Ch. 5 Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Question 1

Accommodation (Piaget)

Answer 1

Children create new schemes or adjust or modify old ones after noticing that their current ways of thinking do not capture the environment completely.
This is one of two activities that are part of ADAPTION. The other activity is ASSIMILATION.
Ex: Two-year-old Laura dropped a block into her toy box. She then dropped a cup, a car, and a doll into the box, throwing some objects gently, while using more force with others. Laura’s modification of her dropping scheme is an example increasing intelligence

Question 2

Autobiographical Memory and Infantile Amnesia

Answer 2

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY allows us to recall many personally meaning ful one-time events with ease – even from the distant past.
But there are limits to that. Adults tend not to be able to remember anything prior to their 3rd birthday. This INFANTILE AMNESIA may be due to the fact that young children and older children/adults simply process and store information differently.

Question 3

Adaptation (Piaget)

Answer 3

Schemes change in two ways – ADAPTION and ORGANIZATION
ADAPTION is when we build schemes through direct interaction with environment. This process consists of two activities:
ASSIMILATION – when we use our currently accepted schemes to interpret the external world (If we believe the world works in a certain way, then we are going to use that framework, or scheme, to interpret what’s going on around us)
ACCOMMODATION – we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current ways of thinking do not capture the environment completely.
With ADAPTION, we build schemes, interpreting the environment with assimilation and modifying our schemes with accommodation.

Question 4

Assimilation (Piaget)

Answer 4

ASSIMILATION – when we use our currently accepted schemes to interpret the external world (If we believe the world works in a certain way, then we are going to use that framework, or scheme, to interpret what’s going on around us)
This is one of two activities that are part of ADAPTION. The other activity is ACCOMODATION.

Question 5

Central Executive

Answer 5

In the Information Processing Approach, the CENTRAL EEXECUTIVE is the manager of the input, processing, and output executed among the three parts: Sensory Register, Short-Term Memory, and Long-Term Memory.
Information Processing approach regard people as actively making sense of their own thinking. It consists of three parts for processing:
1) Information enters the SENSORY REGISTER where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
2) In the SHORT-TERM MEMORY (or WORKING MEMORY), we retain this information briedfly so we can actively work with it to reach our goals.
Then, the CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates incoming infomation with information already in the system, and it selects, applies, and moniitors strategies that facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. And the more effectively we process information in working memory, the more likely it will transfer to the third, and largest, storage area…
3) LONG-TERM MEMORY, our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited! In fact, we store so much in long-term memory that retrieval – getting information back from the system can be challenging.

Question 6

Circular Reaction

Answer 6

is a means of building schemes in which infants try to repeat chance motor behaviors again and again.
involves stumbling onto a new experience caused by the babies own motor activity and is circular because as the infant tries to repeat the event again and again, a sensorimotor response that first occurred by chance strengthens into a new scheme

Question 7

Cognitive Development Stages (Piaget)

Answer 7

Piaget did not believe that children’s learning depends on reinforcers, such as rewards from adults. According to his Cognitive ­ Developmental Theory, children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world.
Promoted the concept of Adaptation – Just as structures of the body are adapted to fit with the environment, so structures of the mind develop to better fit with, or represent, the external world. The mind Adapts its understanding to what it observes in the world around it.
Piaget claimed that children’s understanding of the world was different from adult’s (ex: Baby’s think things dissappear from existence when they are out of sight). This thinking makes his theory – DISCONTINUOUS.
DISCONTINUOS, BOTH NATURE and NURTURE

Question 8

Cognitive Disequilibrium vs Equilibrium (Piaget)

Answer 8

COGNITIVE EQUILIBRIUM occurs when a child’s schemas (understanding of reality) can deal with most new information through ASSIMILATION (agreement with what they arlready know and understand).
However, COGNITIVE DISEQUILIBRIUM occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schema. (i.e. the information doesn’t fit with what the baby understands about reality and the world around it.)
This DISEQUILIBRIUM requires the baby to use the new information to modify its existing schemas (a process called ACCOMODATION)

Question 9

Categorization

Answer 9

is the process through which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, classified, and understood, setting a foundation for the recept of new, unfamiliar information.

