Study GuideDevelopmental Psychology–Physical, CognitiveDevelopment:Age 2–61.Cognitive Development: Ages 2–6Preschoolers are little explorers of the mind. Between ages 2 and 6, children play an active role inlearning about the world. They notice patterns, make predictions, organize ideas, and try to explainwhat they see. At the same time, their thinking has limits—they can get easily distracted, confuseappearances with reality, and often focus on just one aspect of a situation at a time. Interestingly,children across cultures show similar patterns in thinking at this age.1.1 Piaget’s Preoperational StageJean Piaget, a famous psychologist, called the thinking of 2-to 7-year-olds thepreoperationalstage. During this stage:•Children uselanguage and symbolsmore than ever.•They imitate adult behavior.•They enjoymake-believe play, like turning an empty box into a car, playing family, orinventing imaginary friends.•They become fascinated with words, both polite and naughty!Piaget also focused on what childrencannot doyet. He called these skillsoperations, which areactions that can be reversed. For example: adding 3 + 3 = 6, then subtracting 6 − 3 = 3. Youngchildren struggle with reversible thinking. They often rely onmagical thinking—expecting things tohappen just because they imagine it, like asking for a gift over the phone and expecting it to arrivemagically.1.2 EgocentrismAt this age, children are oftenegocentric, meaning they see the world mostly from their ownperspective. They have a hard time understanding that others have different thoughts, feelings, anddesires.Preview Mode
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