question

Action = Knowledge

answer

If a simple equation could summarize a comprehensive theory of cognitive development, this one might encapsulate the ideas of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget about how we begin to understand the world. Infants learn by doing.

question

Unlike previous theorists, Piaget argued the infants do not acquire knowledge from facts communicated by others, nor through sensation and perception. Instead, Piaget suggested that _____ is the product of direct ____ _____.

answer

knowledge; motor behavior

question

Piaget's theory is that all children pass through 4 universal stages in a fixed order from birth through adolescence:

answer

sensorimotor; preoperational; concrete operational and formal operational. He also suggested that movement from one stage to the next occurs when a child reaches an appropriate level of physical maturity and is exposed to relevant experiences.

question

He also suggested that movement from one stage to the next occurs when a child reaches an appropriate level of physical maturity and is exposed to relevant experiences.

answer

Without such experience, Piaget assumed that children were incapable of reaching their cognitive potential.

question

Some approaches to cognition focus on changes in the content of children's knowledge about the world, but Piaget argued that it was crucial to also consider the changes in the _____ of children's knowledge and understanding as they move from one level to another.

answer

quality. For instance, as they develop cognitively, infants experience changes in their understanding about what can and cannot occur in the world. (e.g., baby looking at a mirrored image of its mother). pg. 168)

question

Piaget believed that the basic building blocks of the way we understand the world are mental structures called _____, organized patterns of functioning, that adapt and change with mental development.

answer

schemes At first schemes are related to physical, or sensorimotor, activity, such as picking up or reaching for toys. As children develop, their schemes move to a mental level, reflecting thought. Schemes are similar to computer software: they direct and determine how data from the world, such as new events or objects, are considered and dealth with.

question

If you give a baby a new cloth book for example, he or she will touch it, mouth it, perhaps try to tear it or bang it on the floor. To Piaget, each of these actions represents a

answer

scheme, and they are the infant's way of gaining knowledge and understanding of this new object.

question

Piaget suggested that two principles underlie the growth in chindren's schemes:

answer

assimilation and accommodation.

question

Assimilation

answer

is the process by which people understand and experience in terms of their current stage of cognitive development and way of thinking. Assimilation occurs, then, when a stimulus or an event is acted upon, perceived, and understood in accordance with existing patterns of thought. Child see's a flying squirrel at the zoo and calls it a bird - this is assimilating the squirrel to his existing scheme of birds.

question

Accommodation

answer

refers to changes in existing ways of thinking, understanding, or behaving in response to encounters with new stimuli or events. For instance, when a child sees a flying squirrel and calls it a bird with a tail, he is beginning to accommodate new knowledge, modifying his scheme of bird.

question

Sensorimotor stage (of cognitive development)

answer

Piaget's initial major stage of cognitive development, which can be broken down into six substages

question

Piaget believed that the earliest schemes are primiarily limited to the _____with which we are all born, such as sucking and rooting. Infants start to modify these ismple early schemes almost immediately, through the process of ______ and _____, in response to their exploration of the environment.

answer

reflexes; assimilation; accommodation

question

The sensorimotor period

answer

birth to 2 years and is the initial major stage of cognitive development.

question

Substage 1

answer

Simple reflexes (first month). During this time, various inborn reflexes are at the center of infants' physical and cognitive lives, determining the natur of their interactions with the world.

question

Substage 2

answer

First habits and primary circular reactions ( 1 to 4 months). Infants begin to coordinate what were separate actions into single, integrated activities. For instance, an infant might combine grasping and object with sucking on it, or staring at something while touching it.

question

Circular reaction

answer

occurs when an infant repeats an action over and over. This repetition of change motor event helps the baby start building cognitive schemes. Primary circular reactions are schemes reflecting an infant's repetition of interesting or enjoyable actions, just for the enjoyment of doing them, which focus on the infant's own body.

question

Substage 3

answer

Secondary Circular Reactions ( 4 to 8 months). Secondary circular reactions are more purposeful. During this period, a child begins to act upon the outside world. For instance, infants now seek to repeat enjoyable events in their environments if they happen to produce them through chance activities.

question

Substage 4

answer

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions ( 8 to 12 months). In substage 4, infants begin to employ GOAL-DIRECTED BEHAVIOR, in which several schemes are combined and coordinated to generate a single act to solve a problem. For instance, they will push one toy out of the way to reach another that is lying, partially exposed, under it. Infants' newfound purposefulness, their ability to use means to attain particular ends, and their skill in anticipating future circumstances owe their appearance in part to the developmental achievement of object permanence that emerges in substage 4.

