Chapter 7 Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Question 1

Centration

Answer 1

the young child’s tendency to think of the world in terms of one variable at a time

Question 2

conservation

Answer 2

the understanding that matter can change in appearance without changing in quantity

Question 3

corpus callosum

Answer 3

the membrane that connects the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex

Question 4

egocentrism

Answer 4

the young child’s belief that everyone sees and experiences he world the way she does

Question 5

false-belief principle

Answer 5

an understanding that enables a child to look at a situation from another person’s point of view and determine what kind of information will cause that person to have a false belief

Question 6

fast-mapping

Answer 6

the ability to categorically link new words to real-world referents

Question 7

grammar explosion

Answer 7

the period during which the grammatical features of children’s speech become more similar to those of adult speech

Question 8

handedness

Answer 8

a strong preference focusing one hand or the other that develops between 3 - 5 years of age

Question 9

hippocampus

Answer 9

a brain structure that is important in learning

Question 10

intelligence quotient (IQ)

Answer 10

the ratio of mental age to chronological age; also, a general term for any kind of score derived from an intelligence test

Question 11

invented spelling

Answer 11

a strategy young children with good phonological awareness skills use when they write

Question 12

lateralization

Answer 12

the process through which brain functions are divided between the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex

Question 13

metacognition

Answer 13

knowledge about how the mind thinks and the ability to control and reflect on one’s own thought processes

Question 14

metamemory

Answer 14

knowledge of how memory works and the ability to control and reflect on one’s own memory function

Question 15

operational efficiency

Answer 15

a neo-Piagetian term that refers to the maximum number of schemes that can be processed in working memory at one time

Question 16

overregularization

Answer 16

attachment of regular inflections to irregular words, such as the substitution of “goed” for “went”

Question 17

phonologial awareness

Answer 17

children’s understanding of the sound patterns of the language they are acquiring

Question 18

preoperational stage

Answer 18

Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, during which children become proficient in the use of symbols in thinking and communicating but still have difficulty thinking logically

Question 19

reaction range

Answer 19

a range, established by one’s genes, between upper and lower boundaries for traits such as intelligence; one’s environment determines where, within those limits, one will be

Question 20

semiotic (symbolic) function

Answer 20

the understanding that one object or behavior can represent another

Question 21

short-term storage space (STSS)

Answer 21

neo-Piagetian theorist Robbie Case’s term for the working memory

Question 22

theory of mind

Answer 22

a set of ideas constructed by a child or an adult to explain other people’s ideas, beliefs, desires, and behavior