Module 3

Question 1

Who is broadly considered the father of cognitive developmental psychology?

Answer 1

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) - a Swiss psychologist.

Question 2

Piaget was a constructivist - what does this mean?

Answer 2

He posited that children construct their own knowledge based on experiences. He saw children as “little scientists” who generate hypotheses, perform experiments, and draw conclusions about the world around them. In his view, children are intrinsically motivated to learn – they learn best on their own, and do not need rewards from others to do so.

Question 3

Piaget was one of the first to identify that children think in different ways than adults. He concluded that children were not less _______ than adults, they simply think differently.

Answer 3

intelligent

Question 4

Piaget proposed that children have a biological drive to make sense of the world driven by what three continuous processes?

Answer 4

1) Adaption - Responding to the environment. Consists of two subprocesses: Assimilation: integrating new information into existing concepts.
Accommodation: changing concepts in response to new information

2) Organization - An internal process where children reflect and try to make sense of their experiences

3) Equilibration - Balances assimilation and accommodation: Equilibrium – no discrepancy between experience and understanding (not necessarily correct thinking). Disequilibrium – there is a discrepancy between experience and understanding, which eventually leads to better understanding.

Question 5

Flip to see Piagetian Processes In Action.

Answer 5

1) In the cycle of adaptation and equilibrium, a new experience is first assimilated into an existing concept. Ie: Lily sees her first cow. “Look Mommy, doggies!”

2) If her experience doesn’t fit into the concept, disequilibrium results. Ie: Lily notices that the cow is very large and has features that dogs do not, like udders.

3) She must accommodate (adjust) her concept to return to cognitive equilibrium. Ie: Lily mentally adjusts her “dog” concept and creates a new concept for “cows”.

4) Cognitive equilibrium remains until a new experience challenges the concept again. Ie: Lily sees an elephant…..

Question 6

Piaget landed on the theory that cognition develops through distinctive stages. The distinctions between stages are based on Piaget’s observations of the types of thinking and thinking errors that children of different ages tend to make.

By “stages” he means sequential patterns in thinking that have what 3 characteristics?

Answer 6

1) Qualitatively different – thinking in each stage is different

2) Invariant – stages always happen in the same order and are not skipped

3) Universal – all people progress through these cognitive stages

Question 7

What are the four major stages of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory?

Answer 7

Stage 1: Sensorimotor (ages 0-2 years)

Stage 2: Preoperational (ages 2-7 years)

Stage 3: Concrete Operational (ages 7-12 years)

Stage 4: Formal Operational (ages 12+)

Question 8

Flip to see a description of Stage 1: Sensorimotor (ages 0-2 years) of Piaget’s theory.

Answer 8

Intelligence is expressed through sensory and motor abilities, with no representational thought.

Overall, infants begin as very reflexive, and
through using these reflexes they begin to
learn about the world around them.
Pleasurable reflexes get repeated and
eventually become more intentional. Over the course of infancy, actions become more
exploratory in nature. Piaget really
emphasized the “active child” in this stage!

Infants live largely in the here and now: their intelligence is bound to their immediate perceptions and actions.

Thinking Errors of this Stage:

Object Permanence - Piaget argued that before ~8 months of age, infants lack the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when out of view.

A-Not-B Error - According to Piaget, at ~8-12 months infants are able to have a mental representation of objects that are out of sight and will look for hidden objects. Thus, infants can pass the object permanence task, but fail the A-not-B task. That is, infants will continue to look for a hidden object where it was last found, rather than the new location in which it was hidden.

Question 9

Flip to see a description of Stage 2: Preoperational (ages 2-7 years) of Piaget’s theory.

Answer 9

Children at this stage start to be able to represent experiences through language and symbolic thought; however, they cannot comprehend more complicated mental operations.

Children in this stage remain very egocentric in their thinking. According to Piaget, they perceive the world from only their own point of view and have difficulty taking the perspective of others. (The “3 mountains” task tests this egocentric thinking.)

Children at this stage also tend to focus on only one feature of an object, which leads them to ignore other features. This thinking error is known as centration. (Piaget’s famous conservation task tests the centration thinking error. Children in this stage fail this task because of centration – they focus on the end points of the objects, not the transformations.)

Question 10

Flip to see a description of Stage 3: Concrete Operational (ages 7-12 years) of Piaget’s theory.

Answer 10

At this stage, Piaget argued that children can reason logically, but cannot think abstractly. They would have a hard to time thinking about abstract ideas like justice.

The thinking skills that now allow our concrete operational child to pass the centration task:

1) Decentration: ability to focus on more than one feature at a time (e.g., the ball of clay is longer, but also thinner)

2) Reversibility: being able to logically reverse operations (e.g., the water in the tall cup was the same as the water in the short cup)

Question 11

Flip to see a description of Stage 4: Formal Operational (ages 12+) of Piaget’s theory.

