Childhood & Adolescence Chapter 6

Front 1

constructivist approach

Back 1

Piaget's theory of cognitive development;

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schemes

Back 2

specific psychological structures-organized ways of making sense of experiences

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mental representations

Back 3

internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate (images [mental pictures of objects, people, places, etc], and concepts)

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adaptation

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involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment (involves assimilation and accommodation)

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assimilation

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we use our current schemes to interpret the external world

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accomodation

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we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely

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sensorimotor stage

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spans the first 2 years of life; infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads

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goal-directed behavior

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coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems

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object permanence

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the understanding that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight

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A-not-B search error

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if they reach several times for an object at a first hiding place (A) and see it move to a second (B) they will still search for it in the first hiding place (A)

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deffered imitation

Back 11

the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present

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make-believe play

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children act out everyday and imaginary activities

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constructivist approach

Back 13

Piaget's approach to cognitive development in which children discover virtually all knowledge about their world through their own activity

Front 14

schemes

Back 14

specific psychological structures-organized ways of making sense of experiences

Front 15

mental representations

Back 15

internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate (images [mental pictures of objects, people, places, etc], and concepts)

Front 16

adaptation

Back 16

involves building schemes through direct interaction with the environment (involves assimilation and accommodation)

Front 17

assimilation

Back 17

we use our current schemes to interpret the external world

Front 18

accomodation

Back 18

we create new schemes or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely

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equilibration

Back 19

In Piaget's theory, the back-and-forth movement between equilibrium and disequilibrium that produces more effective schemes

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organization

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In Piaget's theory, a process that takes place internally, apart from direct contact with the environment, through which new schemes are formed, rearranged, and linked with other schemes to create a strongly interconnected cognitive system

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sensorimotor stage

Back 21

spans the first 2 years of life; infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment. They cannot yet carry out many activities inside their heads

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circular reaction

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In Piaget's theory, a means of adapting schemes in which babies try to repeat a chance event caused by their own motor activity

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goal-directed behavior

Back 23

coordinating schemes deliberately to solve simple problems

Front 24

object permanence

Back 24

the understanding that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight

Front 25

A-not-B search error

Back 25

if they reach several times for an object at a first hiding place (A) and see it move to a second (B) they will still search for it in the first hiding place (A)

Front 26

deffered imitation

Back 26

the ability to remember and copy the behavior of models who are not present

Front 27

make-believe play

Back 27

children act out everyday and imaginary activities

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violation-of-expectation method

Back 28

a method in which researchers habituate babies to a physical event and then determine whether they recover to (look longer at) an expected even or an unexpected event. Recovery to the unexpected event suggests that the infant is "surprised" by a deviation from physical reality, as indicated by a heightened attention and interest, and therefore is aware of that aspect of the physical world

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analogical problem-solving

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taking a solution strategy from one problem and applying it to other relevant problems

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preoperational stage

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spans ages 2 to 7, the most obvious change is an extraordinary increase in mental representation

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sociodramatic play

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the make-believe with others that is underway by 2 1/2 and increases rapidly during the next few years

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dual representation

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viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol

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operations

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mental representations of actions that obey logical rules (according to Piaget, small children are not capable of operations)

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egocentrism

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the failure to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of others from one's own

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animistic thinking

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the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions

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conservation

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refers to the idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes

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centration

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focusing on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features

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reversibility

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the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point (pouring water back into original container)

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hierarchical classification

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the organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences

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concrete operational stage

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extends from about 7 to 11 years, marks a major turning point in cognitive development. Thought is far more logical, flexible, and organized than it was earlier, more closely resembling the reasoning of adults rather than that of children

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seriation

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the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension, such as length or weight

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transitive inference

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ability of a concrete-operational child to seriate mentally

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cognitive maps

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children's mental representations of familiar large-scale spaces, such as their neighborhood or school

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horizontal decalage

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development within a stage

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formal operational stage

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around age 11 young people ener this stage in which they develop the capacity for abstract, scientific thinking

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hypothetico-deductive reasoning

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a formal operational problem-solving strategy in which adolescents start with a general theory of all possible factors that might affect an outcome, deducing from its specific hypotheses (or predictions) about what might happen and testing these hypotheses in an orderly fashion to see which ones work in the real world

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propositional though

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adolescents can evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without refering to real-world circumstances

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imaginary audience

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adolescents' belief that they are the focus of everyone else's attention and concern

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personal fable

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cognitive distortion with imaginary audience; because teenagers are sure that others are observing and thinking about them, they develop an inflated opinion of their own importance and feel that they are special and unique

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logical necessity

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a basic property of propositional reasoning, which specifies that the accuracy of conclusions drawn from premises rests on the rules of logic, not on real-world confirmation

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core knowledge perspective

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infants begin life with innate, special-purpose knowledge systems referred to as core domains of thought. Each of these prewired understandings permits a ready grasp of new, related information and therefore supports early, rapid development of certain aspects of cognition

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theory theory

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a theory that assumes that children draw on innate concepts to form naiive theories, or explanations of everyday evenst in each core domain of thought. Then they test their theory against experience, revising it when it cannot adequately account for new information

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private speech

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children's self-directed speech

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zone of proximal development

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a range of tasks too dificult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers

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intersubjectivity

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the process whereby two participants who begin a task with different understandings arrive at a shared understanding

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scaffolding

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adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child's current level of performance

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guided participation

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a broader concept than scaffolding that refers to shared endeavors between more expert and less expert participants, without specifying features of communication

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reciprocal teaching

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a teacher and two to four students form a collaborative group and take turns leading dialogues on the content of a text passage. Within the dialogues, group members apply four cognitive strategies: questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting

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cooperative learning

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small groups of classmates work towards common goals