Question 10

Concrete Operational (Piaget Cognnitive Development Stage 3)

Answer 10

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL – 7-11 years
Thinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations
Develops conservation and mathmatical transformations

Question 11

Cooing & Babbling (Developing Language)

Answer 11

Infants begin practicing language skills from the very beginning.
COOING (0-12 months) – vowel-like noises
BABBLING (12-18 months) – repeating consonant/vowel combinations in long strings
WORDS (18 Months + ) – develops use of actual words

Question 12

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #4)

Answer 12

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions ( 8-12 Months) – Behaviors: Intentional, or goal-directed, behavior; ability to find a hidden object in the first location in which it is hidden (OBJECT PERMANENCE); improved anticipation of events; imitation of behaviors slightly different from those the infant usually performs.
A move toward abstract concepts, like OBJECT/PERSON PERMANENCE And ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE EVENTS.

Question 13

Core Knowledge Perspective

Answer 13

The idea that babies are born with a basic understanding, or CORE KNOWLEDGE, of the way reality works.
They cite the findings of VIOLATION-OF-EXPECTATIONS, which appears as early as 6 weeks old, as proof that some understanding or reality is innate.
Infants start out with impressive understandings. According to this CORE KNOWLEDGE PERSPECTIVE, babies are born with a set of innate knowledge systems, or core domains of thought. Each of these prewired understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development.

Question 14

Deferred Imitation and Make-Beleive Play

Answer 14

The ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present – requires the infant to represent a model’s past behavior.
It makes possible MAKE-BELEIVE PLAY, in which children act out everyday and imaginary activities.

Question 15

Displaced Reference

Answer 15

Associating symbols (such as words) with things not apparent to the physical senses.
The realization that words can be used to cue mental images of things not physically present. If I say the word Elephant, an image of an elephant appears in your head without the need for an actual elephant to be present.
This capacity develops around 1 year old and is the foundation for understanding symbolic representations of other things, which might be in the past, future, far away, or made up.

Question 16

Executive Function

Answer 16

the diverse cognitive operations and strategies that enable us to achieve our goals in cognitively challenging situations
These include controlling attention by inhibiting impulses and irrelevant information and by flexibly directing thought and behavior to suit the demands of a task; coordinating information in working mem-ory; and planning.

Question 17

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Answer 17

Standards set in the US for the education of young children based on current research and expert consensus.

Question 18

Telegraphic Speech

Answer 18

Once toddlers produce 200 to 250 words, they start to com-bine two words: “Mommy shoe, ” “go car, ” “more cookie.” These two-word utterances are called TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH because, like a telegram, they focus on high-content words, omitting smaller, less important ones

Question 19

Formal Operational (Piaget Cognnitive Development Stage 4)

Answer 19

FORMAL OPERATIONAL – 12 years to adulthood
Abstract Reasoning
Develops Abstract logic and the potential for mature moral reasoning

Question 20

Give-And-Take

Answer 20

Caregiver interaction that elicits an action or response from the baby. ex: pat-a-cake and peekaboo

Question 21

Goal-Directed Behavior (Piaget)

Answer 21

This simply refers to INTENTIONAL behavior (toward a goal) rather than reflexive or instinctive behavior.

Question 22

Habituation

Answer 22

“Refers to an organism’s decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it – simply because they get used to it and it loses its novelty.
Once this has occurred, a new stimulus – a change inthe environment – causes responsiveness to return to a high level, an increase called RECOVERY.
HABITUATION and RECOVERY make learning more efficient by focusing oour attention on those aspects of the environment we know least about.”
Using the VIOLATION OF EXPECTATION method may use habituation by exposing babies to a physical event until their looking declines.

Question 23

Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)

Answer 23

a checklist ofr gathering information abou tthe quality of children’s home lives through observation and parental interview.

Question 24

Infant Directed Speech (IDS)

Answer 24

Adults in many cultures speak to babies in infant-directed speech (IDS), a form of communication made up of short sentences with high-pitched, exaggerated expression, and clear pronunciation,
From birth on, infants prefer IDS over other adult talk, and by 5 months they are more emotionally responsive to it
IDS builds on several communicative strategies we have already considered: JOINT ATTENTION, TURN-TAKING, and CAREGIVERS SENSITIVITY to toddlers’ preverbal gestures.

