What characterizes the preoperational stage in Piaget's theory?

The preoperational stage, as described by Piaget, is primarily characterized by the child’s ability to engage in symbolic play and the emergence of language skills. During this stage, which typically occurs between ages 2 and 7, children begin to use language to express their thoughts and ideas, but they have not yet developed the capacity to understand concrete logic or operational thinking.

At this stage, children are able to represent things with words and images but still struggle with understanding the concept of conservation and other logical operations that involve concrete elements. For example, they may have difficulty understanding that the quantity of liquid remains the same even when it is poured into a differently shaped container. This indicates that while their vocabulary and ability to express ideas grow rapidly, their cognitive abilities in terms of logical reasoning and understanding of operations are still developing.

In contrast, the other options relate to stages of cognitive development that follow the preoperational stage. Use of concrete logic and implementation of mental operations on concrete events are characteristics of the concrete operational stage, which comes after preoperational thinking. Similarly, the development of abstract thinking indicates a higher level of cognitive maturity found in the formal operational stage. Thus, option C accurately reflects the cognitive abilities associated with the preoperational stage.