Cognitive development

Question 1

What is included in cognitive development?

Answer 1

Thinking, problem solving, concept understanding, information processing and overall intelligence.

Question 2

What is the domain general approach?

Answer 2

One line of development determines all other changes in the child’s intellectual repertoire, one fault will affect all areas.

Question 3

What is the domain specific approahc?

Answer 3

Different lines of cognitive function operate independently from one another, modular heterogeneous system.

Question 4

What did Piaget discover?

Answer 4

First person to see that children see differently to adults, did a lot of descriptive case studies.

Question 5

What is Piaget’s theory?

Answer 5

Cognitive development centers around the idea that children develop as they interact with the environment, forming mental representations of the world based on stimuli and experiences.

Question 6

What is assimilation?

Answer 6

The process of encoding and understanding information using current schemas.

Question 7

What is accomodation?

Answer 7

The process of adapting old knowledge to new experiences or situations.

Question 8

What is disequilibrium?

Answer 8

The state in which information in accomodation is new and different to those already held in schmas.

Question 9

What is equilibrium?

Answer 9

The state in which information in assimilation is similar to those already held in schemas.

Question 10

What is egocentrism?

Answer 10

A world from their own perspective.

Question 11

What is a schema?

Answer 11

A mental representation, shortcut to information already stored in the brain accumulated from past experiences.

Question 12

What is the stage theory?

Answer 12

That a child cannot develop to a later stage of growth unless the other stages have been met. Each stage has a main milestone that needs to be reached before progressing.

Question 13

What is the sensorimotor stage, 0-2 years?

Answer 13

Intelligence in actions, child interacts in environment by manipulating objects.

Question 14

What is the milestone task for the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 14

Object permanence blanket task, understanding that the object is still there if it is hidden under a blanket.

Question 15

What is the preoperational stage, 2-7 years?

Answer 15

Thinking is dominated by perception.

Question 16

What is the milestone for the preoperational stage?

Answer 16

Mountain task, doll placed and had to say which parts of the mountain the doll could see.
Policeman task, child is asked to place doll in placed where a policeman positioned couldn’t see.

Question 17

Why do children of a younger age pass the policeman task but not the mountain task?

Answer 17

Because the mountain concept is harder to grasp as it is not as child friendly.

Question 18

What is the idea of egocentric conversation?

Answer 18

Children conversation focus is on their own topics and do not take in too much information from the other person.

Question 19

What is the concrete operational stage, 7-12?

Answer 19

Children begin to reason logically about the world, solve conversational problems but largely concrete rather than abstract.

Question 20

What is the milestone in the concrete operational stage?

Answer 20

Pouring liquid from one glass to another one of the same volume but different shape, child should be able to recognise that the amount of liquid did not change. Can be repeated with a solid too such as clay.

Question 21

What is the problems with the concrete operational task?

Answer 21

Children may fail due to the specifics of the explanation and wording of the task and the questions being asked twice.

Question 22

What is the formal operational stage, 12 onwaards?

Answer 22

Children begin to think abstractly and see consequences of actions and moral reasoning.

Question 23

How has Piaget’s theory implicated education?

Answer 23

Due to the idea that children need environmental learning as well as intellectual tasks are usually paired with questions.

Question 24

What are the critiques of Piaget?

Answer 24

His theories are culturally biased and ethnocentric, does not consider school or education impacting development, doesn’t consider the processes behind the theories.

Question 25

What did Lee Vygotsky believe?

Answer 25

That cognitive functions were down to social interactions.

Question 26

What did Vygotsky and Piaget’s theories agree on?

Answer 26

The idea that children are an active agent in the environment and that aids cognitive development.

Question 27

What is Vygotsky’s first major contribution?

Answer 27

The importance of the environment and socialisation, cognitive processes develop through social interactions therefore development is a product of culture.

Question 28

What was Vygotsky’s second major contribution?

Answer 28

The importance of language and thought, by 3 children’s main tool is language that guides them through life. They talk to themselves, not because they’re egocentric but to navigate themselves through tasks.

Question 29

What is the idea of inner speech?

Answer 29

Stage at which the child internalises words and the mental representation of them as symbols for objects in the environment.

Question 30

What are two comparisons between Piaget and Vygotsky?

Answer 30

Piaget: Development maturity is precondition for learning.
Vygotsky: Guidance leads to development.

Piaget: Higher mental processes are characterised by formal, specific operations.
Vygotsky: Higher mental processes are shaped by socio-cultural situations.