NBPTS School Counseling Practice Test

The stage in Piaget’s theory where egocentrism and symbolic thought are prominent is the preoperational stage. At about ages 2 to 7, children start using symbols to represent objects and events, which shows up in language, pretend play, and drawing. Yet their thinking is still centered on their own perspective; they have trouble seeing situations from others’ viewpoints, a trait called egocentrism. This combination—using symbols while still having limited ability to adopt different perspectives—distinguishes preoperational thinking from the earlier sensorimotor stage (which is about direct interaction with the world, with little symbolic thought) and the later concrete operational stage (where children begin to think logically about concrete objects and can decenter). The formal operational stage, by contrast, brings abstract and hypothetical reasoning.