Chapter 11: The Development of Body, Thought, and Language

Question 1

accommodation

Answer 1

change that occurs in an existing mental scheme or set of schemes as a result of the incorporation of the experience of a new event/object (Piaget’s theory)

Question 2

assimilation

Answer 2

process by which experiences are incorporated into the mind or, more specifically, into mental schemes (Piaget’s theory)

Question 3

autism (autism spectrum disorder)

Answer 3

early developing disorder, typically marked by severe deficits in social interaction, language acquisition, tendency to perform repetitive actions, and restricted focus of attention and interest

Question 4

centration

Answer 4

tendency of preoperational children to attend to one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others (Piaget’s theory)

Question 5

concrete-operational scheme

Answer 5

type of mental structure that allows a child to think logically about reversible actions/operations but only when applied to objects with which the child has had direct/concrete experience (Piaget’s theory)

Question 6

creole language

Answer 6

new language, with grammatical rules, that develops from a pidgin language in colonies established by people who had different native languages

Question 7

decentration

Answer 7

ability of concrete operational children to consider multiple aspects of a stimulus or situation (Piaget’s theory)

Question 8

developmental psychology

Answer 8

branch of psychology that charts changes in people’s abilities and styles of behaving as they get older and tries to understand the factors that produce or influence those changes

Question 9

egocentricy

Answer 9

tendency to interpret objects and events from one’s own perspective (Piaget’s theory)

Question 10

embryonic phase

Answer 10

developmental period that extends from the 3. to about the 8. week after conception in humans, during which all major organ systems develop

Question 11

fetal phase

Answer 11

developmental period that extends from about nine weeks until birth, which usually takes place about 38 weeks after conception in humans

Question 12

formal-operational scheme

Answer 12

type of mental structure that allows a person to reason about abstract concepts and hypothetical ideas (Piaget’s theory)

Question 13

grammar

Answer 13

entire set of rules that specify the permissible ways that smaller units can be arranged to from morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences in language

Question 14

language-acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 14

special, innate characteristics of the human mind that allow children to learn their native language; it includes innate knowledge of basic aspects of grammar that are common to all languages and an innate predisposition to attend to and remember the critical, unique aspects of the language (Chomsky’s theory)

Question 15

language-acquisition support system (LASS)

Answer 15

simplification of language and the use of gestures that occur when parents or other language users speak to young children, which helps children learn language (developed as a complement to Chomsky’s concept of LAD)

Question 16

morphemes

Answer 16

smallest meaningful units of a verbal language; words, prefixes or suffixes that have discreate meanings

Question 17

object permanence

Answer 17

understanding that an object still exists even when it is out of view (Piaget’s theory)

Question 18

operations

Answer 18

reversible action that can be performed either in reality or mentally upon some object or a set of objects (Piaget’s theory)

Question 19

phonemes

Answer 19

various vowel and constant sounds that provide the basis for a spoken language

Question 20

pidgin language

Answer 20

primitive system of communication that emerges when people with different native languages colonize the same region; it uses words from the various native languages and has either no or minimal grammatical structure

Question 21

preoperational schemes

Answer 21

mental structures that permit the child to symbolize objects and events that are absent, but do not permit the child to think about the operations that can be performed on objects (Piaget’s theory)

Question 22

puberty

Answer 22

period in life in which children attain adult size and physical characteristics, including sexual maturity

Question 23

representational insight

Answer 23

knowledge that an entity can stand for something other than itself

Question 24

scaffolding

Answer 24

expert, when instructing a novice, responding contingently to the novice’s responses in the learning situation, so that the novice gradually increases his or her understanding of the problem

Question 25

schemes

Answer 25

mental entities that provide the basis for thought and that change in a stage-like way through development; they obtain information about the actions that one can perform on objects, either in reality or symbolically in the mind (Piaget’s theory)

Question 26

sensorimotor scemes

Answer 26

type of mental structure that enables an infant to act on objects that are immediately present but does not permit thought about objects that are present

Question 27

shared attention

Answer 27

two individuals both attending to the same thing/event and sharing that experience

Question 28

social referencing

Answer 28

process by which infants use the nonverbal expressions of a caregiver as cues to guide their behaviour

Question 29

syntax

Answer 29

set of grammatical rules for a given language that specifies how words can be arranged to produce phrases and sentences

Question 30

teratogens

Answer 30

external agents, such as drugs and radiation, that can have harmful effects on a developing embryo/fetus

Question 31

theory of mind

Answer 31

person’s concept of mental activity; used to refer to how people conceptualize mental activity and how they attribute intention to and predict the behaviour of others

Question 32

tools of intellectual adaptation

Answer 32

tools a culture provides for thinking and problem solving (Vygotsky’s theory)

Question 33

universal grammar

Answer 33

innate grammar that characterizes all human languages

Question 34

zone of proximal development

Answer 34

range/set of activities that a child can do in collaboration with more competent others but cannot yet do alone

Question 35

zygotic/germinal phase

Answer 35

developmental phase lasting appromixately two weeks in humans, which starts when an egg is fertilized and ends when the zygote implants in the uterine wall