Physical & Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Question 1

myelination

Answer 1

nerve cells are covered and insulated with a layer of fat cells, increasing speed and efficiency of information processing

Question 2

preoperational stage

Answer 2

Piaget, stage 2, 2-7 years, represent the world w/words, images, drawings, stable concepts formed, mental reasoning emerges, egocentrism, magical beliefs

Question 3

operations

Answer 3

Piaget, reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what they could before only do physically

Question 4

egocentrism

Answer 4

inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective

Question 5

animism

Answer 5

limitation of preoperational thought, belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action

Question 6

intuitive thought substage

Answer 6

second substage of preoperational thought, children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know answers to all sorts of questions

Question 7

substages of the preoperational stage

Answer 7

1-symbolic function: 2-4, mentally represent an object that is not present, pretend play, egocentricism, animism
2-intuitive thought: 4-7, begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know answers to ?s

Question 8

centration

Answer 8

centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others

Question 9

conservation

Answer 9

awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not alter its basic properties

Question 10

Gelman’s conservation

Answer 10

argued that conservation appears earlier in children than Piaget thought, perhaps attributed to the amount of attention paid to the task

Question 11

Vygotsky’s theory of development

Answer 11

emphasized that children actively construct knowledge and understanding, children are more social creatures who develop through social interaction, zone of proximal development, scaffolding, used in teaching strategies, child’s private speech self-regulates and becomes inner speech

Question 12

zone of proximal development

Answer 12

Vygotsky- range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance, linked to scaffolding

Question 13

social constructivist approach

Answer 13

emphasizes social contexts of learning and that knowledge is mutually constructed, like Vygotsky’s theory

Question 14

executive attention

Answer 14

action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection & compensation, monitoring progress on tasks, dealing with novel or difficult circumstances

Question 15

sustained attention

Answer 15

focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment

Question 16

short-term memory

Answer 16

retaining info for up to 30 seconds if there is no rehearsal

Question 17

strategy

Answer 17

deliberate mental activity to improve information processing

Question 18

theory of mind

Answer 18

awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others

Question 19

child-centered kindergarten

Answer 19

nurturing, emphasizes education of the whole child and concern for his/her physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development

Question 20

Montessori

Answer 20

children given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities

Question 21

developmentally appropriate practice

Answer 21

based on knowledge of age-appropriateness and individual-appropriateness

Question 22

Project Head Start

Answer 22

governmental program for readiness to learn in low-income families