Ch. 8, Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Question 1

Piaget’s preoperational intelligence

Answer 1

These children are thought to be “preoperational” or illogical
Pretend play helps children solidify new schemes they were developing cognitively

Question 2

Egocentrism, Piaget

Answer 2

Refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child

Question 3

Syncretism

Answer 3

f two events occurred simultaneously, one caused the other: an example of this is a child putting on their bathing suit to turn it to summer

Question 4

Animism

Answer 4

Attributing lifeline qualities to objects is referred to as animism

Question 5

Conservation Errors; contrition

Answer 5

Refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter doesn’t change the quantity (pouring water from one glass shape to another doesn’t change the amount)
Centration: focus on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others; (cutting a pizza into more pieces doesn’t make it more pizza, but they will only focus on the slice aspect of it)

Question 6

Vgotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

Answer 6

Argued that culture has a major impact on a child’s cognitive development: believed that social interactions with adults and more knowledgeable peers can facilitate a child’s potential for learning

Question 7

Vgotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding/ learning

Answer 7

Children should be taught in this zone, which occurs when they can perform a task with assistance but not yet on their own; with aid they can accomplish it
Teacher gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided (riding a bike)
Scaffolding: temporary support that parents or teachers give child to do a task (scaffolds like in construction)

Question 8

Piaget, Private Speech

Answer 8

Piaget called this egocentric speech: practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view; Vygotsky believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts

Question 9

Piaget, Learning

Answer 9

Piaget believed that teacher-directed instruction is not helpful: teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role, and children just repeat back what they heard
He believed children must discover concepts on their own
Vgotsky, however, believed that children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals

Question 10

Multitasking, selective attention, sustained attention

Answer 10

Multitasking: ability to switch attention
Selective Attention: ability to focus on single task/stimulus while ignoring distracting info
Sustained Attention: ability to stay on task for long periods of time

Question 11

Neo-Piagetians

Answer 11

Provide new interpretations of Piaget’s theory
Neo-Piagetians believe in constructivism, assume cognitive development can be separated into different stages with qualitatively different characteristics, and advocate that children’s thinking becomes more complex in advanced stages
Neo-Piagetians do not believe that logic determines the complexity of each stage: they believe that changes in info processing dictate this
Propose that working memory capacity is affected by biological maturation, and therefore restricts young children’s ability to acquire complex thinking and reasoning skills
Myelination occurs in waves between birth adolescence, which effects how and which skills develop

Question 12

Theory-Theory

Answer 12

Tendency of children to generate theories about everything they encounter

Question 13

Theory of Mind, False Belief Test, Wimmer and Lerner

Answer 13

False Belief Test, Wimmer and Perner: tested whether children would get the question right: if sally puts her ball in a basket, but annie comes in and moves it to the box, where does sallie think her ball is? Obviously the basket where she thinks she left it, but children wont get this right before the age of 4

Question 14

Why is theory of mind part of social intelligence?

Answer 14

Part of social intelligence; helps us be understanding and empathetic to others when we understand their perspective

Question 15

Cognitive Milestones, age 3-5

Answer 15

3 Years: work with toys, plays make believe, understand what “two” means; puzzles
4 Years: names colors and some numbers, understands the idea of counting, remembers parts of a story, understands the idea of “same” and “different”
5 Years: counts 10 or more things, knows about things used in everyday like money or food

Question 16

fast-mapping

Answer 16

Expands through a process called fast-mapping: words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known
Literal Meanings: don’t understand metaphors like “wow that was a piece of cake”, they believe there is cake

Question 17

Overregularization and age this is most likely to happen at

Answer 17

apply rules of grammar incorrectly like adding ed onto everything “i goed’, age 2 and 3

Question 18

Why is math ability better for children with upper class backgrounds

Answer 18

Even before kindergarten, the math knowledge of children from low income background is way behind children from rich backgrounds: difference might be due to children in upper classes engaging more frequently in numerical activities
Playing numerical board games for 1 hour, distributed over a 2 week period, improved low income children’s knowledge of numerical magnitudes, ability to read printed numbers, and skill at learning novel arithmetic problems

