Unit 5: Infancy and Childhood Cognitive Development

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Question 2

Jean Piaget

Answer 2

did not believe that a childs mind was a mini-adult mind; believed that cognitive development is shaped by errors; a struggle to make sense of our experiences as a child

Question 3

Schemas

Answer 3

a concept or framework that organises or interprets information; mental molds into which we pour our experiences so that the maturing brain can continually build upon concepts

Question 4

Assimilation

Answer 4

interpreting a new experience in terms of an existing schema

Question 5

Accommodation

Answer 5

the process of adjusting/modifying a schema

Question 6

Piaget’s Stage Theory: Sensorimotor

Answer 6

birth to nearly two years; the use of senses and motor abilities to learn about the world/interact with objects in the environment
object permanence (a critical step in developing abstract thought); stranger anxiety; separation anxiety
believed that children in this stage are incapable of thinking of abstract concepts or ideas

Question 7

Piaget’s Stage Theory: Preoperational (1)

Answer 7

2-7 years; children learn to use language as a means of exploring the world, however, are not yet capable of logical thought
pretend play; animism; egocentrism; centration; irreversibility

Question 8

Piaget’s Stage Theory: Preoperational (2)

Answer 8

4-5 years; peoples ideas about their own and others mental states - about their feelings, preconceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviours these might predict

Question 9

Centration

Answer 9

the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic or dimension of a situation while disregarding all others

Question 10

Irreversibility

Answer 10

a child’s inability to reverse the steps of an action in their mind, returning an object to its previous state

Question 11

Piaget’s Stage Theory: Concrete Operational

Answer 11

7-11 years; children become capable of logical thought processes; physical, concrete, touchable reality; lack abstract thinking
conservation; reversible thinking; mathematical transformation
Limitations: abstract thinking

Question 12

Conservation

Answer 12

knowing that a quantity doesn’t change if it’s been altered (by being stretched, cut, elongated, spread out, shrunk, poured, etc)

Question 13

Piaget’s Stage Theory: Formal Operational

Answer 13

12 to adult; the adolescent becomes capable of abstract thinking
abstract logic; hypothetical thinking; potential for moral reasoning

Question 14

Reflecting on Piaget’s Stage Theory

Answer 14

development is a continuous process
children express their mental abilities and operations at an earlier age
formal logic is a smaller part of cognition

Question 15

Lev Vygotsky

Answer 15

stressed the importance of social interactions with other people, especially highly skilled children or adults, in the child’s cognitive development

Question 16

Scaffolding

Answer 16

process in which a more skilled learner gives help to a less skilled learner, reducing the amount of help as the less skilled learner becomes more capable

Question 17

Zone of proximal development (ZPD)

Answer 17

the difference between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with the help of a teacher

Question 18

Language development

Answer 18

cooing: 2 months of age; begin to make vowel-like sounds
babbling: 6 months of age; add consonant sounds to vowels
holographic speech: 1 year; using specific words to convey a meaning
telegraphic speech: 1.5 to 2 years; short, simple sentences
whole sentences: preschool years