W8 Cognitive Development

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from a lecture on cognitive development.

Piaget

infants and children learn and think in a qualitatively different way from each other and from adults.

Constructivist

child developing in isolation, constructing their own understanding of the world.

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)

infants movements are reflexive. Development of separation of self from external environment, object permanence and onset of deferred imitation

Preoperational Stage: (2-7 years)

child’s ability to use a symbol, an object or a word to stand for something. Children in this stage are egocentric, unable to separate their own perspective from that of others and unable to use logic to problem solve.

Concrete Operational Stage (7-12 years)

Children begin to be able to solve conservation tasks correctly and begin to think logically, but physical components of the problem must still be present.

Formal Operational Stage (approx 12 years plus)

Thinking is both logical and abstract. Adolescents can also reason hypothetically and think about nature of, and their role in, society

Schemes

Basic mental structures, coordinated & systematic pattern of action or way of reasoning

Assimilation

Process of interpreting an experience in terms of current ways of thinking

Accommodation

Modifications in behaviour and thinking that occur when old schemes no longer fit

Equilibration

Innate self regulatory process that, through assimilation and accommodation, result in more organised, powerful and complex schemes for adapting to the environment

Maturation

The gradual unfolding over time of genetic programmes for development

Vygotsky

Emphasised the social and cultural environment which creates and shapes cognitive development through language and tools

Vygotsky’s Key Concepts

Higher mental functions develop through social interactions and the child then internalizes shared cultural knowledge

Appropriation

Children adapt tools in unique ways