Vygotsky and Cognitive Development Lecture Flashcards

80 vocabulary flashcards covering Vygotsky, Piaget, Information Processing, IQ, Language, and Education models based on PSCY 171 lecture notes.

Social Constructive Approach

A theory, such as Vygotsky’s, that emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interactions.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

The range of tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but can be learned with the guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled students.

Lower limit of ZPD

The level of skill reached by a child working independently.

Higher limit of ZPD

The level of additional responsibility the child can accept with the assistance of an able instructor.

Scaffolding

The practice of changing the level of support by adjusting the amount of guidance to fit a child's current performance level.

Tools of the Mind

A Vygotsky-based program that focuses on a child's development of self-regulation as the cognitive foundation of literacy and prosocial behavior.

Inhibitory control

A component of executive function emphasized in the Tools of the Mind curriculum that involves resisting distractions and temptations.

Make-believe play

A key element in Tools of the Mind classrooms that facilitates inhibition by requiring children to remain in character and cognitive flexibility by requiring them to adjust to peers.

Cognitive flexibility

The ability to adjust to the activities and perspectives of others, specifically fostered through make-believe play in the Tools of the Mind program.

Seriation

The ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension, such as length.

Transitivity

The ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions, such as knowing that if $A > B$ and $B > C$, then $A > C$.

Egocentrism

The inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective.

Animism

The belief that inanimate objects have life-like qualities and are capable of action.

Conservation

The awareness that altering an object’s or substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties.

Centration

The focusing of attention on one characteristic, such as height, to the exclusion of all others.

Preoperational Stage

The Piagetian stage from ages $2 - 7$ where children represent the world with words and images but lack conservation and show egocentrism.

Concrete Operational Stage

The Piagetian stage from ages $7 - 11$ where children can perform operations and reason logically about specific or concrete examples.

Information Processing Approach

A framework that examines how children’s ability to process information, including attention and memory, changes throughout childhood.

Attention

The focusing of mental resources on select information.

Selective attention

The ability to focus on task-relevant information while ignoring task-irrelevant information.

Oddball paradigm

A strategy used to examine selective attention where standard stimuli are presented repeatedly and rare stimuli are used to test the inability to ignore distractions.

Sustained attention

The ability to maintain focused and extended engagement with an object, task, or event; also known as vigilance.

Continuous Performance Task

An assessment where children respond to specific targets and withhold responses for non-targets to measure measured sustained attention and vigilance.

Executive attention

The ability to plan actions, allocate attention to goals, detect errors, monitor progress, and handle novel or difficult circumstances.

Salient stimuli

Stimuli that stand out or are flashy, which preschool children often attend to even if the stimuli are not relevant to the task.

Planful attention

A component of executive attention where children systematically compare details rather than using haphazard strategies.

Memory

The retention of information over time, serving as a central process in cognitive development.

Working memory

A limited-capacity mental "workbench" where individuals manipulate and assemble information for decision-making and problem-solving.

Chunking

A method of organizing information in working memory to increase the amount of information that can be stored.

Long-term memory

A relatively permanent and unlimited capacity storage system that increases with age during middle and late childhood.

Explicit memory

Also known as declarative memory, this refers to memory for names, events, and facts that can be described with language.

Semantic memory

A type of declarative memory referring to general knowledge about the world.

Episodic memory

A type of declarative memory referring to knowledge about specific events.

Autobiographical memory

A subcategory of episodic memory involving knowledge about one's own personal life events.

Implicit memory

Also known as nondeclarative memory, this refers to memory for motor skills and procedures, such as riding a bike.

Fuzzy trace theory

A theory stating that memory is best understood by considering two representations: verbatim memory traces and gist.

Verbatim memory trace

A memory representation consisting of precise details of the information.

Gist

A memory representation referring to the central idea or the fuzzy trace of the information.

Executive function

An umbrella-like concept of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the prefrontal cortex, including managing thoughts and self-control.

Updating

A component of executive function that involves manipulating information in working memory.

Inhibition

A component of executive function involving withholding prepotent responses and resisting distractions.

Shifting

A component of executive function involving the reallocation of attention.

N-back task

A task used to measure updating by requiring participants to compare a stimulus to one presented in previous trials.

Meta-memory

A specific aspect of metacognition that involves children's general knowledge about memory.

Meta-cognition

Cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing, which helps individuals perform cognitive tasks more effectively.

Flynn effect

The phenomenon of IQ scores increasing rapidly over time worldwide.

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

The ability to manipulate objects and be physically adept, common in surgeons, craftspeople, and athletes.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

The ability to understand oneself, common in theologians and psychologists.

Spatial Intelligence

The ability to think three-dimensionally, common in architects, artists, and sailors.

Practical Intelligence

According to Sternberg, the ability to use, apply, implement, and put ideas into practice.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

A measure of intelligence calculated using the formula $IQ = MA/CA \times 100$.

Mental Age (MA)

An individual's level of mental development relative to others.

Chronological Age (CA)

An individual's actual age in years.

Normal distribution

A symmetrical bell curve where the majority of IQ scores fall in the middle range ($85 - 115$).

Pragmatics

The appropriate use of language in different contexts.

Syntax

The way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences.

Morphology

The units of meaning involved in word formation.

Morphological rules

The rules governing how to change words to express plurality, possession, or past tense.

Phonology

The sound system of a language.

Semantics

The meaning of words and sentences.

Whole-language approach

A reading instruction method that mimics natural language learning by emphasizing whole words and real-world materials.

Phonics approach

A reading instruction method that teaches basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds.

Family management practices

A set of behaviors, such as establishing routines for homework and monitor behavior, that are positively related to children's development.

Dyslexia

A category of learning disability reserved for individuals with a severe impairment in the ability to read and spell.

Learning disability

A difficulty in academic areas not attributable to visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, often found in children of normal or superior intelligence.

Montessori approach

An educational philosophy where children are given freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities while the teacher acts as a facilitator.

Constructivist approach criticism

The argument that child-centered methods do not give enough attention to the content of a discipline and may be too relativistic.

Home schooling performance

Research indicating that home-schooled children often have higher-than-average performance compared to public or private schooling.

Adolescent myelination

A biological process associated with focused attention in older children and adolescents.

Average vocabulary of an 11-year-old

An average of about $40,000$ words.

Average annual growth rate

During the elementary school years, children grow an average of $5 - 7.5\,cm$ a year.

WHO sleep recommendation (3-4 years)

The World Health Organization recommends $10 - 13$ hours of good-quality sleep per day.

Canadian sleep recommendation (5-13 years)

Canadian guidelines recommend $9 - 11$ hours of sleep per day.

Self-control/Inhibition importance

The ability to concentrate on learning tasks and resist impulses, cited as most important for school success in children aged $4 - 11$.

Direct instruction approach

A teacher-centered approach that advocates argue is necessary for specific content like history or science.

Cognitive control of attention

The shift occurring after age $6 - 7$ where children act less impulsively and reflect more on task-relevant dimensions.

Verbatim traces vs Gist (age)

While all ages extract gist, young children tend to store verbatim traces, while older children rely more on gist for improved reasoning.

Stanford-Binet test (1932) comparison

Due to the Flynn effect, $25$ percent or more of people today would be defined as having very superior intelligence on the $1932$ test.

Prefrontal cortex maturation

The biological development linked to improved selective attention and executive function during childhood.

Mastery orientation

An outcome found in children in Montessori programs characterizing their approach to tasks and academic achievement.