How do children begin using symbols during early childhood?

In the context of preschool education, children begin using symbols as a fundamental part of their cognitive development, typically emerging around the age of one. This process involves several key stages and behaviors:1

• Imaginative Play: Children start to treat objects as something other than what they are, such as pretending a wooden block is a car or a cup is a hat. By age three, they may use objects to represent people or complex relationships.1
• Symbolic Thinking: During the preoperational stage (ages two to seven), children use language and mental imagery to interpret and express ideas. They begin to represent the outside world and their inner feelings through words and gestures.23
• Artistic Expression: During their second and third years, children’s drawings become symbolic, as they begin to create forms intended to represent people, animals, and objects.1
• Cognitive Abstraction: Symbols serve as arbitrary names for things and qualities, such as letters, numbers, and words. As children master these, they integrate them into higher-level concepts, allowing them to organize their experiences and manipulate their environment.43

This development is supported by an environment that encourages concept formation and language growth through interaction and play.3