unit 7 Flashcards
piaget preoperational stage
- Ages 2 to 6
- Gains in mental representation
– Make-believe Play=
1. play detaches from real life conditions (banana is phone)
2. play becomes less self centred (doll brushes own hair)
3. play includes more complex combos of schemes -> sociodramatic play
– Symbol-Real World Relations->ability to use symbols= objects and words
scale error video
2 year old child doesnt understand the sense of scale and emotions override the perception of themselves
-child play with regular size toys and then small version of toys. they play with small version like they would with the regular size toys
Egocentrism
Failure to distinguish others’ views from one’s own
-cant take others perspectives
limits on conversation: centration
- Centration Focus on one aspect and neglect others
limits on conversation: irreversibility
- Irreversibility Cannot mentally reverse a set of
steps
limitations: appearance vs. reality difficulties
-focus on appearance
-short hair= boy
-tied to conservation
limitations: static reasoning
-see life as unchanging
limitations: animistic thinking
tend to give animate properties to inanimate objects
evaluating piaget theory
- Teachers should provide materials &
conditions creating discovery - Applying something already known = better
learning - Discovering own errors & inconsistencies =
better learning
egocentric thought
- Can adjust language to others & take
others’ perspectives in simple situations - Animistic - incomplete knowledge
*Can distinguish animate & inanimate
illogical thought
- Can do simplified conservation
- Can reason by analogy
appearance versus reality
- Can solve appearance-reality tasks in nonverbal ways
alternative explanations of preformance
- Argument: Mistakes are not due to cognitive difficulties
- So why are children unsuccessful in
Piaget’s tasks?
– language difficulties
– locomotor difficulties
– poor memory - (object permanence errors)
theories of mind
- Understanding thoughts, desires & beliefs
– False belief principle
– Child can take another person’s point of view and
determine the info causing a false belief
– 10 months - rudimentary beginnings
– Age 3 - Understand some aspects
– Age 4 - basic principle - each person’s actions are
based on her / his representation of reality
theories of mind: influences of development
- Influences on Development of a Theory of
Mind:
– Correlated with performance on Piaget’s tasks
– Enhanced by pretend play, discussion of emotion-
provoking events with parents
– Some level of language may be a necessary
metacognition
thinking about thinking
-young children dont do this often but around the theories of mind stage they do
information processing
Computer models are used to understand
human thinking
information processing: short-term storage space
Short-term storage space (STSS): Robbie
Case’s term for the working memory (WM)
– Limit to # of ‘schemes’ that can be attended to at a specific time
information processing: operational efficiency
Operational efficiency: Neo-Piagetian term
- maximum # of schemes that can be
processed in WM at one time
– Improves with age
attention
-important for information processing theory* Preschool children
– Very short attention spans
– Easily distracted
* To improve attention span, make relevant
information stand out
memory: recogniton, recall, nelson
- Recognition - the ability to recognize something
previously encountered - Recall - the ability to replicate something from
memory - Nelson (1993)
– Generic: 2 years, production of a script
– Episodic: awareness that an event has occurred, only
up to a few months unless repeated
– Autobiographical: significant events & experiences in
their own lives
memory: long-term memory, metamemory, metacogniton
– Long-term memory
* Related to language (traumatic events)
– Metamemory
* Knowledge about how memory works
* Ability to control & reflect on one’s own memory
– Metacognition
* Knowledge about how the mind thinks
* Ability to control & reflect on one’s own thoughts
understanding numbers and counting: 3 basics
- 3 basic principles of numbering:
– One-to-one principle: There is a number name
for each object counted
– Stable-order principle: Number names must be
counted in the same order
– Cardinality principle: The last number in a
counting sequence denotes the number
of objects
vygotsky sociocultural theory
Zone of Proximal Development
* Scaffolding supports children’s
learning
* Assisted Discovery
– Peer collaboration
* Make-believe play
language as a tool
- Private speech
– Piaget called this “egocentric speech”
– Helps guide behavior - Used more when tasks are difficult,
after errors, or when confused
– Gradually becomes more silent - Vygotsky viewed language (social mediation) as
foundation for all higher cognitive processes
evaluation of vygotsky theory
Yes:Helps explain cultural diversity in cognition
Yes: Emphasizes importance of teaching
No: Focus on language deemphasizes observation,
other learning methods
No: Says little about biological contributions to
cognition
No: Vague in explanation of change
D. language development: critical
- Critical Period
– Specific time period that language must be
acquired within
D. Language development: sensitive
- Sensitive period
– Less strict
– Language is acquired most effectively during
this period
constraints on word names
– An unfamiliar word must refer to an object that
doesn’t have a name
– Names refer to the whole object, not just a part
of it
– New names for an object refer to a subcategory
of the object
– A name used only for one member of a
category is a proper noun
cognitive factors and naming
- Cognitive factors (e.g. attentional &
perceptual skills) assist in learning
language
– Fast mapping= at 18 months - Naming errors result from
– Underextension - defining words too
narrowly
– Overextension - defining words too
broadly
learning grammar
- Basic Rules
– Subject-verb-object structure by age 4
– Inflections – addition of grammatical
morphemes (e.g. ‘ing’) - Plurals
– To be, questions, negatives - Telegraphic speech - 2- & 3 word sentences
(18 months) - Overregularization
sentence clues
- Unfamiliar words are embedded in sentences
containing words already known - Other words & overall structure can be helpful
clues - Example:
– Event described using familiar words, but unfamiliar
verb
– Can infer the verb refers to action performed
by subject
pragmatics
- Effective communication requires:
– Taking turns
– Use a language that the listener understands
– Paying attention & confirming understanding - 2-year-olds can have effective
conversations - By 4, adjust to fit age, sex, social status of
listener - Difficult situations
– Telephone
encouraging language growth
- Parents assist in learning language by:
– Speak to children frequently
– Name objects of children’s attention
– Use grammatically sophisticated speech
– Reading to them - Phonological awareness = faster at learning to read
– Encourage watching programs that emphasize
learning new words (Sesame Street)
measuring intelligence
- Binet &Simon (1905)
- First modern intelligence test
- Intelligence quotient (IQ)
- Ratio of mental age to chronological age
- Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC-IV,
2003)
– Verbal comprehension index
– Perceptual reasoning index
– Working memory index
– Processing speed index - IQ tests
– Fairly good job of predicting success in school
– Don’t measure other variables of success
– Are quite stable across time
– Influences - Heredity is highly important initially
- Also important role of the environment (e.g. Head Start)
– Limitations - Cultural biases (e.g. Indigenous children) –
should use direct observation assessments
