Preoperational Thought II: Object Space and Causality

Jean Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development spans from ages 2 to 7. In this stage, symbolic thinking expands, but logical reasoning is limited.

Children also begin to develop an understanding of space and causality.

Around age 3, they start understanding the link between pictures, maps, or scale models and the objects or spaces they represent.

By about age 5, children can use simple maps to find locations.

Many 5-year-old children can use a scale model of a room to find an object hidden in the actual room.

Next, Piaget believed that preoperational children cannot logically reason about cause and effect.

Instead, they use transductive reasoning—mentally linking events close in time, without a real causal connection.

Later research challenges Piaget's claim, showing that children can display causal reasoning with age-appropriate tasks.

For instance, children aged two and a half to five can explain actions by identifying physical causes, such as “The paper fell when I cut it,” or social-conventional causes, such as “I stopped because you said so.”