question

Object permanence

answer

the realization that people and objects exist event when they cannot be seen.

question

Substage 5

answer

Tertiary circular reactions (12 to 18 months). At this stage infants develop what Piaget regards as the deliberate variation of actions that bring desirable consequences. Rather that just repeating enjoyable activities, infants appear to carry out miniature experiments to observe the consequences.

question

Substage 6

answer

Beginnings of thought ( age 18 mos to 2 years). The major achievement of substage 6 is the capacity for mental representation or symbolic thought. Piaget argued that only at this stage can infants imagine where objects that they cannot see might be.

question

Mental representation

answer

an internal image of a past event or object.

question

The attainment of mental representation also permits another important development:

answer

the ability to pretend. Using the skill of what Piaget refers to as a DEFERRED IMITATION, in which a person who is no longer present is imitated later, children are able to pretend that they are driving a car, feeding a doll or cooking dinner long after they have witnessed such scenes played out in reality.

question

Piaget saw the preschool years as a time of both ____ and ___. He placed the preschool years into a single stage of cognitive development - the ______ stage - which lasts from 2 until around 7.

answer

stability; change; preoperational

question

During the preoperational stage, children's use of symbolic _____ grows, mental _____ emerges, and the use of ____ increases

answer

thinking; reasoning; concepts

question

Operations

answer

organized, formal logical mental processes

question

Symbolic function

answer

the ability to use a mental symbol, a word, or an object to stand for or represent soemthing that is not physically present

question

________ function is at the heart of one of the major advances of the preoperational period: the increasingly sophisticated use of language.

answer

Symbolic Instead of slow sensorimotor-based thinking, symbolic thought, which relies on imporved linguistic ability, allows preschoolers to represent actions virtually, at much greater speed. For example, preschooolers can use a mental symbol for a car (the word "car"), and they understand that a small toy car is representative of the real thing. They have no need to get behind the wheel of an actual car to understand its basic purpose and use.

question

The relation between lauguage and thought -

answer

language allows children to think beyond the present to the future. Rather than being grounded in the here-and-now, preschoolers can imagine future possibilities through language in the form of fantasies and daydreams.

question

Centration

answer

the process of concentrating on one limited aspect of a stimulus (typically its superficial elements) and ignoring other aspects. For instance, asking which glass contains more water - pg 174

question

Conservation

answer

the knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance of objects. The main reason, according to Piaget, that preschoolers make conservation errors is because they have a tendency toward contration that prevents them from focusing on the relevant features of the situation. Furthermore, they cannot follow the sequence of transformations that accompanies changes in the appearance of a situation.

question

As Piaget used the term, TRANSFORMATIONAL

answer

is the process in which one state is changed into another.

question

Egocentrism

answer

the inability to take other's perspectives or viewpoints

question

Another hallmark of the preoperational period is

answer

egocentric thinking

question

Egocentric thought takes two forms

answer

lack of awareness that others see things from a different physical perspective; and failure to realize that others may hold thoughts, feelings and points of view that differ from theirs. Note - what egocentric thought does NOT imply: that preoperational children intentionally think in a selfish or inconsiderate manner. For instance, a 4 yr old receives a gift of socks and frowns as he opens the package, unaware that his face can be seen by others and reveals his true feelings.

question

Egocentrism largely explains why many preschoolers _____ to themselves, even in the presence of others, and often ignore what others are telling them.

answer

talk Much of preschoolers verbal behavior has no social motivation but is meant purely for their own consumption.

question

Egocentrism can also be seen in hiding games. In hide-and-seek, three year olds may "hide" by

answer

covering their faces with a pillow - even though they remain in plain view. Their reasoning: If they cannot see others, others cannot see them. They assume everyone else shares their view.

question

Intuitive thought

answer

thinking that reflects preschoolers' use of primitive reasoning and their avid acquisition of knowledge about the world. From about age 4 through 7, curiosity blossoms. Children ask "Why?" questions about nearly everything.

question

In the late stages of the preoperational period, children's intuitive thinking prepares them for more sophisticated reasoning.

answer

For instance, preschoolers come to understand that pushing harder on the pedals makes a bicycle move faster, or that pressing a button on a remote control makes the television change channels.

question

By the end of the preoperational stage, preschoolers begin to grasp ______, the idea that actions, events, and outcomes are related to oneanother in fixed patterns.

answer

functionality They also become aware of identity, the understanding that certain things stay the same, regardless of changes in shape, size, and appearance - for instance, that a lump of clay contains the same amount of clay whether it is clumped into a ball or stretched out into a snake.

question

Comprehension of _______ is necessary for children to develop an understanding of conservation.

