Unit 3 Exam Child Psy

Assimilation (processes)

new experiences or information can be readily fit into existing schemes

Accommodation (processes)

existing schemes must be modified in light of new experiences and information

-making a change

While strolling through the zoo with his mother, 5-year-old Mike
sees a penguin for the first time. He stares at the animal for a while
and then tells his mother, "See the wings and the beak-that must be
some kind of bird." From a Piagetian perspective, Mike's behavior is
best explained by:

Assimilation

3-year-old Aaron learns to lift his stuffed cat up
by its tail. After one painful attempt, Aaron realizes
that this technique does not work well with a live cat.
In Piagetian terms, Aaron's new knowledge involves

Accommodation

Equilibrium

cognitive state where most new experiences can be understood with current knowledge structures

assimilation>accommodation

Disequilibrium

cognitive state where we are

accommodation>assimilation

most new experiences cannot be understood with existing knowledge structures, so then so schemes must be modified

ex: a child learning about dogs being furry and having four legs and a tail, but then the dog barks putting the child into this state because they didn’t know dogs bark

Shane is thoroughly confused when his father refers to his Aunt
Susan as his "sister Sue," because according to Shane's way of
thinking, a person can't be both a "sister" and an "aunt"...Piaget
would refer to Shane's confusion as involving

Disequilibrium

Equilibration

process of trying to restore equilibrium when disequilibrium gets to be too much

-child whole “theory” (knowledge structures) must be reworked

-trying to get out of the confused state

-moves development forward

Sensorimotor Stage

0-2 yrs

Preoperational Stage

2-7 yrs

Concrete Operational

7-11 yrs

Formal Operational

11-15 yrs

Characteristics of Piaget’s cognitive development

-4 stages are universal

-culture is not a major factor

-fixed sequence, no skipping stages

-no falling back to a previous stage

Sensorimotor Substage 1 Simple Reflexes

0-1 months old

exercising reflexes

-beginning to produce similar actions without reflex-triggering stimuli

ex: sucking on a bottle or a binky, grasping a toy or object

Sensorimotor Substage 2 Primary Circular Reactions

1-4 months of age

-infant tries to replicate an interesting or pleasurable event that initially occurred by chance

-infant has developed habits-simple reflexive actions that are completely divorced from original stimuli

-learning to adapt and center around their own body

ex: touching their own cheek by accident and doing it again because it was nice, sucking on thumbs, kicking legs

Sensorimotor Substage 3 Secondary Circular Reactions

4-8 months of age

Infant turns to outside world, tries out schemes on objects

ex: sucking toys, blanket, other people’s fingers or splashing water in the bathtub and repeating this

Sensorimotor Substage 4 Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions

8-12 months of age

THINGS START TO CHANGE

-increasing focus on objects

-infant puts two schemes together to achieve some goal

ex: monkey by professor’s crib, pushing away obstacles to get to a certain toy

Sensorimotor Substage 5 Tertiary Circular Reactions

12-18 months of age

infant into novelty- seems to be enjoying experimenting

cause and effect or trial and error

-little scientist stage

ex: child dropping a toy from different heights to observe how it lands, sounds, or bounces

Sensorimotor Substage 6 Internalization of Schemes

18-24 months of age or 1 ½ yrs to 2 yrs

-infant becomes able to symbolize what had been done before physically

-infant can use symbols

-Object permeance and A-NOT B Error

ex: child talking on a pretend toy phone, objects exist independently, imitate actions later, play pretend

Object Permanence- Solidified at Substage 5/6

the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight

-young infants think if an object is hidden, they act as if it has ceased to exist

-when they’re in the higher up stages full object permanence is achieved; children understand invisible displacement and can mentally represent objects, allowing them to find items that have been moved without them watching

A-NOT B Error Solidified at Substage 6

a developmental phenomenon where infants (typically 8–12 months old (Substage 4)) search for a hidden object in a familiar location (A) rather than a new location (B), even after seeing it hidden in B

-will typically search under A first and then under B

Egocentrism (pre-operational thought)

the cognitive inability of young children to understand that other people have perspectives, thoughts, feelings, or knowledge different from their own

ex: 3 mountain task, child will pick their own viewpoint, child picking their favorite toy maybe iron man figure and gifting to their sister because it is their favorite

Centration (pre-operational thought)

the tendency of children to focus on only one striking aspect of a situation or object while neglecting others

-could have it be numbers, mass, liquid, length

ex: playdough nothing was gained or lost, water glasses, cookie broken into two pieces because now they think they have more

Animism (pre-operational thought)

the tendency for children to believe that inanimate objects (dolls, clouds, cars) are alive, conscious, and have human-like feelings or intentions

ex: truck going to the car doctor to get fixed, punishing table for hurting child “bad table”, clouds are crying because they’re sad, sun is angry

Difficulty with Appearance/Reality Distinction (pre-operational thought)

They tend to believe that an object's surface appearance equals its true nature, frequently failing tasks where an item is disguised

-struggle to distinguish between how an object looks (appearance) and what it actually is (reality)

ex: child gets scared of mom because of her Halloween costume, sponge rock, fake play foods