Answer 11

Children at this stage are able to think abstractly and about hypothetical situations. They can think about moral, philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that require theoretical and abstract reasoning.

Question 12

What are the main problems with Piaget’s theory?

Answer 12

1) Stage model-children’s thinking not this consistent

2) Piaget underestimated infants’ competence

3) Piaget underestimated influence of environment

4) Accommodation, assimilation, and equilibration not well spelled out as well as type of thinking at each stage

5) Not all cultures reach formal operations stage

Question 13

What are the positive things about Piaget’s theory?

Answer 13

1) Paid attention to incorrect answers and noticed patterns

2) Constructivism had quite an influence

3) Confusion necessary to understand

4) Do move from more to less egocentric

5) Do become more symbolic and logical

6) Vast amounts of research

Question 14

Information-processing theories encompass theories that focus on ________ and ___________.

Answer 14

cognitive systems, processes.

(In other words, they are concerned with the specific ways that people think about or “process” information. A good way to conceptualize information-processing theories is by thinking about cognitive development like a computer. Like computers, our brains encode information, store it, manipulate it, and retrieve it at a later date.)

Question 15

Information-processing theories posit that children’s thinking is limited by their “hardware” and “software”. What do these hardware and software metaphors represent?

Answer 15

The “hardware” is our memory and processing speed, which all children have.

The “software” is the availability of useful strategies and knowledge.

(So, the idea here is that even though a child might have memory and processing speed abilities, they may not be able to solve a problem if they do not have the necessary background knowledge or skills.)

Question 16

What 3 things do information-processing theories focus on?

Answer 16

1) The structure of cognitive systems (e.g., memory systems)

2) Mental activities (e.g., attending, categorizing, problem solving, planning)

3) How changes in thinking occur

Question 17

What are some key components of Information-Processing Theories?

Answer 17

1) Cognitive development is continuous - Basic learning and memory capabilities are present from birth and increase continuously over development

2) Active Child - Children are active problem solvers,
contributing to their own cognitive development (but not emphasized as much as Piaget)

3) Thinking is a Process that occurs over time - Simple behaviours like asking a question actually reflect a longer sequence of mental processes leg., remembering information relevant to the
question).

Question 18

_______ is a critical component of cognitive development and is especially salient within information-processing theories.

Answer 18

Memory

Question 19

What are the 3 main cognitive capabilities that contribute to memory development according to information-processing theories?

Answer 19

1) Changes in basic processes

2) Changes in strategies, and

3) Changes in content knowledge

Question 20

Basic processes are our simplest and most frequently used mental activities. Flip to see what they include.

Answer 20

Associating events with one another (e.g., associate burning sensation on tongue with hot drink)

Recognizing objects as familiar (e.g., furry creature in my yard – must be the dog from next door)

Recalling facts and procedures (e.g., steps to do laundry)

Generalizing from one instance to another (e.g., Mom calls every Sunday night, so if the phone rings I can guess it’s probably her)

Encoding - registering information that we’ve attended to or deemed to be important (e.g., when learning to ski, one person might focus on what the instructor is doing with their legs and skis, while the other focuses more on the poles and how to hold their upper body)

Question 21

Developmental differences in encoding are most famously demonstrated using the balance scale task. How does this task demonstrate encoding?

Answer 21

Young children encode only the information about the weights, and do not encode information about the fulcrum. If information is not encoded, it is not used for problem solving.

Question 22

As children gain more knowledge about stuff, the easier it is for them to remember and learn things about new stuff. How does prior knowledge have this effect?

Answer 22

1) Prior knowledge improves encoding (Ie: experts can arrange and move chess pieces quicker than novices, as they tend to encode chunks of information rather than individual pieces.)

2) Prior knowledge provides useful associations (Ie: you could guess whether a certain dinosaur is a herbivore or a carnivore, because the type of teeth they have is associated with their diet.)

3) Prior knowledge provides guidelines for what is (and is not) possible/likely (Ie: if you have knowledge about baking in general, this can give you a guideline for the first time you make bread.)

Question 23

Which behaviour is considered a basic process by information-processing theorists?

a) Selective attention

b) Encoding

c) Rehearsal

d) Content Knowledge

Answer 23

b) Encoding

Question 24

What does the memory task used by DeMarie-Dreblow and Miller (1988) show about memory development?

a) In general, memory is stronger for items that we selectively attend to

b) With development, children increase their use of strategies like selective attention to help their memory.

c) 4-year-olds remembered items from both categories, indicating that they did not employ the strategy of selective attention.

d) All of the above are true

Answer 24

d) All of the above are true

Question 25

Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory truly focuses on the importance of social interactions for cognitive development.