answer

identity

question

From Piaget's perspective, preshcoolers think preoperationally. They are largely egocentric and lack the ability to use operations - organized, formal, logical mental processes. All this changes in the school years in what is called the _____ operational stage

answer

concrete

question

Concrete operational stage

answer

occurs between the age of 7 and 12. This stage is characterized by the active, and appropriate use of logic. For instance, when children in this stage confront a conservation problem (such as determining whether the mount of liquid poured form one container to another of a different shape stays the same), they use cognitive and logical processes to answer, no longer judging solely by appearance. They are able to reason correctly that since none of the liquid has been lost, the amount stays the same.

question

Decentering

answer

children's ability to consider multiple aspects of a situation.

question

Concept of reversibility

answer

the notion that transformation to a stimulus can be reversed. This concept allows children to understand that if 3 + 5 = 8, then 5 + 3 also equals 8 - and later, that 8-3 equals 5.

question

Once the concrete operational stage takes hold, children can grasp such concepts as the relationship between

answer

time and speed. For instance, consider the problem in which two cars traveling different-length routes start and finish at the same points in the same amount of time. Children entering the concrete operational period reason that the cars' speed is the same. However, between 8 and 10, children begin to understand that for both cars to arrive at the same time, the car traveling the longer distance must be moving faster.

question

Despite these advances, children still have one critical thinking limitation. They remain tied to concrete, physical reality.

answer

Furthermore, they cannot understand truly abstract or hypothetical questions, or questions involving formal logic, such as the concept of free will or determinism.

question

Adolescents are able to consider a variety of abstract possibilities;

answer

they can see issues in relative, as opposed to absolute terms. When problems arise, they can perceive shading beyond the black-and-white solutions of younger days. With Adolescence comes the formal operational stage.

question

Formal operational stage

answer

age 12 to 15. In this stage, people develop the ability to think abstractly. Piaget suggests that people reach this stage at the start of adolsecence, around age 12.

question

Adolescents are able to use formal reasoning, starting with a general theory about what causes a certain outcome, and then deducing explanations for the situations in which that outcome occurs.

answer

They can start with the abstract and move into the concrete. Adolescents can also use propositional thought during this stage.

question

Propositional thought

answer

is reasoning that uses abstract logic in the absence of concrete examples. Such thinking allows adolescents to understand that if certain permises are true, then a conclusion must also be true. For example, All men are mortal [premise] Socrates is a man. [premise] Therefore, Socrates is mortal. [conclusion]. Adolescents understand that if both premises are true, then the conclusion is also true.

question

It is not until age ___ that adolescents fully settle into the formal operational stage.

answer

15

question

What characterizes the formal operational stage?

answer

Scientific reasoning

question

With the ability to think abstractly, adolescents are then able to _____ authority and become argumentative.

answer

question

Gisela Labouvie-Vief

answer

a modern developmentalists that concluded that development does not really stop in adolescence as Piaget suggests. Labouvie-Vief and others have found that cognitive development continuts beyond adolescence because people are faced with dealing with the complexities of life throughout adulthood.

question

Labouvie-Vief suggests

answer

that the nature of thinking changes during early childhood. She asserts that thinking based solely on formal operations is insufficient to meet the demands placed on young adults. The complexity of society, which require thought that transcends logic to include practical experience, moral judgements, and values.

question

In Lavouvie-Vief's view

answer

young adults must develop to handle ambiguous situations. She suggests that young adults learn to use analogies and metaphors to make comparisons, confront society's paradoxes, and become comfortable with a more subjective understanding. This requires weighing all aspects of a situation according to one's values and beliefs. It allows for interpretive processes and reflects the fact that the reasons behind events in the real world are painted in shades of gray rather than black and white.

question

Post formal thinking

answer

thinking that acknowledges that adult predicaments must sometimes be solved in relativistic terms.

question

Post formal thought also encompasses _______ thinking, an interest in and appreciation for argument, counterargument and debate.

answer

dialectical Dialectical thinking accepts that issues are not always clear cut and that answers to questions must sometimes be negotiated. Port formal thinkers understand that just as there can be multiple causes of a situation, there can be multiple solutions.

question

According to psychologist Jan Sinnott, postformal thinkers shift

answer

back and forth between an abstract, ideal solution and real-world constraints that might prevent implementation of that solution.

question

Psychologist, William Perry thought that the developmental growth of early adulthood involves mastering ____ ways of understanding the world.

answer

new

question

Developmental psychologist K. Warner Schaie offfers another perspective on postformal thought. Taking up where Piaget left off, shcaie suggests that adults' thinking follows a ___ ____ of stages.

