Chapter 1: Theories and Perspectives on Development Flashcards
Examples of Species
Apes, humans, rats, etc.
Changes in the amount or degree of a skill
Development is additive
Quantitative
Changes in the type of skill
Never abilities emerge
Qualitative
Qualitative change is a ____ change
Continuous
Quantitative change is a _____ change
Discontinuous
Domain Specificity
Learning occurs at different times in different domains
Domains include: physical, biological, psychological
Domain Generality
Learning occurs across all cognitive domains
Distributed learning
Piaget and EF Theorists support:
Domain generality
Fodor and Chomsky support:
Domain specificity
Infants born with certain specific abilities that prepare them to achieve cognitive tasks
Nativism
Nature
Biological, inborn, native, genetic, innate
Nurture
Environmental, learned, social, acquired
Associationist Perspective
Infants have limited capabilities, learning is key
AKA Blank Slate
Constructivist Perspective
Associative capabilities & perceptual skills, learn through active construction
Competent-Infant Perspective
Perceptual skills & conceptual understanding, early classification and rapid learning
Exposure during a certain period of time is essential for normal development
ex. Language
Critical Period
During this period there is a greater ease of access for a concept
Sensitive Period
Mechanisms of Change:
Physical Mechanisms vs. Processing Mechanisms
Maturation and brain structure
Physical
Processing
Actions and experiences
Three Meta-Theories:
Piaget
Vygotsky
Information Processing
Equilibration
An innate self-regulatory process to stay in a balanced state
Assimilation
Interpreting experience in terms of existing cognitive schemas
Accommodation
Adjustments to the existing schemas to account for new information that challenges existing beliefs
Motor Actions
Sensorimotor (0-2)
Mental representations with symbols and relationships
Pre-Operational (2-7)
Concrete Operational (7-11)
Mental operations or present/physical objects
Mental operations on operations
Formal Operational (11+)
Centration
Focuses on one idea to the exclusion of others
Zone of Proximal Development
The area lying between where the child is now and where the child could be with help. An adult or peer can guide the child through this zone
Temporary support for a child that is slowly withdrawn until the child can perform on their own. In the child’s zone of proximal development
Scaffolding
Dialectical process is comprised of the ____, the _____, and the ______
Thesis (original idea), antithesis (opposing idea), and synthesis (resolution between competing ideas).
Information processing 4 mechanisms of change:
Automatization, Encoding, Generalization, Strategy construction
Automatization
Using mental processes or problem-solving strategies increasingly efficiently, with practice, so that mental resources are freed for other purposes.
Modularity Nativism
A set of approaches that posit innate modules, structures, or constraints, each specialized for perception and cognition in a particular domain such as language.
Knowledge structures are innate and development is is predetermined
Nativism (Theories of Knowledge Acquisition)
Knowledge is acquired through experience alone
Behaviourism (Theories of Knowledge Acquisition)
