J Piaget...

Piaget regarded the analysis of children’s speech as the key to understanding children’s thought

He considered the processes of socialization to be leading factors in intellectual development.

Piaget asserted that the source of the formation and development of children’s thought lies in their activities with things. He believes that research on the systems of operation of the intellect, which are simultaneously logical, psychological, and social, is fundamental to the problem of the relationship between social activity and the psychological development of the individual.

Piaget distinguished and investigated four principal stages of intellectual development: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the stage of concrete operations, and the stage of formal operations. On the basis of the operational concept he analyzed many other mental functions, including perception, emotions, and symbolic expression.

The preoperational stage happens between the ages of 2 and 6, which contains my target audience. Language development is one of the major parts of this period. Piaget also noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people, which he termed egocentrism.

During the preoperational stage, children also become increasingly adept at using symbols, as evidenced by the increase in playing and pretending. For example, a child is able to use an object to represent something else, such as pretending a broom is a horse.

Egocentrism

Piaget used a number of creative and clever techniques to study the mental abilities of children. One of the famous techniques egocentrism involved using a three-dimensional display of a mountain scene. Children are asked to choose a picture that showed the scene they had observed. Most children are able to do this with little difficulty. Next, children are asked to select a picture showing what someone else would have observed when looking at the mountain from a different viewpoint.

Invariably, children almost always choose the scene showing their own view of the mountain scene. According to Piaget, children experience this difficulty because they are unable to take on another person's perspective.