Question 25

Information Processing Perspective

Answer 25

The is a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows. From the time information is presented to the senses at input until it emerges as a behavioral response at output, information is actively coded, transformed, and organized.
Information Processing approach regard people as actively making sense of their own thinking. It consists of three parts for processing:
1) Information enters the SENSORY REGISTER where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
2) In the SHORT-TERM MEMORY (or WORKING MEMORY), we retain this information briedfly so we can actively work with it to reach our goals.
Then, the CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates incoming infomation with information already in the system, and it selects, applies, and moniitors strategies that facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. And the more effectively we process information in working memory, the more likely it will transfer to the third, and largest, storage area…
3) LONG-TERM MEMORY, our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited! In fact, we store so much in long-term memory that retrieval – getting information back from the system can be challenging.
This theory is CONTINUOS, BOTH NATURE and NURTURE

Question 26

Joint Attention and Language Development

Answer 26

This is when the child attends to (pays attention to) the same object or event as the caregiver.
The child will look at whatever the caregiver is looking at even if it is off in th edistance.
This JOINT ATTENTION is important because the caregiver will often label that thing they are attending to, contributing greatly to early language development.

Question 27

Long-Term Memory

Answer 27

The Third part of the Information Processing Approach where effectively processed inputs are stored for long-term use.
Information Processing approach regard people as actively making sense of their own thinking. It consists of three parts for processing:
1) Information enters the SENSORY REGISTER where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
2) In the SHORT-TERM MEMORY (or WORKING MEMORY), we retain this information briedfly so we can actively work with it to reach our goals.
Then, the CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates incoming infomation with information already in the system, and it selects, applies, and moniitors strategies that facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. And the more effectively we process information in working memory, the more likely it will transfer to the third, and largest, storage area…
3) LONG-TERM MEMORY, our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited! In fact, we store so much in long-term memory that retrieval – getting information back from the system can be challenging.

Question 28

Mental Representation ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #6)

Answer 28

Mental Representation (18 Months - 2 years) -- Behaviors: Uses Mental representation to solve simple problems (i.e. works out problems in his mind rather than through trial manipulation of the physical world).
A move from Trial and error problem solving to problem solving through MENTAL REPRESENTATION.

Question 29

Nativist Perspective vs. Interactionist Perspective Of Language Development

Answer 29

The NATIVIST PERSPECTIVE says that speech is native to the being, that everyone is born with a LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE, which is the innate, universal grammar system. Says infants are biologically prepared to learn language (NATURE)
The INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE says that language is learned through social interaction and eventual recognition of speech patterns. (NURTURE)

Question 30

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Answer 30

This is the innate system that contains a universal grammar or set of rules common to all languages.
It enables children, regardless of the language they hear, to understand and speak in a rule-oriented fashion as soon as they pick up enough words.

Question 31

Object Permanence

Answer 31

The understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight – develops around 8-12 Months.
Develops in Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage. More specifically duing the sub-stage #4 Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions ( ) – A move toward abstract concepts, like OBJECT/PERSON PERMANENCE And ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE EVENTS.

Question 32

Operant Conditioning vs. Classical Conditioning

Answer 32

OPERANT CONDITIONING is learning that employs reward and punishment to increase or decrease a behavior. Consciously learned.
CLASSICAL CONDITIOING is learning that is established subconsciously through association (Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of hte dinner bell)

Question 33

Organization

Answer 33

Schemes change in two ways – ADAPTION and ORGANIZATION.
Schemes also change through organization, a process that occurs internally, apart from direct contact with the environment. Once children form new schemes, they rear- range them, linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system.
For example, eventually Timmy will relate “dropping” to “throwing” and to his developing understanding of “nearness” and “farness.”
According to Piaget, schemes truly reach equilibrium when they become part of a broad network of structures that can be jointly applied to the sur-rounding world.

Question 34

Preoperational (Piaget Cognnitive Development Stage 2)

Answer 34

PREOPERATIONAL – 2-7 years
Representing things with words and images; use intuitive rather than logical reasoning
Children learn to use language while they continue to think very literally. They maintain an egocentric worldview.
Develops Pretend Play, Egocentrism, Language Development

Question 35

Preverbal Gestures

Answer 35

Prior to Language Development, infants use gestures to direct adults attention and to influence their behavior, and to convey helpful information

Question 36

Primary Circular Reactions ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #2)

Answer 36

Primary Circular Reactions ( 1-4 Months) – Behaviors: Purposeless, repetitive (Circular) actions oriented to the body (primary level); limited anticipation of events, object recognition
Satisfying bodily activity engaged in by chance or as a result of intervention by parents is repeated and comes under the baby’s control.
A move from reflexes to INTENTIONAL ACTIONS – e.g. sucking, grasping

Question 37

Reflexive Schemes ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #1)

Answer 37

Reflexive Schemes – (Birth - 1-Month) – Behaviors: Dominated by Newborn REFLEXES, inate and unlearned

Question 38

Recognition vs. Recall

Answer 38

In memory, there is RECOGNITION, which means you notice a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced (You literally recognize it), and there is RECALL, which is remembering something that is not present.
RECALL is much more challenging than RECOGNITION.

