Chapter 6 Flashcards
Constructivist approach
Piaget viewed children as discovering or constructing virtually all knowledge about their world through their own activity
Cognition
Refers to the inner process and products of the mind that lead to “know-ing” it includes all mental activity
Adaptation
Involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment
Assimilation
We use our current schemes to interpret our external world
Accommodation
We create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely
Organization
A process that occurs internally, apart from direct contact with the environment. Once children form new schemes, they rearrange them, linking them with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive
Sensorimotor stage
Spans the first two years of life. It’s name reflects piaget’s belief that infants and toddlers “think” with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment.
Circular reaction
Provides a special means of adapting their first schemes. It involves stumbling onto a new experience caused by the baby’s own motor activity. The reaction is “circular” because, as the infant tries to repeat the event again and again, a sensorimotor response that originally occurred by chance strengthens into a new scheme.
Goal directed behavior
Coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems
Object permanence
The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
A-not-B search error
If they reach several times for an object at one hiding place (A), then see it moved to another (B), they still search for it in the first hiding place (A)
Deferred imitation
The ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present
Make-believe play
In which children act out everyday and imaginary
Violation-of-expectation method
They may habituate babies to a physical event to familiarize them with a situation in which their knowledge will be tested. Or they may show babies and expected event and an unexpected event. Heightened attention to the unexpected event suggests that the infant is “surprised” by a deviation from. Physical reality–and therefore is aware of that aspect of the world
Analogically problem solving
Applying a solution strategy from one problem to other relevant problems
Displaced reference
A symbolic capacity; the realization that words can be used to cue mental images of things not physically present
Preoperational stage
Which spans the years 2 to 7, the most obvious change is an extraordinary increase in representational, or symbolic, activity
Sociodramatic play
The make believe with others that is under way by the end of the second year and increase rapidly in complexity during early childhood
Dual representation
Viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol
Operations
Mental representations of actions that obey logical rules
Egocentrism
Failure to distinguish others symbolic viewpoints from ones own
Conservation
Refers to the idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes.
Centration
Focus on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features.
Reversibility
The ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point
Hierarchical classification
The organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences
Concrete operational stage
Extending about from 7-11 years, Marks a major turning point in cognitive development. Thought becomes far more logical, flexible, and organized
Seriation
The ability to order items along a quantitative dimension, such as length or weight
Transitive inference
The concrete operational child can also seriate mentally
Cognitive maps
Mental representations of familiar large-scale spaces, such as a neighborhoods or schools
Formal operational stage
In which they develop the capacity for abstract, systematic, scientific thinking
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
When faced with a problem, they start with a hypothesis, or prediction about variables that might affect an outcome, from which they deduce logical, testable inferences
Propositional thought
Adolescents ability to evaluate the latest gif of propositions (verbal statements) with-out referring to real world circumstances
Imaginary audience
Adolescents belief that they are the focus of everyone else’s attention and concern
Personal fable
Certain that others are observing and thinking about them. Teenagers develop an inflated opinion about their own importance–a feeling that they are special and unique
Logical necessity
Of propositional thought–that the accuracy of conclusions drawn from premises rests on the rules of logic, not on real-world confirmation
Core knowledge perspective
Infants begin life with innate, special-purpose knowledge systems referred to as core domains of thought. Each of these “prewired” understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development of certain aspects of cognition
Private speech
Self-directed speech, instead of egocentric speech
Zone of proximal development
A range of tasks too difficult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers
Intersubjectivity
The process whereby two participants who begin a task with different understandings arrive at a shared understanding
Scaffolding
Adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child’s current level of performance
Guide participation
A broader concept than scaffolding. It refers to shared endeavors between more expert and less expert participants, without specifying the precise features of communication
Intersubjectivity
The process whereby two participants who begin a task with different understandings arrive at a shared understanding
Scaffolding
Adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child’s current level of performance
Guided participation
A broader concept than scaffolding. It refers to shared endeavors between more expert and less expert participants, without specifying the precise features of communication
Reciprocal teaching
A teacher and two or four students form a collaborative group and take turns leading dialogues on the content of a text passage. Within the dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting
Cooperative learning
In which small groups of classmates work toward common goals
