psych 8

Chutes and Ladders

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

Concrete operations stage

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

Conservation problems

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.

Continuous development

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

Depth perception

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

Discontinuous development

slow smooth progression and its qualitative - how a person thinks, feels, or acts

Formal operations stage

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.

Information processing theories

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

Nature

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

Numerical magnitudes

The sizes of numbers.

Nurture

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

Object permanence task

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.

Phonemic awareness

Awareness of the component sounds within words.

Piaget’s theory

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

Preoperational reasoning stage

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.

Qualitative changes

Large, fundamental change, - distinct stage of thinking. 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.

Quantitative changes

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

Sensorimotor stage

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

Sociocultural theories

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.