A 5-year-old boy tells you that his kindergarten class has more boys than children.What does this example illustrate about the child's cognitive development

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The child's statement indicates that he is unable to handle hierarchical classification problems, which involve sorting objects into categories based on shared features, such as gender and age. Instead, he is likely to rely on superficial characteristics, such as the number of boys or girls he sees in his class, to make judgments about the groups. This is a common feature of preoperational thought, the stage of cognitive development identified by Piaget for children between the ages of 2 and 7. In this stage, children are characterized by egocentrism, animism, a focus on appearance rather than function, a lack of hierarchical classification, and limited understanding of conservation.

A 5-Year-Old Boy Tells You That His Kindergarten Class Has