Cognitive Development.

Question 1

Define psychometrics

Answer 1

Field of study concerned with theory and technique of psychological measurement. Objectively measures skills such as knowledge, abilities, attitudes, edu. Achievement. Stanford-Binet IQ test, Validation assessments i.e questionnaires and personality tests.

Question 2

Define metacognition.

Answer 2

Awareness of analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process

Question 3

Define fluid intelligence.

Answer 3

Ability to reason quickly and think abstractly. Decreases in late adulthood. (may eventually become crystallized)

Question 4

Define crystallized intelligence.

Answer 4

Accumulated knowledge we gain over time (not personal memories), we retain throughout life. (may be converted from fluid intelligence)

Question 5

Describe Piaget’s stages of Development.

Answer 5

Sensory Motor
Pre-operational
Concrete Operational
Formal Operational

Question 6

Sensorimotor - Birth through 18-24 months

Answer 6

• Language is more mature
• Uses symbols to represent objects
• Develops memory
• Thinking is based on intuition and not completely logical
• Can’t grasp abstract or difficult concepts
• Egocentric mindset (Everything is about them and everyone thinks like they do)
• Ability to pretend

Question 7

Concrete operational – Ages 7 to 12 years

Answer 7

• Thinks logically and develops concrete reasoning
• Less egocentric
• Start to realize that other people’s thoughts and feeling will not reflect their own
• Develop operational thinking

Question 8

Formal operational - Adolescence to adulthood

Answer 8

• Logical reasoning refined
• Abstract thinking (Able to relate symbols to abstract concepts like algebra/science)
• Continues though adulthood; further development depends upon more knowledge

Question 9

Describe Piaget’s concept of centering.

Answer 9

Pre-Operational stage (2-7 yrs old) tendancy of chld is to focus on most perceptually obvious aspect of an object or event and disregards all others.

Question 10

Describe Piaget’s concept of object permanence.

Answer 10

Child or person is aware that an object continues to exist even though it might not be visible anymore.

Question 11

. Describe Piaget’s concept of conservation;

Answer 11

Conservation is one of Piaget’s developmental accomplishments, in which the child understands that changing the form of a substance or object does not change its amount, overall volume, or mass. This accomplishment occurs during the operational stage of development between ages 7 and 11. You can often see the lack of conservation in children when there are, for example, several different sizes of juice on a table, and they chose the glass that is the tallest because they perceive the taller glass as having more juice inside of it (even though the tallest glass may also be the thinnest). All the glasses may have the same amount of juice in them, but children who haven’t accomplished conservation will perceive the tall glass as being most full.

Question 12

Describe Piaget’s concept of seriation;

Answer 12

Concrete operational stage in cognitive development (ages 7-12). Child develops higher levels of logic and reasoning as well as ability to put things in order (Seriation) according to size, shape, color or type.

Question 13

Describe Piaget’s concept of class inclusion;

Answer 13

The relationship of multiple classes in which one class may encompass other classes. I.e A child knows class of cats, and class of dogs, but may not know they are both animals.

Question 14

What is the normal range of IQ scores?

Answer 14

Median IQ: 100; Normal is one ST. Dev. Above and below the median: normal range: 85-115.

Question 15

What abilities are NOT reflected in an IQ score?

Answer 15

NOT reflected: person’s social knowledge, mechanical skills, creativity, quantity of knowledge, and motivation. (The complexity of real life situations)
Do reflect: verbal intelligence, math ability, spatial reasoning, visual/perceptual, classification, logical reasoning, pattern recognition skills.

Question 16

How can IQ testing be used appropriately?

Answer 16

Can help determine learning ability and strengths and weaknesses in academic progress. IQ score will indicate overall learning ability (avg, above avg, or below avg), and used to see correlations in academic progress. Maybe doing expected, better than expected, or under achieving based on each child’s individual unique cognitive profile.

Question 17

How can IQ testing be used inappropriately?

Answer 17

if proper test is not paired with proper age. Giving a verbal IQ test to nonverbal child (autism), environment factors and ability of tester may influence results. Key is age pairing of test for child.

Question 18

What are the believed impacts of gender on IQ?

Answer 18

Controversial: men used to have slightly higher IQ while more recent studies show women have slight advantage. Differences are due to men and women having different strengths.

Question 19

How can environment (both + and -) impact IQ?

Answer 19

Nutrition, nourishment, attention and nurturing from care giver. (lack of this may have negative cognitive and physical consequences of dev.) If child in a non stimulating environment, lack of motivation to learn. With Lack of exploring environment and making social interactions, mental functioning may suffer. With motivational competition from family and friends IQ may pick up. If surrounded by people that do not prioritize in education, IQ potential will not be reached. Socioeconomic status and resources- schools, tutors, ability to attend college is a factor in IQ score.

Question 20

Summarize the Skeels and Dye study (1939). What are its implications for child development?

Answer 20

Orphan children placed in hands of “feeble minded women” showed increased development and IQ score than staying orphans proving how small changes in external environment and social/family support can have a positive effect on child development.

Question 21

How does IQ change as we age?

Answer 21

Depending on factors: poverty, nutrition, stress, aging, life and school experiences impact IQ score. Low socioeconomic levels adopted to middle class family increases IQ score by 15-20 points. 
Aging- decreases in late 20s. becomes more difficult to process info and respond adequately and efficiently. Increased decline in memory and cognitive speed after 60.

Question 22

Describe the Seattle Longitudinal Study.

Answer 22

SLS: studied various aspects of psychological development during adult years of life. (1956)- one of most extensive psychological research studies on adult development. Reassessed every 7 years around 5 questions. : 1) does intelligence change uniformly throughout adulthood (or are there different life-course- ability patterns)? 2)At what age and magnitude can decrement in ability be reliably detected? 3) what are the patterns and magnitude of generalized differences? 4) What accounts for individual differences in age related change in adulthood? 5) Can the intellectual decline that increases with age be reversed by educational intervention?
Study has found no uniform pattern of age-related change across all intellectual abilities.
Some support: primarily genetically determined abilities tend to decline earlier than abilities primarily acquired through schooling or experience. (may have gender differences).
Cognitive training studies suggested observed decline in community-dwelling older adults is probably a function of disuse and often reversible. A Cognitive study showed 2/3rds participants had significant improvement and 40% returned to previous level of functioning for 7 years.