Exam 2 Flashcards
Assimilation
occurs when children incorporate new information into their existing knowledge schemas.
Schemes
are actions or mental representations that organize knowledge. change with age
Accommodation
occurs when children adjust their schemas to fit new information and experiences.
Piaget’s Concept of Organization
isolated behaviors and thoughts are grouped into a higher order system.
Equilibration
mechanism by which children shift from one stage of thought to the next. It occurs as children seek to resolve cognitive conflict, or disequilibrium.
sensorimotor stage
birth-2 years. many stages
simple reflexes substage
0–1 month. involves coordinating sensation and action through reflexive behaviors (rooting and sucking).
Primary circular reactions
1–4 months. is a scheme based on the infant’s attempt to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance.
secondary circular reactions
4–8 months. involves the infant becoming more object-oriented or focused on the world, moving beyond preoccupation with the self in sensorimotor interactions.
coordination of secondary circular reactions
8–12 months. includes several significant changes that involve the coordination of schemes and intentionality.
tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity substage
12–18 months. the infant becomes intrigued by the variety of properties that objects possess and by the many things they can make happen to objects.
internalization of schemes substage
18–24 months. the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols.
Object permanence
involves understanding that objects and events continue to exist, even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched.
Preoperational Stage
encompasses the period from 2 years to 7 years of age. Stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges, and egocentrism and magical beliefs dominate the child’s world. The term preoperational emphasizes that a child is not able to think in an operational way.
Operations
are reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what they previously could do only physically.
symbolic function substage
first substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. In this substage, the young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present.
Egocentrism
the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective.
Animism
is the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action.
Intuitive Thought Substage
occurs between approximately 4 and 7 years of age. Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions.
Centration
involves focusing or centering attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others.
conservation
which is the awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties.
concrete operational stage
lasts from approximately 7 to 11 years of age, children can perform concrete operations, and they can reason logically as long as reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples.
Horizontal décalage
Piaget’s concept that similar abilities do not appear at the same time within a stage of development.
Classification
One important skill that characterizes children in the concrete operational stage is the ability to classify things and to consider their relationships.
seriation
the ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension)
transitivity
the ability to logically combine relations to reach certain conclusions
formal operational stage
individuals between 11 years and 15 years old move beyond concrete experiences and think in abstract and more logical ways.
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
the formal operational concept that adolescents have the cognitive ability to develop hypotheses, or best guesses, about ways to solve problems, such as an algebraic equation. They then systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the equation.
zone of proximal development (ZPD)
Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with the guidance and assistance of adults or more-skilled children.
Scaffolding
refers to the changing level of support that is provided to a child over the course of a teaching session.
private speech
when children use language to guide their behavior; it is an important tool in childhood years.
Teaching Strategies
1.Assess the child’s ZPD.
2.Use the child’s ZPD in teaching.
3.Use more-skilled peers as teachers.
4.Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech.
5.Place instruction in a meaningful context.
6.Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas.
information-processing approach
analyzes how children manipulate information, monitor it, and create strategies for handling it.
Encoding
is the process by which information gets into memory.
Automaticity
refers to the ability to process information with little or no effort.
Strategy construction
is the creation of new procedures for processing information.
metacognition
means knowing about knowing.
Attention
is the focusing of mental resources.
Selective attention
is focusing on a specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant.
Divided attention
involves concentrating on more than one activity at the same time.
Sustained attention
(vigilance) is the ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time.
Executive attention
involves action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection and compensation, monitoring progress on tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.
