"Jean Piaget", a Swiss psychologist, is famous for his work on child development. He made a systematic study of cognitive development in his theory that is categorized in four stages.'Preoperational period' lasts around 2 to 6 or 7 years of age.In this stage, the child assumes that other people feel, see, and hear exactly the same as the child does.It refers to the child's inability to infer the perspective of other people or to see a situation from other's points of view.In this stage, the children begin to think symbolically. During the Symbolic play, children can create mental images of objects and store them in their minds for later use.For example, such a child can draw a picture of or pretend to play with a puppy that is no longer present there.At the end of the Pre-operational stage, the child begins to reason logically.Hence, it could be concluded that according to Piaget, during the Pre-operational Stage of development, the child begins to use symbols to represent objects and logical reasoning emerges.Important Points Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development:Stages of DevelopmentCharacteristicsSensorimotor(birth to 2 yr)Experiences the world through senses and actions (looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping)Cognitive development begins with the baby's use of senses and movementsDevelops object permanence Pre-Operational (2-7 yr)Learns to use language to represent objects by images and wordsClassifies objects by a single feature. Thinking is ego-centric; has difficulty taking in the point of view of others.Develops symbolic thoughtConcrete-Operational(7-12 yr)Perform concrete arithmetic operationsAchieves conservation of number (age-6), mass (age-7), and weight (age-9)Develops operational thought Formal Operational (12 yr and above)Potential for more mature moral reasoningBecomes concerned with hypothetical, future, and ideological problemsDevelops abstract concepts.