Unlike many other theories of cognitive development, he also considers the role of ______ and _______ in cognitive development.

Answer 25

culture, language

Question 26

What are the 5 key concepts of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory?

Answer 26

1) Social Interactions are Important for Learning - Vygotsky emphasized the idea that cognitive development is shaped by the social context. He was a strong proponent of the role of the environment. More specifically, he argued that social interactions create children’s cognitive structures and thinking processes. Language is an excellent example of this concept.

2) Role of Culture in Learning - Vygotsky emphasized the widespread influence that one’s culture has on cognitive development. Culture provides the context in which knowledge, skills, values, traditions, physical tools (e.g., scissors, pens, computers), and cognitive tools (e.g., language systems, number systems) develop.

3) Role of Language in Learning - Relatedly, Vygotsky also emphasized the role of language in learning. Language is an important tool that facilitates interactions with others and is the medium through which we receive cultural information. He viewed language as one of the primary tools by which children interact with others and their culture.

4) Internalization of Speech - Vygotsky considered the role not only of spoken language, but also the role of internalized speech. As adults, our thoughts most often consist of words. According to Vygotsky, children start out using private speech – speech spoken aloud to oneself. Private speech is neither intended for nor directed at others, but rather is used to provide self-guidance and self-direction. Sometime between the ages of 4-6 years old, children make the switch to inner speech.

5) Zone of Proximal Development - It is the range of tasks that a child can perform with assistance from others, but cannot yet perform independently. Vygotsky argued that the ZPD is the ideal place for learning to occur. The support that a child receives in order to learn while in the ZPD is known as scaffolding . Scaffolding can be direct (divide into smaller tasks, added structure, physical tools, feedback, questions about the task) or indirect (creating an environment that supports learning (within a classroom, in swimming lessons, etc.).

Question 27

_________________ is Vygotsky’s most famous contribution to cognitive development.

Answer 27

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Question 28

The zone of proximal development refers to:

a) The shared understanding of participants in an activity

b) When a child plays with someone who is more skilled than they are

c) The teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learner’s needs

d) The difference between what a child can do with assistance and what they can do alone

Answer 28

d) The difference between what a child can do with assistance and what they can do alone

Question 29

Compared to other theories of cognitive development, Vygotsky places the greatest emphasis on:

a) Cognitions

b) Thinking errors

c) Social interactions

d) The active child

Answer 29

c) Social interactions

Question 30

Dynamic systems theories focus on how change occurs over time in _________ systems.

Answer 30

complex

(While not as clearly delineated as some of the other theories we covered in this module, the dynamic systems approach considers the complex interactions both within the child and their environment that might influence cognitive development.)

Question 31

Dynamic systems theories posit that development is __________ – that is, we take two steps forward and one step back when learning something new.

Answer 31

non-linear

(For example, they consider basic actions like crawling, walking, and reaching to examine the advances and regressions in these actions that develop over time.)

Question 32

One of the most well-studied applications of dynamic systems theory is the investigation of the “case of the disappearing reflex”. What is this phenomenon?

Answer 32

All newborns are born with a stepping reflex – if you hold them up, they will automatically start lifting their legs up and down, as if they were walking. However, this reflex disappears at approximately 2 months of age.

Question 33

What are some conclusions from Dr.Adolph’s research regarding Dynamic Systems Approaches to Motor Skills?

Answer 33

Each new motor skill of the child and affordance of the environment has to be learned through experience

Information about the affordances of the environment are not transferable across motor skills.

Relevant to the dynamic systems theorists ideas of ‘soft assembly’ and ‘attractor states’.

Question 34

According to dynamic-systems theories, which aspect is a constant across the process of development?

a) Learning through scaffolding

b) Memory capacity

c) Change

d) Encoding

Answer 34

c) Change

Question 35

As shown in the module 3 video, what does Dr. Karen Adolph’s research tell us about how motor skills develop during infancy?

a) Infant motor development is primarily the result of genetic predispositions for upright movement.

b) Infants have an innate perceptual experience of how their body moves through the environment.

c) Through experience, infants need to learn each new motor skill and how to use them in different environments.

d) Infants can generalize their experiences from sitting, to crawling, to walking.

Answer 35

c) Through experience, infants need to learn each new motor skill and how to use them in different environments.

Question 36

Why are theories of childhood development important?

Answer 36

They provide us with a systematic way of understanding events and behaviours and provide a framework for generating novel research questions.

However, no theory is perfect and they each have strengths and limitations.