answer

set pattern Schaie focuses on the ways in which information is used during adulthood, rather than on changes in the acquisition and understanding of new information, as in Piaget's approach. Shaie suggests that before adulthood, the main cognitive developmental task is ACQUISITION of information.

question

Acquisitive stage

answer

according to Shaie, the first stage of cognitive development, encompassing all of childhood and adolescence, in which the main developmental task is to acquire information. Information gathered before we grow up is largely squirreled away for future use. Much of the rational for education during childhood and adolescence, then is to prepare people for future activities.

question

Achieving stage

answer

the point reached by young adults in which intelligence is applied to specific situations involving the attainment of long-term goals regarding careers, family, and societal contributions. During the achieving stage young auldts must confront and resolve several major issues, and the decisions they make - such as what job to take and whom to marry - have implications for the rest of their lives.

question

Responsible stage

answer

the stage where the major concerns of middle-aged adults relate to their personal situations, including protecting and nourishing their spouses, families, and careers.

question

Executive stage

answer

the period in middle adulthood when people take a broader perspective than earlier, including concerns about the world. People in the executive stage put energy into nourishing and sustaining societal institutions. They may become involved in town government, religious congregations, service clubs, charitable groups, factory unions - organizations that have a larger purpose in society.

question

Reintegrative stage

answer

the period of late adulthood during which the focus is on tasks that have personal meaning. They no longer focus on acquiring knowledge to solve potential problems that they may encounter. Instead, they acquire information about issues that specifically interest them. Furthermore, they have less interest in - and patience for - things they do not see as having some immediate application to their lives.

question

In contrast to Piaget, Gisela Labouvie- Vief maintains that adults engage in _______ thought, in which predicaments must sometimes be solved in relativistic terms, rather than in absolute right and wrongs.

answer

postformal

question

William Perry suggests that people move from _____ thinking to ______ thought during early adulthood.

answer

dualistic; relativistic

question

K. Warner Schaie argues that adults pass through 5 stages of information:

answer

1. acquisitive 2. achieving 3. responsible 4. executive 5. reintegrative

question

Lev Vygotsky

answer

A Russian psychologist who wrote over 100 books. He wrote about language and thought, psychology of art, learning and development, and educating students with special needs. His works were banned in Russia because of references to western psychologist, but his writings were rediscovered 30 years ago and have been a major influence ever since. Lev Vygotsky proposed that the nature and progress of children's cognitive development are dependent on the children's social and cultural context.

question

According to Vygotsky

answer

culture and society determine how people engage in thought and set the agenda for education and cognitive abilities that their members expect to attain. This theory features the concept of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding. He also proposes that children should have the opportunity to experiment and participate actively with their peers in their learning.

question

Private Speech

answer

speech observed when young children are talking to themselves so that they can work through a puzzling activity or situation

question

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

answer

range of cognitive tasks that the child cannot yet perform alone but can learn to perform with some assistance. The concept of the zone of proximal development suggests that even though two children might be able to achieve the same amount without help, if one child receives aid, he or she may improve substantially more than the other. The greater the improvement that comes with help, the larger the zone of proximal development. 187

question

Scaffolding

answer

kind of help where a parent or teacher adjusts the quality and degree of instruction and guidance to fit the child's present level of ability or performance. To Vygotsky, scoffolding not only helps children solve specific problems, it also aids in the development of their overall cognitive abilities.

question

Psychological Tools

answer

cognitive devices and procedures with which we communicate and explore the world around us; includes speech, writing, gestures, diagrams, numbers, chemical formulas, musical notation, rules, and memory techniques

question

Micheal Goldstein, researcher on how babies learn vocabulary discovered

answer

that babies learn best when they initiate the learning and whey they choose the object to be labeled. For instance, if an infant babbles while looking at an object, the best approach is to name the object (even if the babbling sounds like a different word). In this way, the "lesson" coincides with the infant's natural exploration of the world rather than trying to impose and experience on the child, as videos do.

question

Cultural tools

answer

are actual, physical items (e.g., pencils, paper, calculators, computers, and so forth) as well as an intellectual and conceptual framework for solving problems. The framework includes the language that is used within a culture, its alphabetical and numbering schemes, its mathematical and scientific systems, and even its religious systems. These cultural tools provide a structure that can be used to help children define and solve specific problems, as well as intellectual point of view that encourages cognitive development.

question

Social Interaction

answer

Vygotsky believed this to be the primary cause of cognitive development. The idea that children's comprehension of the world flows from their interactions with their parents, peers, and other members of society is increasingly well supported.

