Chapter 9 - Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood Flashcards
What are children acquiring in Piaget’s concrete operational stage (7-11 years)? (2)
-logical thinking and master Piagetian tasks
-can talk about more complex relationships such as categorization and cause and effect
What three mental processes occur in the concrete operational stage? (3)
-decentration
-reversibility
-inducutive logic
What is decantation? Example (2)
-thinking that takes into account multiple variables
Example: the child can think about the height and appearance of the water conservation task
What is reversibility? Example? (2)
-can reverse thinking or mentally undo something
Example: can imagine that the water was poured from the glass where they were the same amount
What is inductive logic? Example? (2)
-can go from a specific experience to a general principle
-if grandma eats smarties, grandma likes candy
What do children struggle with in the concrete operational stage? Describe it. Example (3)
-abstract thinking
-when you ask them to move away from concrete ideas and ask them to manipulate ideas or possibilities
Example: When the researcher tells the child to think about what would happen if a feather could break a glass and then asks if it did happen what would happen to the glass? The child will say nothing
Once children solve a single conservation task, are they able to understand all conservation tasks?
-no, this is the concept of horizontal decalage
What is horizontal decalage?
-children do not develop certain cognitive abilities uniformly across all tasks, even within the same developmental stage.
What is embodied action?
-when you do the action yourself, rather than just watching someone do it
What have they found for the conservation task when they compare embodied action vs. watching someone do it?
-children said the right answer more often when they did embodied action than when they watched someone
What is Robert Siegler’s theory? What kind of theory is this? Example (3)
-what happens for kids when they’re acquiring conservation abilities is that they’re actually acquiring a set of rules for problem solving and then through experience they apply them to a broader range of problems
-more of a sequence theory, since rules seem to develop in a predictable order and is about experience rather than age
Example: Children first master the understanding of equal weight on each side of a balanced weight and then next they will understand that if one weight moves closer to the fulcrum that this will change the balance
What is the information processing prospective in terms of conservation tasks for ages 7-11 years and why the cognitive development is occurring? (4)
-processing efficiency (we get faster and better at processing information)
-automaticity (calculating 3x3 vs automatically knowing the answer is 9 or sounding out picnic vs reading it automatically as this frees up STM)
-kids use of executive and strategic processes (as metacognition improves, they can help themselves remember stuff easier)
-expertise (the more someone knows about a topic the more efficiently they will be able to process information in that area, think about kids who know dinsoaurs)