Additionally, theories of cognitive development have big implications for areas like education. For example, if children think in qualitatively different ways across development, this has major implications for educational design, classroom design, and teachers.

Question 37

Flip to see a summary of Piaget’s theory.

Answer 37

The theory of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, which posits that cognitive development involves a sequence of four stages—the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages—that are constructed through the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

Question 38

Piaget’s theory remains the best-known cognitive developmental theory. What accounts for its longevity?

Answer 38

1) Piaget’s observations and descriptions vividly convey the texture of children’s thinking at different ages. They remind parents, teachers, nurses, and child-care employees of their own experiences with children of different ages.

2) The exceptional breadth of the theory. It extends from infancy through adolescence and examines topics as diverse as conceptualization of time, space, distance, and number; language use; memory; understanding of other people’s perspectives; problem solving; and scientific reasoning.

3) It offers an intuitively plausible depiction of the interaction of nature and nurture in cognitive development, as well as of the continuities and discontinuities that characterize intellectual growth.

Question 39

Piaget’s fundamental assumption about children was that they are mentally active from the moment of birth and that their mental and physical activity both contribute greatly to their development. His approach to understanding cognitive development is often labelled ____________, because it depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences.

Answer 39

constructivist

Question 40

According to Piaget, what are three of the most important of children’s constructive processes?

Answer 40

1) Generating hypotheses

2) Performing experiments

3) Drawing conclusions from their observations.

Question 41

What is the dominant metaphor in Piaget’s theory?

Answer 41

The “child as scientist”.

Question 42

What are 3 of Piaget’s fundamental assumptions about children?

Answer 42

1) They are mentally active from the moment of birth and that their mental and physical activity both contribute greatly to their development.

2) Children learn many important lessons on their own, rather than depending on instruction from others.

3) Children are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from other people to do so.

Question 43

True or False?

Piaget believed that nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development.

Answer 43

True.

In his view, nurture includes not just the nurturing provided by parents and other caregivers but every experience children encounter. Nature includes children’s maturing brain and body; their ability to perceive, act, and learn from experience; and their tendency to integrate particular observations into coherent knowledge.

Question 44

True or False?

Piaget depicted development as involving both continuities and discontinuities. .

Answer 44

True.

The main sources of continuity are three processes —assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration—that work together from birth to propel development forward

Question 45

What is assimilation?

Answer 45

The process by which people translate incoming information into a form that fits concepts they already understand.

Question 46

What is accommodation?

Answer 46

The process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences.

Question 47

What is equilibration?

Answer 47

The process by which children (or other people) balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding.

(Includes three phases. First, people are satisfied with their understanding of a particular phenomenon; Piaget labelled this a state of equilibrium, because people do not see any discrepancies between their observations and their understanding of the phenomenon. Then, new information leads them to perceive that their understanding is inadequate. Piaget said that this realization puts people in a state of disequilibrium; they recognize shortcomings in their understanding of the phenomenon, but they cannot generate a superior alternative. Put more simply, they are confused. Finally, they develop a more sophisticated understanding that eliminates at least some of the shortcomings of the old one, creating a more advanced equilibrium within which a broader range of observations can be understood.

Question 48

Although Piaget placed some emphasis on continuous aspects of cognitive development, the most famous part of his theory concerns discontinuous aspects, which he depicted as distinct stages of cognitive development. Piaget viewed these stages as products of the basic human tendency to organize knowledge into coherent structures. Each stage represents a unified way of understanding one’s experience, and each transition between stages represents a discontinuous intellectual leap from one coherent way of understanding the world to the next, higher one. What are the central properties of Piaget’s stage theory?

Answer 48

1) Qualitative change - children of different ages think in qualitatively different ways. For example, children in the early stages of cognitive development conceive of morality in terms of the consequences of behaviour, whereas children in later stages conceive of it in terms of intent. Thus, a 5-year-old would judge someone who accidentally broke a whole jar of cookies as having been naughtier than someone who deliberately stole a single cookie; an 8-year-old would reach the opposite conclusion. This difference represents a qualitative change because the two children are basing their moral judgments on entirely different criteria.

2) Broad applicability - the type of thinking characteristic of each stage influences children’s thinking across diverse topics and contexts.

3) Brief transitions - Before entering a new stage, children pass through a brief transitional period in which they fluctuate between the type of thinking characteristic of the new, more advanced stage and the type of thinking characteristic of the old, less advanced one.

4) Invariant sequence - Everyone progresses through the stages in the same order without skipping any of them.

Question 49

Many of the clearest examples of the active child
theme come from Piaget’s descriptions of the development of what he called ______________.

Answer 49

“sensorimotor intelligence.”

