Unit 4

Question 1

Schemes

Answer 1

According to Piaget, mental structures that organize information and regulate behavior.

Question 2

Assimilation

Answer 2

According to Piaget, taking in information that is compatible with what one already knows.

Question 3

Accommodation

Answer 3

According to Piaget, changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge.

Question 4

Equilibration

Answer 4

According to Piaget, the process by which children reorganize their schemes to return to a state of equilibrium when disequilibrium occurs.

Question 5

Sensorimotor Period

Answer 5

Infancy (0-2 years). First of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development, which lasts from birth to approximately 2 years.

Question 6

Preoperational Period

Answer 6

Preschool and early elementary school years (2-7 years).

Question 7

Concrete Operational Period

Answer 7

Middle and late elementary school years (7-11 years).

Question 8

Formal Operational Period

Answer 8

Adolescence and adulthood (11 years and up).

Question 9

Object Permanence

Answer 9

Understanding, acquired in infancy, that objects exist independently of oneself.

Question 10

Egocentrism

Answer 10

Difficulty in seeing the world from another’s point of view; typical of children in the preoperational period.

Question 11

What are the characteristic shortcomings in preschoolers’ symbolic skills?

Answer 11

1. Egocentrism
2. Centration
3. Appearance as Reality

Question 12

Animism

Answer 12

Phenomenon of crediting inanimate objects with life and lifelike properties such as feelings.

Question 13

Centration

Answer 13

According to Piaget, narrowly focused type of thought characteristic of preoperational children.

Question 14

Core Knowledge Hypothesis

Answer 14

Infants are born with rudimentary knowledge of the world, which is elaborated based on experiences.

Question 15

Teleological Explanations

Answer 15

Children’s belief that living things, including their parts and their actions, exist for a purpose.

Question 16

Essentialism

Answer 16

Children’s belief that all living things have an essence that can’t be seen but gives a living thing its identity.

Question 17

Mental Hardware

Answer 17

Mental and neural structures that are built in and allow the mind to operate.

Question 18

Mental Software

Answer 18

Mental “programs” that are the basis for performing particular tasks.

Question 19

Attention

Answer 19

Processes that determine which information will be processed further by an individual.

Question 20

Orienting Response

Answer 20

An individual views a strong or unfamiliar stimulus, and changes in heart rate and brain-wave activity occur.

Question 21

Habituation

Answer 21

Act of becoming unresponsive to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly.

Question 22

Classical Conditioning

Answer 22

A form of learning that involves pairing a neutral stimulus and a response originally produced by another stimulus.

Question 23

Operant Conditioning

Answer 23

A form of learning that emphasizes the consequences of reward and punishment.

Question 24

Autobiographical Memory

Answer 24

Memories of the significant events and experiences of one’s own life.

Question 25

One-to-One Principle

Answer 25

Counting principle that states that there must be one and only one number name for each object counted.

Question 26

Stable-Order Principle

Answer 26

Counting principle that states that number names must always be counted in the same order.

Question 27

Cardinality Principle

Answer 27

Counting principle states that the last number name denotes the number of objects being counted.

Question 28

Intersubjectivity

Answer 28

Mutual, shared understanding among participants in an activity.

Question 29

Guided Participation

Answer 29

Children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled, typically producing cognitive growth.

Question 30

Zone of Proximal Development

Answer 30

Difference between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone.

Question 31

Scaffolding

Answer 31

A style in which teachers gauge the amount of assistance they offer to match the learner’s needs.

Question 32

Private Speech

Answer 32

A child’s comments that are not intended for others but are designed to help regulate the child’s own behavior.

Question 33

Infant-Directed Speech

Answer 33

Speech that adults use with infants that is slow and has exaggerated changes in pitch and volume; it helps children master language.

Question 34

Cooing

Answer 34

Early vowellike sounds that babies produce.

Question 35

Babbling

Answer 35

Speechlike sounds that consist of vowel-consonant combinations; common at about 6 months.

Question 36

Fast Mapping

Answer 36

A child’s connections between words and referents that are made so quickly that he or she cannot consider all possible meanings of the word.

Question 37

Underextension

Answer 37

When children define words more narrowly than adults do.

Question 38

Overextension

Answer 38

When children define words more broadly than adults do.

Question 39

Phonological Memory

Answer 39

Ability to remember speech sounds briefly; an important skill in acquiring vocabulary.

Question 40

Referential Style

Answer 40

Language-learning style of children whose vocabularies are dominated by names of objects, persons, or actions.

Question 41

Expressive Style

Answer 41

Language-learning style of children whose vocabularies include many social phrases that are used like one word.

Question 42

Telegraphic Speech

Answer 42

Speech used by young children that contains only the words necessary to convey a message.

Question 43

Grammatical Morphemes

Answer 43

Words or endings of words that make a sentence grammatical.

Question 44

Overregularizations

Answer 44

Grammatical usage that results from applying rules to words that are exceptions to the rule.