Preschoolers are now firmly in Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development and continue to build upon the symbolic function substage. They become masters of symbolic thought which is the ability to mentally or symbolically represent concrete objects, actions, and events (Piaget, 1952). We can witness this advancement through their play which becomes more elaborate than in infancy and toddlerhood. Younger preschoolers’ understanding of concepts may continue to be limited due to their inability to think abstractly and their focus on the concrete appearance of things (Piaget, 1969). They may also continue to view the world through their own perspectives due to egocentric thinking.

As preschoolers gain higher levels of cognitive functioning, they will move from the symbolic function substage to the intuitive thought substage. In the intuitive thought substage (4-7 years old), children will begin to use intuitive thinking which relies less on perceptions and aims to understand the world through reasoning and logic. In this substage we will notice an increase in “why?” and “how come?” questions. These questions allow children to determine the cause of something and clarify their understanding. This understanding also helps preschoolers engage in higher levels of problem solving. A preschoolers’ understanding of the world becomes more logical but they may not be able to fully explain why something happens or why they think the way they do.

Children’s cognitive functioning in the preoperational stage is marked by several important concepts that give insight into their thinking:

Magical thinking: As noted in Chapter 5, toddlers engage in magical thinking when they believe that their actions or thoughts are connected to an unrelated event that happens to occur simultaneously. Magical thinking continues in the preschool years although may diminish as children gain understanding of logical principles. For example, as an older preschool becomes aware of time, they may realize that it is impossible for Santa Claus to deliver gifts to all the children in the world in one night.

Transductive reasoning: Transductive reasoning occurs when a child is unable to understand cause and effect logically so they rely on their natural reasoning. This is similar to magical thinking in which a child forms a connection between two events. An example of this could be that a child is used to getting a phone call from their grandmother in the afternoon and then taking their nap afterwards. One day, grandma calls in the morning so the child thinks that now it’s time for a nap. This type of reasoning is an important milestone to reaching higher levels of logic and understanding of cause and effect.

Conservation: Conservation is the understanding that something can stay the same quantity even though its appearance may change. Children in the preoperational stage demonstrate errors in conservation. For example, a child may think that an 8 oz cup of water poured into a larger cup contains more liquid even though the amount of water is the same. Children experience centration which is when they focus on only one aspect of an object (in this case, the larger cup size).

Reversibility: Closely related to conservation and centration, reversibility refers to the ability to reverse a sequence of events. Children in the preoperational stage are not always able to see that an action can be undone. Using the example from above, a child may not understand that the water poured from the larger cup back into the 8 oz cup is the same amount of water that was there originally.