(Over the course of their first 2 years, infants’ sensorimotor intelligence develops tremendously. The sheer amount of change may at first seem astonishing. However, when we consider the innumerable new experiences that infants encounter during this period, and the tripling of brain weight between birth and age 3 (with weight being an index of brain development), the huge increase in infants’ cognitive abilities is understandable.)

Question 50

What is deferred imitation? And what age/stage does this occur according to Piaget?

Answer 50

The repetition of other people’s behaviour a substantial time after it originally occurred.

In the last half-year of the sensorimotor stage (ages 18 to 24 months).

Question 51

What is symbolic representation?

Answer 51

the use of one object to stand for another

(Common among 3-5 year olds. Ie: two sticks to represent a gun or use a playing card to represent an iPhone)

Question 52

What is egocentrism?

Answer 52

The tendency to perceive the world solely from one’s own point of view.

Question 53

What is centration?

Answer 53

The tendency to focus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event.

Question 54

What is the conservation concept?

Answer 54

The idea that merely changing the appearance of objects does not necessarily change the objects’ other key properties.

Question 55

True or False?

Piaget believed that unlike the previous three stages, the formal operational stage is not universal: not all adolescents (or adults) reach it.

Answer 55

True.

Question 56

What are some crucial weaknesses in Piaget’s theory?

Answer 56

1) It’s vague about the mechanisms that give rise to children’s thinking and that produce cognitive growth.

2) Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized.

3) Piaget’s theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development.

4) The stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is.

Question 57

What are information-processing theories?

Answer 57

A class of theories that focus on the structure of the cognitive system and the mental activities used to deploy attention and memory to solve problems.

Question 58

What is task analysis?

Answer 58

The research technique of specifying the goals, obstacles to their realization, and potential solution strategies involved in problem solving.

Question 59

What is a computer simulation?

Answer 59

A type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways.

Question 60

What are 2 notable characteristics of information-processing theories?

Answer 60

1) The precise specification of the surprisingly complex processes involved in children’s thinking.

2) An emphasis on thinking as a process that occurs over time.

Question 61

Information-processing theorists see cognitive development as occurring ___________, in small increments that happen at different ages on different tasks.

Answer 61

continuously

(This depiction differs fundamentally from Piaget’s belief that children progress through qualitatively distinct, broadly applicable stages at similar ages.)

Question 62

In the information-processing view, cognitive development arises from children gradually surmounting their processing limitations, in particular their limited working memory capacity, processing speed, and knowledge of useful strategies and content. Through learning and maturation of brain structures, children expand the amounts of information they can process at one time, process information faster, and acquire new strategies and knowledge. Together, these changes yield improvement in problem solving, memory, and other cognitive functions.

Question 63

Also central to the view of human nature held by information- processing theories is the assumption that children are active ___________.

Answer 63

problem solvers.

Question 64

Define problem solving

Answer 64

the process of attaining a goal by using a strategy to overcome an obstacle.

Question 65

One distinctive characteristic of information-processing theories is their emphasis on _____________ of change mechanisms.

Answer 65

precise descriptions

(the way in which information-processing theories address how change occurs can be seen particularly clearly in their accounts of the development of memory and problem solving.)

Question 66

Information-processing theories distinguish among what three types of memory processes?

Answer 66

1) working memory

2) long-term memory

3) executive functioning.

Question 67

Define working memory.

Answer 67

Memory system that involves actively attending to, maintaining, and processing information.

(Ie: if a child was asked to read a story about birds and told that they would be asked questions about the story afterward, the child would use working memory processes to attend to and maintain information from the story, draw inferences from that information, retrieve relevant prior knowledge, and combine the information to construct a reasonable answer.)

Question 68

Define long-term memory.

Answer 68

Information retained on an enduring basis.

It includes factual knowledge (e.g., knowing the capitals of different countries or the team that won the Stanley Cup last year), conceptual knowledge (e.g., the concepts of justice and equality), procedural knowledge (e.g., knowing how to shoot a hockey puck or play a specific video game), attitudes (e.g., likes and dislikes regarding politicians or foods), and so on.

Question 69

What is the difference between long-term memory and working memory?

Answer 69

Long-term memory is the totality of one’s knowledge, whereas working memory is the subset of that knowledge attended to at a given time.

Question 70

Describe executive functioning.

Answer 70

Executive functions control behaviour and thought processes. The prefrontal cortex plays a particularly important role in this cognitive control. Three key executive functions are:

1) inhibition - as when resisting the temptation to play with one’s phone when an important test looms;

2) enhancement of working memory - through use of strategies, such as selectively attending to the most important information; and

3) cognitive flexibility - such as imagining someone else’s perspective in an argument despite that perspective differing from one’s own.

Question 71

Define basic processes.

