[Week 7] Cognitive Development in Childhood

Question 1

Chutes and Ladders

Answer 1

A numerical board game that seems to be useful for building numerical knowledge.

Question 2

Concrete operations stage

Answer 2

Piagetian stage between ages 7 and 12 when children can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning.

Question 3

Conservation problems

Answer 3

Problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changes a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about.

Question 4

Continuous development

Answer 4

Ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps.

Question 5

Depth perception

Answer 5

The ability to actively perceive the distance from oneself of objects in the environment.

Question 6

Formal operations stage

Answer 6

Piagetian stage starting at age 12 years and continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults.

Question 7

Information processing theories

Answer 7

Theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time.

Question 8

Nature

Answer 8

The genes that children bring with them to life and that influence all aspects of their development.

Question 9

Numerical magnitudes

Answer 9

The sizes of numbers.

Question 10

Nurture

Answer 10

The environments, starting with the womb, that influence all aspects of children’s development.

Question 11

Object permanence task

Answer 11

The Piagetian task in which infants below about 9 months of age fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist.

Question 12

Phonemic awareness

Answer 12

Awareness of the component sounds within words.

Question 13

Piaget’s theory

Answer 13

Theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.

Question 14

Preoperational reasoning stage

Answer 14

Period within Piagetian theory from age 2 to 7 years, in which children can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems, such as the conservation problems.

Question 15

Qualitative change

Answer 15

Large, fundamental change, as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly; stage theories such as Piaget’s posit that each stage reflects qualitative change relative to previous stages.

Question 16

Quantitative change

Answer 16

Gradual, incremental change, as in the growth of a pine tree’s girth.

Question 17

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 17

Period within Piagetian theory from birth to age 2 years, during which children come to represent the enduring reality of objects.

Question 18

Sociocultural theories

Answer 18

Theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development.