Early Cognitive Development

Question 1

what are piaget’s basic principles of cognitive development?

Answer 1

• children are active scientists
• children make sense of the world through schemes
• children adapt by refining schemes and adding new owhanes

Question 2

what is assimilation?

Answer 2

fitting new experiences into existing schemes. required to benefit from experience. seeing new breed of dog and knowing it’s a dog

Question 3

what is accomodation?

Answer 3

modifying schemes because of new experiences. allows for dealing with completely new data or experiences. seeing a penguin and finding out that all birds don’t fly.

Question 4

age and characteristics of sensorimotor stage?

Answer 4

• 0-2 yrs

- infants knowledge of world is based on senses and motor skills. by the end of the period, uses mental representation

Question 5

age and characteristics of preoportional thought?

Answer 5

• 2-7 yrs
• child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world but related to the world only though his or her perspective

Question 6

age and characteristics of concrete operational thought?

Answer 6

• 7 to early adolescence (11)major gains o

- child understands and applies logical operations to experiences provided they are focused on the here and now

Question 7

age and characteristics of formal operational thought?

Answer 7

• adolescence and beyond(11+)

- adolescent or adult thinks abstractly, deals with hypothetical situations, and speculates about what may be possible

Question 8

major gains of sensorimotor period?

Answer 8

• learns object permanence - object exists even if it’s out of view
• use of symbols

Question 9

major gains of pre operational period?

Answer 9

-imagination flourishes. use of symbolic thinking (language)

Question 10

major gains of concrete operational period?

Answer 10

-children learn to understand basic concepts such as number, classification, and conservation

Question 11

major gains of formal operational period?

Answer 11

ethics, politics, social and moral issues become more involving as the adolescent becomes able to take a broader and more theoretical approach to experience.

Question 12

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Alternate Explanations of Performance?

Answer 12

• mistakes children make in preoperational thought may be due to language development instead of cognitive development
• poor memory may be a better explanation for object performance errors
• some errors may be due to motor skills rather than cognitive development

Question 13

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Consistency in Performance?

Answer 13

• children do not perform consistently in tasks that use same ability
• piaget’s theory suggests that these abilities should affect all aspects of performance
• children can develop some skills at right time, earlier, or later
• cultural differences also present

Question 14

mental hardware?

Answer 14

-neural and mental structures enabling the mind to operate

Question 15

mental software?

Answer 15

-mental programs allowing for performance of specific tasks

Question 16

carey’s conceptual change theory?

Answer 16

• more emphasis on role of experience in cognitive development
• domain specific compared to domain general knowledge
• incremental cognitive development

Question 17

when is full cognitive potential attained according to carey’s theory?

Answer 17

9-8/7 years

Question 18

what is the children’s framework for understanding bodily processes before age 6 or 7?

Answer 18

intuitive psychology

Question 19

according to conceptual change theory, what is causality based on?

Answer 19

intentions, desires, and beliefs rather than internal biological processses

Question 20

according to piagetian research, what is preoperational understanding of death?

Answer 20

• reversible
• characterised by being still
• eyes close
• departing

Question 21

according to piagetian research, what is concrete operational understanding of death?

Answer 21

• universality
• irreversibility
• causes by elements outside the body (guns, germs, accidents)

Question 22

according to piagetian research, what is formal operational understanding of death?

Answer 22

• inevitable
• universal
• causality
• cessation of bodily function

Question 23

socio-cultural and emotional factors affecting subcomponents of death?

Answer 23

• exposure to death (universality)
• Protracted Illness/hospitalisation (irreversibility, biological causation)
• Religiosity (? Less understanding of irreversibility)
• Anxiety (less able to face universality)

Question 24

attention?

Answer 24

when sensory information receives additional cognitive processing

Question 25

orienting response?

Answer 25

emotional and physical reactions to unfamiliar stimulus (alerts infant to new or dangerous stimuli)

Question 26

habituation?

Answer 26

lessened reactions to a stimulus after repeated presentations (helps infant ignore biologically insignificant events)

Question 27

memory?

Answer 27

fundamental cognitive broadly involved in academic, emotional, and social developmental skills

Question 28

aspects of memory?

Answer 28

• encoding
• storage
• retrieval
• accessin memories

Question 29

what is encoding (memory)?

Answer 29

tasking information into memory system

Question 30

what is storage (memory)?

Answer 30

holding of information over time

Question 31

what is retrieval (memory)?

Answer 31

accessing information from storage

Question 32

what does accessing memories involve?

Answer 32

recognition and recall

Question 33

what is recognition?

Answer 33

realisation that some physically present object or event has been encountered or experiences before

Question 34

what is recall?

Answer 34

retrieval of some past object or event when it is not present

Question 35

what are phonemes?

Answer 35

the smallest sounds

Question 36

how early can infants distinguish between sounds?

Answer 36

as early as 1 month

Question 37

language development in 0-1 yrs?

Answer 37

babies hear phonemes, begin to coo and babble

Question 38

language development about 1st birthday?

Answer 38

babies begin to talk and to gesture, showing they have begun to use symbols

Question 39

language development in 1-2 yrs?

Answer 39

• vocab expands rapidly (bc of fast mapping)
• reflective and expressive language learning styles appear
• 2 word sentences emerge in telegraphic speech
• turn taking is evident in communication

Question 40

language development in 3-5 yrs?

Answer 40

• vocab continues to expand
• grammatical morphemes are added
• children begin to adjust speech to listener but, as listeners often ignore problems in message they receive

Question 41

vocab word count at 2 yrs?

Answer 41

few hundred words

Question 42

vocab word count at 6?

Answer 42

10,000 words

Question 43

fast mapping?

Answer 43

• connecting new words to referents so rapidly that all possible meaning for the new word could not have been considered
• e.g. pointing to cat and saying “cat”from the child’s perspective could be referring to its colour, fur or the action of pointing

Question 44

when do 2 and 3 word sentences begin and what are they called?

Answer 44

around 18 months, telegraphic speech e.g. dad come here

Question 45

how do parents assist in learning language?

Answer 45

• speaking to children frequently
• naming objects of children’s attention
• using speech that is more grammatically sophisticated
• reading to them
• encouraging watching educational television programs (after 2 years of age) with an emphasis on learning new words, such as sesame street or play school

Question 46

what is vygotskys sociocultural theory?

Answer 46

-the development of language is critical to the development of complex cognitive processes

Question 47

what is social scaffolding in vygotskys sociocultural theory?

Answer 47

children’s cognitive development is guided typically by parents, teachers and older siblings