Answer 71

The simplest and most frequently used mental activities.

(They include associating events with one another, recognizing objects as familiar, recalling facts and procedures, and generalizing from one instance to another.)

Question 72

Another basic process, which is key to all the others, is __________ —the representation in memory of specific features of objects and events

Answer 72

encoding

Question 73

What are two biological processes that contribute to faster speed of processing?

Answer 73

1) Myelination

2) Increased connectivity among brain regions

(Increasing numbers of axons become covered with myelin, the insulating substance that promotes faster and more reliable transmission of electrical impulses in the brain. Greater connectivity among brain regions also increases processing speed by allowing more direct transmission of information across brain areas.)

Question 74

What is rehearsal?

Answer 74

The process of repeating information multiple times to aid memory of it.

Question 75

What is selective attention?

Answer 75

The process of intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal.

Question 76

True or False?

When children and adults are provided new information about children’s TV programs and books, the children generally remember more of the new information than do the adults.

Answer 76

True.

With age and experience, children’s knowledge about almost everything increases. This increased knowledge improves recall of new material by making it easier to integrate the new material with existing understanding. The importance of content knowledge to memory is illustrated by the fact that when children know more than adults about a topic, they often remember more new information about the topic than adults do.

Question 77

What is the overlapping waves theory?

Answer 77

an information-processing approach that emphasizes the variability of children’s thinking.

(The theory also specifies several ways in which problem solving improves over the course of development. Children discover new strategies that are more effective than their previous ones, they learn to execute all strategies more efficiently, and they choose strategies that are more appropriate to the particular problem and solution.)

Question 78

How does the overlapping waves theory differ from Piaget’s theory?

Answer 78

Piaget’s theory depicted children of a given age as using a particular strategy to solve a particular class of problems. For example, he described 5-year-olds as solving conservation-of-number problems by choosing the longer row of objects, and 7-year-olds as solving the same problems by reasoning that if nothing was added or subtracted, the number of objects must remain the same.

According to overlapping waves theory, however, individual children usually use a variety of approaches to solve such problems. For instance, examining 5-year-olds’ reasoning on repeated trials of the conservation-of-number problem reveals that most children use at least three different strategies. The same child who on one trial incorrectly reasons that the longer row must have more objects will on other trials correctly reason that spreading a row does not change the number of objects; on yet other trials, the child will count the number of objects in the two rows to see which has more.

Question 79

According to information-processing analyses, why is planning difficult for young children?

Answer 79

1) It requires inhibiting the desire to solve the problem immediately in favour of first trying to choose the best strategy. (Starting to work on an assigned paper without planning what will be written in the paper is one familiar example.)

2) They tend to be overly optimistic about their abilities and believe they can solve problems without planning. Such overoptimism sometimes leads them to act rashly. (Ie: More physical accidents because they don’t plan for potential dangers.)

Question 80

What are core-knowledge theories?

Answer 80

Approaches that view children as having some innate knowledge in domains of special evolutionary importance and domain-specific learning mechanisms for rapidly and effortlessly acquiring additional information in those domains.

Question 80

Studies of deception illustrate what two characteristic features of research inspired by core-knowledge theories?

Answer 80

1) This research focuses on types of knowledge that have been important throughout human evolution, not only understanding and manipulating other people’s thinking to achieve one’s goals, but also recognizing people’s faces, finding one’s way through space, understanding causes and effects, and learning language.

2) The assumption that in certain areas of probable importance in human evolution, infants and young children think in ways that are considerably more advanced than Piaget suggested were possible. If preschoolers were completely egocentric, they would assume that other people’s knowledge is the same as their own; there would be no point in lying because the other person would know the lies are false. However, preschoolers’ attempts to deceive indicate that they have non-egocentric understandings of other people’s minds.

Question 81

Core-knowledge theories depict children as active learners. For example, research from the core-knowledge perspective shows that 3-year-olds understand deception much better when they are actively involved in perpetrating the deceit than when they merely witness the same deception being perpetrated by others. In this respect, the core- knowledge perspective on children’s nature resembles that of Piagetian and information-processing theories.

However, how do core-knowledge theories differ dramatically from Piagetian and information-processing theories?

Answer 81

In their view of children’s innate capabilities.

Piagetian and information-processing theorists propose that children enter the world equipped with only general learning abilities that allow them to gradually increase their understanding of all types of content.

By contrast, core-knowledge theorists view children as entering the world equipped not only with general learning abilities but also with specialized learning mechanisms, or mental structures, that allow them to quickly and effortlessly acquire information of evolutionary importance.

Question 82

Where the central metaphors within Piagetian and information-processing theories are, respectively, the child as scientist and the child as general-purpose problem solver, the central metaphor in the core-knowledge approach is _______________________.

