preopeˈrational, a. Psychol.
[pre- B. 1.]
That precedes operational thought, usu. typified by the mental processes of children aged between 2 and 7. (Cf. operation 4 b.)
| 1953 Mays & Whitehead tr. Piaget's Logic & Psychol. ii. 12 Starting from the postulate that all logical problems arise in the first place from manipulations of objects, we can now say that this period is pre-operational. 1960 J. S. Bruner Process of Educ. iii. 34 In this so-called preoperational stage, the principal symbolic achievement is that the child learns how to represent the external world through symbols established by simple generalization; things are represented as equivalent in terms of sharing some common property. 1964 Lunzer & Papert tr. Inhelder & Piaget's Early Growth of Logic in Child 291 Whether or not the co-ordination is complete, operations and pre-operational co-ordinations enter into the most diverse kinds of behaviour. 1975 M. D. Smith Educ. Psychol. ii. 40 Pre-operational two to seven uses egocentric speech. |