Ch. 4: Cognitive Development in Infancy and Early Childhood Flashcards
Schemes
According to Piaget, mental structures that organize information and regulate behavior
Assimilation
Piaget: Taking in information that is compatible with what one already knows
Accomodation
Piaget: changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge
Equilibration
Piaget: the process by which children reorganize their schemes to return to a state of equilibrium when disequilibrium occurs. Ex: Mom’s going to work so Dad takes me to school, changes to Dad thinks I’m old enough to walk to school so dad won’t take me.
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor 0-2 years
Preoperational 2-7 years
Concrete Operational 7-11 years
Formal Operational 11+
Animism
Crediting inanimate objects with life and lifelike properties such as feelings. (Preoperational period)
Centration
Narrowly focused type of thought characteristic of preoperational children. (Same about of juice, different beakers example)
Core Knowledge Hypothesis
Infants are born with a rudimentary knowledge of the world, which is elaborated based on experiences
Teleological Explanations
Children’s belief that living things, including their parts and their actions, exist for a purpose. (Ex: beleif that lions exist so people can see them at the zoo)
Essentialism
Children’s belief that all living things have an essence that can’t be seen but gives a living thing its identity. (Believe/understand that watermelon planted in cornfield will still become a watermelon)
Orienting Response
individual views a strong or unfamiliar stimulus, and changes in heart rate and brain-wave activity occur (first time hearing an alarm, etc.)
Habituation
Act of becoming unresponsive to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly
Classical Conditioning
Learning that involves pairing a neutral stimulus and a response originally produced by another stimulus (Pavlov)
Operant Conditioning
Form of learning that emphasizes the consequences of reward and punishment
One-to-One Principle
Counting principle that states there must be one and only one number name for each object counted
Stable-Order Principle
Counting principle that states that number names must always be counted in the same order
Cardinality Principle
Counting principle that states that the last number name denotes the number of objects being counted
Intersubjectivity
mutual shared understanding between participants in an activity
Guided Participation
Children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled, typically producing cognitive growth
Zone of proximal development
Different between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone
Scaffolding
Style in which teachers gauge the amount of assistance they offer to math the learner’s needs
Fast Mapping
a child’s connections between words and referents that are made so quickly that he or she cannot consider all possible meanings of the word
Underextension
when children define words more narrowly than adults do (using car only to refer to the family car)
Overextension
when kid defines word more broadly than adults do (using car to refer to buses and trucks)
Phonological Memory
Ability to remember speech sounds briefly; important in acquiring vocabulary
Referential Style
Language-learning style of children whose vocabularies are dominated by names of objects, persons, or actions
Expressive Style
Language-learning style of children whose vocabularies include many social phrases that are used like one word
Telegraphic Speech
Speech used by young children that contains only the words necessary to convey a message
Grammatical Morphemes
Words or endings of words that make a sentence grammatical
Overregularization
grammatical usage that results from applying rules to words that are exceptions to the rule