Answer 82

the child as well-adapted product of evolution.

Question 83

The basic understandings proposed by core-knowledge theorists are assumed to be domain specific, that is, limited to a particular area. Domain-specific understandings in these areas allow children to:

Answer 83

distinguish between living and nonliving things;

to anticipate that inanimate objects they encounter for the first time will remain stationary unless an external force is applied to them;

to anticipate that animals they encounter for the first time might well move on their own; and

to learn especially quickly in these and other areas of evolutionary importance.

Question 84

Although core-knowledge theorists are united in believing that development reflects the operation of domain-specific as well as general learning mechanisms, they disagree regarding how much knowledge is inborn.

Researchers who emphasize innate knowledge are labelled _________; those who emphasize the generation of increasingly sophisticated domain-specific theories on top of the innate foundation are labelled __________.

Answer 84

nativists

constructivists.

Question 85

Elizabeth Spelke proposed the most prominent nativist theory, which she labelled “core-knowledge theory”. She hypothesized that infants begin life with what 4 core-knowledge systems?

Answer 85

1) One system represents inanimate objects and their mechanical interactions;

2) a second system represents the minds of people and other animals capable of goal-directed actions;

3) a third system represents numbers, such as numbers of objects and events; and

4) a fourth system represents spatial layouts and geometric relations.

Question 86

Define nativism.

Answer 86

The theory that infants have substantial innate knowledge of evolutionarily important domains.

Question 87

As the term is used by core-knowledge theorists, constructivism blends elements of nativism, Piagetian theory, and information- processing theories. Like nativists, but unlike Piagetian and information-processing theorists, core-knowledge constructivists theorize that infants possess specialized learning abilities that allow them to quickly and effortlessly begin to understand domains of special evolutionary importance. However, unlike nativists, core- knowledge constructivists also emphasize that infants’ initial knowledge in these domains is rudimentary and that construction of more advanced knowledge reflects specific learning experiences within the domain, such as observing the types of deceptions that go undetected.

Question 88

Define constructivism.

Answer 88

The theory that infants build increasingly advanced understanding by combining rudimentary innate knowledge with subsequent experiences.

Question 89

Several core-knowledge constructivists have proposed that young children actively organize their understanding of the most important domains into informal theories. They hypothesize that children form naive theories of physics (knowledge of objects), psychology (knowledge of people), and biology (knowledge of plants and animals). Though much simpler, these theories share what 3 important characteristics with formal scientific theories?

Answer 89

1) They identify fundamental units for dividing relevant objects and events into a few basic categories. (infants and young children divide all objects into three categories: people, other animals, and nonliving things.)

2) They explain many phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles. (preschoolers understand broadly applicable biological principles, such as that a desire for food and water underlies many behaviours of animals.)

3) They explain events in terms of unobservable causes. (preschoolers know that vital activities of animals, such as reproduction and movement, are caused by internal processes, rather than the external forces that determine the motions of inanimate objects.)

Question 90

What are sociocultural theories?

Answer 90

Approaches that emphasize that other people and the surrounding culture contribute greatly to children’s development.

Question 91

Whereas Piagetian, information-processing, and core-knowledge theories emphasize children’s own efforts to understand the world, sociocultural theories emphasize the importance of children’s ____________.

Answer 91

interactions with others.

Question 92

What is guided participation?

Answer 92

A process in which more knowledgeable individuals organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to learn.

Question 93

What is social scaffolding?

Answer 93

A process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own.

Question 94

True or False?

The higher the quality of the scaffolding—that is, the more that it focuses at, but not beyond, the upper end of the child’s capabilities— the greater that child’s learning tends to be.

Answer 94

True.

Question 95

What are cultural tools?

Answer 95

The innumerable products of human ingenuity that enhance thinking.

Question 96

Whereas Piaget emphasized abrupt qualitative changes in children’s thinking, Vygotsky emphasized gradual continuous changes. These Vygotskian views gave rise to the central metaphor of sociocultural theories: ________________.

Answer 96

children as social learners. (Who gradually become full participants in their culture through interactions with other people and with the broader social environment of institutions, skills, attitudes, and values.)

Question 97

What is private speech?

Answer 97

The second phase of Vygotsky’s internalization-of-thought process, in which children develop self-regulation and problem-solving abilities by telling themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents did in the first stage.

Question 98

To illustrate the process of internalizing speech, Vygotsky described three phases in the growth of children’s ability to regulate their own behaviour. What are the 3 phases?

Answer 98

1) At first, children’s behaviour is controlled by other people’s statements (Now you need another one like this on the other side.”)