Question 39

Renée Baillargeon

Answer 39

Five month olds habituated to a screen that moved back and forth. Impossible event and possible event, impossible being screen moved thru box. Infants looked longer at this, they expected the screen to stop and were surprised, and understood the box continued to exist. As young as 5 months know solid objects don’t pass thru solid objects.

Question 40

Referential vs Expressive Style

Answer 40

Young children have distinct styles of early language learning.
Most toddlers, used a REFERENTIAL STYLE; their vocabularies consisted mainly of words that refer to OBJECTS.
A few toddlers use an EXPRESSIVE STYLE; compared to referential children, they produce many more social formulas and pronouns (“thank you, ” “done, ” “I want it”).
These styles reflect early ideas about the functions of language. Children with REFERENTIAL STYLE, for example, thought words were for naming things.
In contrast, EXPRESSIVE STYLE children believe words are for talking about people’s feelings and needs.
The vocabularies of REFERENTIAL STYLE toddlers GROW FASTER because all languages contain many more object labels than social phrases.

Question 41

Schemes (Piaget)

Answer 41

Repeatable patterns of acttion that can be generalized and serve as temlates for future actions. Schemes are organized ways of making sense of experiences.
For example, at 6 months, Timmy dropped objects in a fairly rigid way, simply letting go of a rattle or teething ring and watching with interest. By 18 months, his “dropping SCHEME” had become deliberate and creative. In tossing objects down the basement stairs, he threw some in the air, bounced others off walls, released some gently and others forcefully.
Soon, instead of just acting on objects, he will show evidence of thinking before he acts. For Piaget, this change marks the transition from the sensorimotor stage to the preoperational stage.
In Piaget’s theory, two processes, ADAPTION and ORGANIZATION, account for changes in schemes.

Question 42

Secondary Circular Reactions ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #3)

Answer 42

Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 Months) – Behaviors: Actions aimed at repeating interesting effects in the surrounding world; imitation of familiar behaviors
Intentional duplication of an activity. Behavior is less and less accidental. Baby repeats actions that create interesting effects, indicate ability to anticipate, and interested in external events and objects.
A move from exclusive focus on self to AWARENESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT.

Question 43

Sensorimotor (Piaget Cognnitive Development Stage 1)

Answer 43

SENSORIMOTOR – Birth to 2-years
Experiencing the world through senses and actions (Looking, touching, mouthing, and grasping)
Develops Object Permanence and Stranger Anxiety
Piaget’s sensorimotor stage spans the first two years of life. Piaget believed that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads.

Question 44

Sensory Register

Answer 44

The First part of the Information Processing Approach where sights and sounds are received, represented directly, and sent to short-term (working) memory.
Information Processing approach regard people as actively making sense of their own thinking. It consists of three parts for processing:
1) Information enters the SENSORY REGISTER where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
2) In the SHORT-TERM MEMORY (or WORKING MEMORY), we retain this information briedfly so we can actively work with it to reach our goals.
Then, the CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates incoming infomation with information already in the system, and it selects, applies, and moniitors strategies that facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. And the more effectively we process information in working memory, the more likely it will transfer to the third, and largest, storage area…
3) LONG-TERM MEMORY, our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited! In fact, we store so much in long-term memory that retrieval – getting information back from the system can be challenging.

Question 45

Short-Term Memory Store

Answer 45

The Second part of the Information Processing Approach where sensory information from the SENSORY REGISTER is stored temporarily for processing before (hopefully) being sent to LONG-TERM MEMORY.
Information Processing approach regard people as actively making sense of their own thinking. It consists of three parts for processing:
1) Information enters the SENSORY REGISTER where sights and sounds are represented directly and stored briefly.
2) In the SHORT-TERM MEMORY (or WORKING MEMORY), we retain this information briedfly so we can actively work with it to reach our goals.
Then, the CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates incoming infomation with information already in the system, and it selects, applies, and moniitors strategies that facilitate memory storage, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. And the more effectively we process information in working memory, the more likely it will transfer to the third, and largest, storage area…
3) LONG-TERM MEMORY, our permanent knowledge base, which is unlimited! In fact, we store so much in long-term memory that retrieval – getting information back from the system can be challenging.