Preoperational Stage

2-7 years of age

-child is mastering symbols

ex: language

Symbolic Function Substage of preoperational

2-4 yrs

Children can use symbols to represent objects, seen in pretend play (e.g., using a stick as a sword) and increased language use

-mastering thought about objects that are not present

ex: drawing stick figure family at school

Intuitive thought Substage of preoperational

4-7 yrs

Children start reasoning, often asking "why?" to understand the world, yet their logic is based on perception rather than concrete logic

-know things, but have no idea how they know things

ex: gut thinking

Concrete Operational Stage

7-11 yrs

-acquire reversibility (thus master conservation)

-undo actions in your mind

-able to consider and coordinate multiple aspects of a situation

-freed of centration and ability for abstraction

-can use rules, logic, but ONLY when problem is one they are familiar with, or one that is physical

-practical thinkers

ex: when the same amount of liquid is poured in different sizes glasses, it is still the same amount

Formal Operational Stage

11-15 yrs to adult (no more qualitative changes)

-thinking becomes scientific

-logical, deductive, hypothetical, propositional

-metacognition emerges (when you can think about your own thinking)

-no major structural developments; gains in late adolescence/early adulthood are quantitative

ex: creating hypothesis about the world, playing games like chess or monopoly, algebra

Horizontal Decalage

-occurs mainly in concrete stage 7-11 yrs old and formal too

-the uneven development of cognitive abilities within a single stage, where a child can solve certain problems but not similar ones requiring the same logical operations

ex: a child understands that two clay balls have the same mass, but fail to realize they still weigh the same, understanding mass, volume, numbers, and weight, another example is being able to do the clay task but not the liquid one

Children are first able to conserve number and later can
conserve volume. This is somewhat odd, considering that to
perform both types of conservation tasks, one uses the basic
operation (reversibility). This fact demonstrates which
phenomenon?

Horizontal decalage

Piaget’s theory….

didn’t give enough credit to the little ones and overestimated the abilities of adolescents

Examples of research that disprove Piaget’s theory

-three mountain task, if the mountains were very different from one another, kids would solve it eariler

-reduce time delay in A-NOT B error

-modify questioning procedure in conservation tasks

-adult’s limited use of formal operations

Gelman’s training study

-trained kids to do conservation tasks even though they were younger

-young children (under age 7) can learn to conserve number and volume, challenging Piaget’s theory that cognitive stages are fixed

-were trained on only two tasks, did 200 trials to get the two tasks right

-still did better on the tasks they were not trained for

Zone of proximal development (Vygotsky)

the range of tasks a learner cannot yet perform independently but can achieve with guidance from a "More Knowledgeable Other"

zone of kid can do things on own ←——————————————> kid needs help

*not too easy, but not too hard

Scaffolding (Vygotsky)

a teaching method providing temporary support—such as modeling, coaching, or breaking down tasks—within a student's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to help them master new skills

*minimal assistance

Vygotsky’s perspective

-universality, culture does make a difference

-cross-cultural differences in conservation skills ex: kids selling items on street are good and adding an subtracting, or kids that make a lot of pottery did very well on the liquid conservation task

-said that cognitive development is a social enterprise, child are little apprentices

Mental Hardware IPA

explain human cognition, equating the brain to hardware (physical structures)

ex: short time and long time memory, parts of the brain

Mental Software IPA

the mind to software (cognitive processes/instructions)

Information Processing Approach IPA

-looking at cognitive development in a bunch of more domains or specific skills area

-much more focused

-developmental change is quantitative

-child is like a old computer, not very fast, cannot do a lot

-more likely to consider the nature of the task when looking at age differences in cognitive performance

-Piaget’s tasks require more from the child (active child)

Younger children use less efficient strategies than

older children

Why older children and better thinkers

-more efficient strategies for problem solving

-increased capacity of STM (short-term memory)

-increased automatic processing

-more and better control over attentional processes

-increased speed of processes

Memory improves greatly with age because of

learning better strategies

ex: preschooler may just try to stare at object to remember it, but a older children would find a more efficient strategy like maintenance(repeating objects), then elaborative rehearsal (connecting elements like pen pair with paper) or making a story

You ask 3 different kids to look at an array of objects and memorize them, so you can test them later. Francis rehearses by saying the names of the items quietly under his breath over and over again. Justine creates a little story using the items, where she connects them in meaningful ways. Kasey says he needs to touch each object and stare at it "long enough to remember." Based on these strategies the kids are using, how old is each child?

Kasey is probably the youngest, and Justine the oldest

Cognitive monitoring

-adolescence

-when you evaluating your strategies for memory

Memory improves greatly with age because of…..