2) Then, children’s behaviour is controlled by their own private speech, in which they tell themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents might have done earlier.

3) Finally, their behaviour is controlled by internalized private speech (thought), in which they silently tell themselves what to do.

Question 99

Sociocultural theorists believe that many of the processes that produce development, such as guided participation, are the same in all societies. However, the _______ that children learn vary greatly from culture to culture and shape thinking accordingly.

Answer 99

content

(Ie: the particular symbol systems, artifacts, skills, and values)

Question 100

What is intersubjectivity?

Answer 100

The mutual understanding that people share during communication.

Question 101

What is joint attention?

Answer 101

A process in which social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment.

Question 102

What are dynamic-systems theories?

Answer 102

A class of theories that focus on how change occurs over time in complex systems.

Question 103

What does “dynamic” mean in dynamic-systems theories?

Answer 103

In this context, it means “continuously changing”. Dynamic-systems theories depict development as a process of constant change.

Question 104

Where Piaget hypothesized that development entails long periods of relatively stable stages separated by relatively brief transition periods, dynamic-systems theories propose that at all points in development, thought and action ________ from moment to moment in response to the current situation, the child’s immediate past history, and the child’s longer-term history in similar situations.

Answer 104

change

Question 105

What does “systems” refer to in dynamic-systems theories?

Answer 105

It depicts each child as a well-integrated system, in which many subsystems—perception, action, attention, memory, language, and social interaction—work together to determine behaviour.

(For example, dynamic-systems theorists argue that success on tasks viewed as measures of conceptual understanding, such as object permanence, is influenced by perception, attention, motor skills, and a host of other factors.)

Question 106

How are dynamic-systems theories similar to the other childhood developmental theories?

Answer 106

1) Like Piaget’s theory, dynamic-systems theories emphasize children’s innate motivation to explore the environment;

2) Like information-processing theories, they emphasize precise analyses of problem-solving activity;

3) Like core-knowledge theories, they focus on infants’ and toddlers’ surprising early competence; and

4) Like sociocultural theories, they emphasize the formative influence of other people.

These similarities to other theories, as well as some notable differences from them, are evident in dynamic-systems theories’ emphasis on motivation and action.

Question 107

To a greater extent than any of the other theories except Piaget’s, ____________ theories emphasize that from infancy onward, children are internally motivated to learn about the world around them and to explore and expand their own capabilities.

Answer 107

dynamic-systems

(This motivation to explore and learn is apparent in the fact that children persist in practicing new skills even when they possess well-practiced skills that are more efficient. Thus, 1-year-olds try to walk down ramps, despite the fact that crawling would get them down more quickly and without the risk of falling)

Question 108

Dynamic-systems theories are unique in their pervasive emphasis on how children’s ______ shape their development.

Answer 108

actions

(Piaget’s theory asserts the role of actions during infancy, but dynamic-systems theories emphasize that actions contribute to development throughout life.)

Question 109

Two developmental issues that are especially prominent in dynamic- systems theories are how the cognitive system organizes itself and how it changes. These issues exemplify our themes of ___________ and ____________.

Answer 109

the active child

mechanisms of change.

Question 110

Dynamic-systems theories view development as a process of self- organization that involves integrating attention, memory, emotions, and actions as needed to adapt to a continuously changing environment. The organizational process is sometimes called _______________ because the components and their organization change from moment to moment and situation to situation, rather than being governed by rigid stages or rules that are consistently applied across time and situations.

Answer 110

soft assembly

Question 111

Dynamic-systems theories posit that changes occur through mechanisms of variation and selection that are analogous to those that produce biological evolution. In this context, what does variation and selection refer to?

Answer 111

Variation = The use of different behaviours to pursue the same goal. (For example, to descend a ramp, a 1-year-old will sometimes walk; sometimes crawl; sometimes do a belly slide; sometimes do a sitting, feet-first slide; and so on)

Selection = Involves increasingly frequent choice of behaviours that are effective in meeting goals and decreasing use of less effective behaviours. (For instance, when children first learn to walk, they often are too optimistic about being able to walk down ramps and frequently fall; but after a few months of walking experience, they more accurately judge the steepness of ramps and whether they can walk down them, leading the infants to use another descent strategy if the ramp is too steep.)

Question 112

Children’s selection among alternative approaches reflects several influences. Name 3 of these influences.

Answer 112

1) Relative success - of each approach in
meeting a particular goal: as children gain experience, they increasingly rely on approaches that produce desired outcomes.

2) Efficiency: children increasingly choose approaches that meet goals more quickly or with less effort than do other approaches.

3) Novelty, the lure of trying something new. Children sometimes choose new approaches that are no more efficient, or even less efficient, than an established alternative but that have the potential to become more efficient.