental image of it. They were not able to do it earlier. Now they learn what ball is and use it to refer to all round objects. They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the difference between past and future, and engage in make-believe. This means that the child at this stage is not developed enough to use logic or transform, combine or separate ideas at this stage (Piaget, 1951, 1952).