Chapter 7: Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Flashcards
Repeated urination in clothing or in bed.
enuresis
Physical skills that involve the large
muscles.
gross motor skills
Piaget’s term for ability to use mental
representations (words, numbers, or
images) to which a child has attached
meaning.
symbolic function
Increasingly complex combinations of
skills, which permit a wider or more
precise range of movement and more
control of the environment.
systems of action
Preference for using a particular hand
handedness
In Piaget’s theory, the second major
stage of cognitive development, in
which symbolic thought expands but
children cannot yet use logic.
preoperational stage
pretend play
Play involving imaginary people and
situations; also called fantasy play,
dramatic play, or imaginative play.
pretend play
Physical skills that involve the small
muscles and eye-hand coordination.
fi ne motor skills
Tendency to attribute life to objects that
are not alive.
animism
Piaget’s term for a preoperational
child’s tendency to mentally link partic-
ular phenomena, whether or not there
is logically a causal relationship
transduction
In Piaget’s theory, the tendency of
preoperational children to focus on one
aspect of a situation and neglect others.
centration
In Piaget’s terminology, to think simulta-
neously about several aspects of a
situation.
decenter
Piaget’s term for inability to consider
another person’s point of view; a char-
acteristic of young children’s thought.
egocentrism
Piaget’s term for a preoperational child’s
failure to understand that an operation
can go in two or more directions.
irreversibility
Awareness and understanding of
mental processes.
theory of mind
Piaget’s term for awareness that two
objects that are equal according to a
certain measure remain equal in the
face of perceptual alteration so long as
nothing has been added to or taken
away from either object.
conservation
Retention of information in memory for
future use.
storage
Process by which information is
prepared for long-term storage and
later retrieval.
encoding
Process by which information is
accessed or recalled from memory
storage.
retrieval
Initial, brief, temporary storage
of sensory information.
sensory memory
Short-term storage of information being
actively processed.
working memory
In Baddeley’s model, element of
working memory that controls the
processing of information.
central executive
Storage of virtually unlimited capacity
that holds information for long periods.
long-term memory
Conscious control of thoughts,
emotions, and actions to accomplish
goals or solve problems.
executive function