question

Mediation

answer

occurs when a more knowledgeable individual interprets a child's behavior and helps transform it into an internal and symbolic representation that means the same thing to the child as to others

question

Spontaneous Concepts

answer

various facts, concepts, and rules learned during early childhood, primarily as a by-product of other activities

question

Scientific Concepts

answer

psychological tools that allow us to manipulate our environment consciously and systematically

question

Empirical Learning

answer

refers to the way in which young children acquire spontaneous concepts; the most observable characteristics of objects and events are noticed and used a basis for forming general concepts

question

Theoretical Learning

answer

involves using psychological tools to learn scientific concepts; they are gradually interalized and generalized to a wide variety of settings and problem types

question

Telementoring

answer

when a master-apprentice relationship occurs on a computer network

question

Ways to use Educational Technology

answer

(1) as an expert peer or collaborative partner to support skills and strategies that can be internalized by the learner; (2) as a tool to link learners to more knowledgeable peers and experts, who establish a master-novice apprenticeship and scaffold the student's learning

question

What is cognitive development and how did Piaget revolutionize its study?

answer

1. Cognitive development focuses on change in behavior that cooresponds to changes in an individual's intellectual abilities, with special attention to intelligence, language, and smiliar topics. 2. Piaget differed from earlier psychologists in arguing that infants learn by doing, not by listening to the teaching of adults or through sensation and perception. 3. Piaget's background as a biologist led him to use observational techniques to study children one or two at a time in their "natural habitat."

question

What theoritical elements underlie Piaget's theory?

answer

1. Piaget theorized that the foundations of the way we understand the world are mental structures called schemes, organized patterns of functioning, that adapt and change with mental development. 2. Two underlying principles explain how children's schemes grow. Assimilation consists of fitting stimuli or events into existing pattersn of thought, while accommodation consists of expanding existing patterns of thought to fit stimuli or events. 3. Piaget has been criticized for neglecting any consideration of development beyond the end of adolescence. Several cognitive researchers extend the stage approach to adulthood.

question

What are the key features - and criticisms - of Piaget's theory?

answer

1. Piaget's theory is based on a stage approach to development, with children and adolescents passing through 4 universal stages in a predetermined sequence: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. 2. In the six substages of the sensorimotor period, simple reflexes at first determine the behaviors, then the infant's earliest habits become circular reactions, which eventually become goal-oriented problem-solving activities. In the next substage, infants deliberately vary their actions as if conducting experiments, and in the final substages, they begin to produce mental representations of events or objects. 3. The preoperational stage occurs during the preschool years, as children use symbolic thinking, reasoning, and concepts increases. The preoperational stage has several limitations, including centration, a failure to to conserve, an incomplete understanding of transformation, and egocentrism. 4. Concrete operational thought develops during the early adolescent years. This stage is characterized by the active and appropriate use of logic. However, individuals in this stage are still limited to concrete reality and unable to deal with abstract or hypothetical questions. 5. Piaget's final stage, the formal operational stage, occurs in late adolescence as people develop the ability to think abstractly.

question

What are some of the alternate approaches to Piaget's view of cognitive development?

answer

1. Despite Piaget's great influence on the field, specific aspects of his theory have been criticized, including the concept of stages that form the basis of his theory and what many critics perceive as hie persistent underestimation of children's abilities. We have also noted the criticism that his theory neglects ongoing cognitive development in adulthood. 2. Gisela Labouvie-Vief maintains that postformal thought develops in young adulthood. Postformal thinking suprasses logic to encompass interpretive and subjective thinking. 3. William Perry suggests that people move from dualistic thinking to relativistic thinking during early adulthood, and K. Warner Schaie argue that adults pass through the acquisitive, achieving, responsible, executive, and reintegrative stages in the way they use information.

question

What are the key features - and criticisms- of Vygotsky's theory?

answer

1. In Vygotsky's view, cognitive development is the product of culture and of social interactions. 2. Vygotsky notes that children learn best by participating in active learning through child-adult and child-child interactions that fall within each child's zone of proximal development. 3. He also observed that learners need support - a precess called scaffolding - to encourage their learning and problem solving until they achieve independence and growth. 4. Vygotsky's views are respected because they represent a consistent theoretical system and are consistent with modern research on learning and cognitive development. 5. Critics contend that Vygotsky's theories lack precision and lend themselves only with difficulty to experimental tests. Furthermore, Vygotsky never addressed some of hte major topics in cognitive development, such as attention and memory, and dealt only slightly with intelligence.

Lifespan Development: A Topical Approach – Flashcards

Unlock all answers in this set

Haven't found what you were looking for?

Search for samples, answers to your questions and flashcards