Gain more knowledge as you grow up

ex: Chi’s research, younger kids outsmarted the older kids, but found out the younger kids were master chess players, so they had an easier time at remembering the grid

Leichtman and Ceci’s eyewitness testimony

-all the children claimed that Sam did things he didn’t do, even the control group

-older children had a lower percentage of saying Sam did things he didn’t do which was 15% for 5-6 yr olds and then 45% for 3-4 yr olds

-stereotype group was Sam is a nice guy but is clumsy

-suggestion group were told suggestive questions in interview like Sam ripped our book

-was a stereotype and suggestion group and they had the highest percentage of claiming Sam did stuff he didn’t do

-experts could not reliability tell who was telling the truth from who wasn’t

Improving Accuracy of Children’s testimony

-warn children that interviewers may try to trick them (this decreases false memories by a lot)

-interviewers should ask questions about alternative explanations, who was involved

-children should not be questioned repeatedly on a single issue

Academic Skills-Reading

2 important processes

word recognition C-A-T spells cat

comprehension cat is a furry animal with whiskers and a tail

-learning ABCs

-improving phonological awareness (rhyming) Dr.Seus books are great

Academic Skills- Quantitative Skills

Infants can detect numbers

-start to count around 3 yrs of age

Quantitative Skill (One-to-one principle)

assigning one number name to each object

ex: if you have five blocks, each block would get a number- 1,2,3,4,5

-no skipping or repeating

Quantitative Skill (stable order principle)

saying the numbers in the same order each time

ex: 1,2,2,3,6 and then again 1,2,2,3,6

Quantitative Skill (cardinality principle)

last number they say tells you total number of objects

ex: If you have 3 bears, and then the child counts, 1,2,4, I have four bears

US Students and Asian Students

lowest math achievement is United States

-Asian peers spend way more time in school and use it for more academics

-Asian peers spend more time on HW because they enjoy it

-Asian parents have higher standards for their children

-Asian parents believe that performance is a result of effort, while American just state that oh my child is a C student their just that way… average

What is language

a rule-governed system of symbols that is used to communicate with others

-communication and language are not the same

infinite generativity

creating new utterances/sentences/phrases

displacement

ability to use language to refer to other places and other times, as opposed to just being confined to the here and now

ex: Koko’s kitten, the gorilla said that she knew that her kitten named Ball had died and the replacement kitten was not the same (was Koko able to use this term?)

Phonology

the study of how a language sounds (pronunciation), how one’s language sounds

-phoneme

Phoneme

basic unit of sound, but may be different across countries

ex: words that we say represent these strung together, if you change bat into cat two totally different meaning and you just changed the first letter of the word

b sound, f sound, c sound, la sound

Morphology

what users know about a meaning on a micro level (basic units of meaning and rules for using them)

-rules for combining them

-morpheme

Morpheme

smallest meaningful unit

ex: ed=past ing=present, unladylike (3), un in front of words, over in front of another word

Syntax

also known as grammar

-the rules for sequencing of words, and conversion of word forms

-rule for ordering of words

ex: plastic like paper would please not I (word salad)—→I would like plastic not paper please

I goed to the store versus I went to the store

Semantics

what users know about meaning on a macro level (words and phrases)

-the meaning of of words, phrases, sentences

ex: The car kicked my tries—→grammatically nothing wrong, but violates what we know about the world

another ex: Frank and his wife had a baby, Frank was in labor for 26 hours—→Frank did not have the baby

Pragmatics

how to use the language appropriately in differing contexts

-the knowledge and use of context

ex: small talk, being polite, showing respect with please and thank yous, turn-taking in the conversation, volume of voice

Origins of Language Nature

language has a neurobiological basis, we are born to learn, set up, process, and use language

-its in our biology and brain

Origins of Language Nuture

language takes place in a social context and is also affected by environmental influences

ex: Genie

Language neuro-biological bases are…..

virtually universal meaning very similar across the globe and high speed

Neurobiological basis of language

left hemispheric specialization localization of language functions

speech production=Broca’s area (left frontal lob)

speech comprehension= Wernicke’s area (left temporal lobe)

Existence of a critical period

-Lenneberg 1967

language acquisition a maturational process, must occur between 18 months-puberty, or not at all

-if it is past this time frame, then the child will not learn the native language

Infant-directed speech (Motherese)

higher than normal pitch, exaggerated intonation, repetitive, simple vocab, baby talk

-used to be called something else, but siblings, parents, grandparents can use this kind of language

ex: whose a little cutie! Yes you are, yes you are!

Recasting

phrasing a child’s utterance in a different way but keeping the same/similar meaning

-building on what a child says

ex: child says “I like juice”, parent= “You think juice tastes yummy”

Echoing

repeating a child’s utterance, especially if it is incomplete

ex: child= I want…. (points down from high chair)

parent= You want to get down now

Expanding

restating what a child has said in a more sophisticated way

-super detailed

ex: (at airport gate and mom is about to get on flight)

child= Mommy go up?

mom= Yes mommy is going to ride in the airplane to see Grandma

Labeling

providing names of objects

ex: child points to flower garden

parent= that’s a dandelion, and that’s a tulip… over there is a rose

Very important about supports in language

-these supports work best when they arise naturally- no drill and practice

-Responsiveness is KEY

-over-directiveness is BAD

Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) vs Chronological Age

MLU is much more powerful indicator of where a child is in their early language development than chronological age

-age is not always the best indicator MLU is better

-you calculate MLU by taking a sample of a child’s speech, you’re going to count within 60 sec how many morphemes the child is using

comprehension>production