Question 19

Phonemic awareness

Answer 19

Phonemic awareness: awareness of component sounds within words, is crucial skill in learning to read
Performance on these tasks is the strongest indicator of reading achievement in third and fourth grade

Question 20

Autism Spectrum Disorder, social communication issues

Answer 20

Describes range of conditions classified as neuro-developmental disorders in the DSM 5
In the DSM 5, Asperger’s syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Othwerwise Specified merged to become ASD
Autism, Social Communication Issues
Distinctive lack of intuition about others
Show less attention to stimuli, smile less often, and respond less to their name

Question 21

Autism, types of repetitive behaviors S-C-S-R-S

Answer 21

Stereotypy: repetitive movements
Compulsive behavior: exhibiting intention follow made up rules, such as arranging objects in stacks or lines
Sameness: resistance to change; things shouldn’t be moved
Restricted behavior: limit in focus, interest, or activity
Self-injury movements that injure the person

Question 22

Causes of ASD

Answer 22

Genetics, prenatal and perinatal factors, neuroanatomical abnormalities and environmental factors
ASD affects info processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; this is why it is a neuro-developmental disorder
There is no single gene related to ASD, but multiple genes involved

Question 23

Neurodiversity Movement

Answer 23

Neurodiversity Movement: suggest that diverse neurological conditions appear as a result of normal human variations in the genome, they are not inherently pathological, and such differences should be recognized and respected as a social category on a par with gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status

Question 24

ASD and Prenatal and Perinatal Factors

Answer 24

Gestational diabetes
Maternal and paternal age over 30
Bleeding after first trimester
Uses of prescription medication
Meconium: earliest stool of an infant in the amniotic fluid

Question 25

Environmental Factors ASD

Answer 25

Evidence for environmental factors in anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies

Question 26

ASD Treatment

Answer 26

No known cure
Main goal: lessen associated deficits and family distress= increase quality of life and functional dependence
Applied Behavior Analysis is usually most widefly used

Question 27

Ages and ability to divide attention

Answer 27

age 3-4: difficulty dividing their attention between two tasks and perform like chimpanzees
age 5: surpassed chimp but still below everyone else older than them

Question 28

factors impacting the ability to selectively attend

Answer 28

temperment, complexity of the task, and modality of the stimulus
-they are better with visual stimuli than auditory

Question 29

cultural differences in theory of mind

Answer 29

parents in collectivist cultrures emphasize conformity to the family, rather than autonomy and social skills; children in indivdualistic cultures tend to acquire theory of mind faster, because they acquire knowledge about the diversity of belief sooner, vs children in collectivist cultures acquire insight into knowledge access first

Question 30

Language Milestones age 3-5t

Answer 30

3 year: follows instructions, can name most things, talks well enough for strangers to understand, carries on a conversation
4 years: knows some grammer rules, tells storiews, can say first and last name
5 years: speaks very clearly, tells a simple story using full sentences, says name and address

Question 31

Montessori Method of Education

Answer 31

refers to children’s activities as work and not play, focuses on individual learnings, mixed age grouping

Question 32

Waldorf method

Answer 32

focus n connections to natuyre/sensory learning, imagination
relationships are important so child groupings last for many years (looping)

Question 33

Reggio Emilia method

Answer 33

teachers and children construct the curriculum
environment is the third teacher
have an art studio
learning is documented through multiple methods (100 langauges of children)

Question 34

High scope method

Answer 34

consistency of daily routine
teaches children conflict resolution
uses the Child Observation record to help assess children

Question 35

Bank street method of learning

Answer 35

DEVELOPMENTAL INTERACTIONIST APPROACH
environment is arranged into learning centers
focus on hands on experience
BLOCKS ARE THE PRIMARY MATERIAL

Question 36

Creative curriculum

Answer 36

focuses on children’s play and self-selected activities
projects are the basis of cirruculum

Question 37

Head Start Initiative