Question 46

Sensorimotor Stages (Piaget)

Answer 46

During Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) the child moves from

• REFLEXIVE actions to DELIBERATE
• CONCRETE thought to ABSTRACT
• SELF-CENTERED (EGOCENTRIC) focus to awareness in the EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
  1) Reflexive Schemes (Birth - 1-Month) – Behaviors: Dominated by Newborn REFLEXES, inate and unlearned
  2) Primary Circular Reactions ( 1-4 Months) – A move from reflexes to INTENTIONAL ACTIONS – e.g. sucking, grasping
  3) Secondary Circular Reactions (4-8 Months) – A move from exclusive focus on self to AWARENESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT
  4) Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions ( 8-12 Months) – A move toward abstract concepts, like OBJECT/PERSON PERMANENCE And ANTICIPATION OF FUTURE EVENTS.
  5) Tertiary Circular Reactions ( 12-18 Months) – A Move to TRIAL AND ERROR Problem solving.
  6) Mental Representation (18 Months - 2 years) – A move from Trial and error problem solving to problem solving through MENTAL REPRESENTATION.

Question 47

Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky)

Answer 47

Says that children learn from SOCIAL INTERACTION with wiser adults. It focuses on how culture—the values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group—is transmitted to the next generation.
According to Vygotsky, social interaction —in particular, cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society—is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community’s culture.
This theory is both CONTINUOUS and DISCONTINUOS, BOTH NATURE and NURTURE”

Question 48

Social-Interactionist View

Answer 48

Emphasizes social skills and language experiences

Ex. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Question 49

Tertiary Circular Reactions ( Piaget Sensorimotor Stages #5)

Answer 49

Tertiary Circular Reactions ( 12-18 Months) – Behaviors: Interest in exploration and Novelty. Through TRIAL AND ERROR, the baby makes active attempts at solving problems in new ways, tries to find new solutions to new problems, and tries new behaviors to reach a goal.
A Move to TRIAL AND ERROR Problem solving.

Question 50

Underextension vs, Overextension

Answer 50

UNDEREXTENSION – is an error by young children when they first learn words and apply them too narrowly.
Ex: A child uses the word ‘bear’ only to refer to her Teddy Bear.
OVEREXTENSION – is an error by young children when they apply a word to a wider collection of objects and events that is inappropriate.
Ex. A child uses the term ‘car’ to refer to trains, buses, cars, etc.

Question 51

Language Production vs. Comprehension

Answer 51

LANGUAGE PRODUCTION refers to the words that children use.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION refers to their understanding of those words.
Children just learning language may use words as broad terms or in substitution for other terms they don’t yet know in order to feel their way around as they learn. This often leads to UNDEREXTENSION and OVEREXTENSION until the childs abilities become refined.

Question 52

Video Deficit Effect

Answer 52

An effect that shows Video Instruction to be inferior to Real-life instruction – at least for toddlers. The difference decreases at around age 2 1/2 as the child is better able to grasp increasingly abstract ideas.
Toddlers performed worse on a task when instructed via a video relative to others who were instructed in person.
*One explanation is that 2-year-olds typically do not view a video char-acter as offering socially relevant information.
After an adult on video announced where she had hidden a toy, few 2-year-olds searched (schmidt, Crawley-Davis, & Anderson, 2007). in contrast, when the adult uttered the same words while standing in front of the child, 2-year-olds promptly retrieved the object.

Question 53

Violation-Of-Expectation

Answer 53

A method of testing babyies’ understanding of reality.
It notes that babies notice things that are unexpected or out of place, things that violate the baby’s expectation of what should and shouldn’t be.
Baby’s show heightened attention to an unexpected event suggests that the infant is surprised by a deviation from physical reality.

Question 54

What are Piaget’s 4 stages of Cognitive Development?

Answer 54

SENSORIMOTOR – Birth to 2-years – Experiencing the world through senses – experiences Object Permanence and Stranger Anxiety
PREOPERATIONAL – 2-6 or 7 years – Representing things with words and images – experiences Pretend Play, Egocentrism, Language Development
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL – 7-11 years – Thinking logically about concrete events – experiences conservation, mathmatical transformations
FORMAL OPERATIONAL – 12-adulthood – Abstract Reasoning – experiences Abstract logic, potential for mature moral reasoning

Question 55

Working Memory

Answer 55

Also known as SHORT-TERM MEMORY – the amount of information that can be briefly held in mind while engaging in some effort to manipulate them.
The 2nd part of the INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH.

Question 56

Zone of Proximal (or Potiential) Development

Answer 56

Refers to a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone but can do with the hellp of a more skilled partner.