Psychology Roots 361
Intuitive Thought
In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the second stage is called Preoperational thought and it has two substages: Symbolic Function substage and Intuitive Thought substage. Between the ages of 4 and 7, a child begins to develop reasoning by asking a lot of questions. This is when they want to understand everything that is going on in their world.
For example, a 1st grader will ask what is that green thing in the spaghetti, why is it there, why does it taste like that, and on and on. At this stage, Intuitive Thinking would be encouraged by a helpful adult who would answer the questions as much as possible or stimulate the child to ask questions.
