Cognitive Development in Infancy

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and definitions from Chapter 6: Cognitive Development in Infancy.

Schemes

In Piaget's theory, actions or mental representations that organize knowledge.

Assimilation

The Piagetian concept involving incorporation of new information into existing schemes.

Accommodation

The Piagetian concept of adjusting schemes to fit new information and experiences.

Organization

In Piaget's theory, the grouping of isolated behaviors and thoughts into a higher-order system.

Disequilibrium

Cognitive conflict that arises when a child is faced with counterexamples to his or her existing schemas.

Equilibration

Piaget's term for the mechanism by which children shift from one stage of thought to the next.

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget's first stage lasting from birth to about 2 years, in which infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences.

Simple Reflexes Substage

The first sensorimotor substage (birth to 1 month), characterized by coordination of sensation and action through reflexive behaviors like rooting, sucking, and grasping.

First Habits and Primary Circular Reactions Substage

The second sensorimotor substage (1 to 4 months), involving coordination of sensation and two types of schemes: habits and primary circular reactions focused mainly on the infant's body.

Secondary Circular Reactions Substage

The third sensorimotor substage (4 to 8 months), where infants become more object-oriented and repeat actions that bring interesting or pleasurable results.

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions Substage

The fourth sensorimotor substage (8 to 12 months), involving hand-eye coordination, coordination of vision and touch, coordination of schemes, and intentionality.

Tertiary Circular Reactions, Novelty, and Curiosity Substage

The fifth sensorimotor substage (12 to 18 months), where infants become intrigued by properties of objects, experiment with new behavior, and explore novelty.

Internalization of Schemes Substage

The sixth sensorimotor substage (18 to 24 months), where infants develop the ability to use primitive symbols and form enduring mental representations.

Object Permanence

Piagetian term for the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched.

A-not-B Error

An error in which infants continue to look to a familiar hiding place (A) rather than a new hiding place (B).

Core Knowledge Approach

A nativist view proposing that infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning where, as a result of pairing, a new stimulus elicits a response previously given to another stimulus.

Operant Conditioning

Skinner's theory of learning in which the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior's occurrence.

Attention

The focusing of mental resources on select information, which improves cognitive processing.

Sustained Attention

Attention that allows infants as young as 3 months of age to learn about and remember characteristics of a stimulus as it becomes familiar.

Habituation

Decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

Dishabituation

The increase in responsiveness after a change in stimulation.

Joint Attention

Occurs when individuals focus on the same object or event and are able to track each other's behavior.

Implicit Memory

Memory without conscious recollection, involving skills and routine procedures that are automatically performed.

Explicit Memory

Conscious memory of facts and experiences.

Deferred Imitation

Imitation that occurs after a delay of hours or days.

Concepts

Cognitive groupings of similar objects, events, people, and ideas.

Perceptual Categorization

Jean Mandler's term for grouping objects with similar appearances, occurring in infants as young as 3 to 4 months of age.

Conceptual Categorization

Categorization based on conceptual attributes (such as distinguishing birds from airplanes), which Mandler argues does not begin until about 7 to 9 months of age.

Developmental Quotient (DQ)

An overall developmental score formulated by Arnold Gesell using four categories of behavior: motor, language, adaptive, and personal-social.

Bayley Scales of Infant Development

A widely used measure to assess infant behavior and predict later development, evaluated across cognitive, language, motor, socio-emotional, and adaptive domains.

Language

A form of communication (verbal, written, or signed) based on a system of symbols, consisting of words used by a community and rules for combining them.

Infinite Generativity

The ability to produce and comprehend an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules.

Phonology

The sound system of a language, providing a basis for constructing words out of phonemes.

Phoneme

The smallest sound unit in a language.

Morphology

The system of meaningful units involved in word formation.

Morpheme

A minimal unit of meaning in a language.

Syntax

The ways of combining words to form acceptable phrases and sentences.

Semantics

The system involving the meanings of words and sentences.

Pragmatics

The system of using appropriate conversation and knowledge of how to effectively use language in context.

Cooing

Infant vocalizations beginning at 2 to 4 months that usually express pleasure.

Babbling

Infant vocalizations beginning at 6 months of age involving strings of consonant-vowel combinations such as ba ba ba ba.

Receptive Vocabulary

Words that a child understands, which exceeds spoken vocabulary (e.g., understanding about 50 words at 13 months).

Vocabulary Spurt

A rapid expansion of vocabulary that begins at about 18 months of age.

Telegraphic Speech

The use of content words without grammatical markers such as articles, auxiliary verbs, and other connectives.

Broca's Area

An area located in the left frontal lobe of the brain involved in speech control and producing words.

Wernicke's Area

A portion of the left hemisphere's temporal lobe involved in understanding language.

Aphasia

Damage to Broca's area or Wernicke's area causing a loss or impairment of language processing.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Chomsky's term for a biological endowment that enables the child to detect the features and rules of language.

Child-Directed Speech

Language spoken in a higher pitch than normal with simple words and sentences to capture and maintain an infant's attention.

Recasting

A language strategy where an adult restates a child's immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence.

Expanding

A language strategy where an adult adds information to a child's incomplete utterance.

Labeling

A language strategy where an adult names objects that a child seems interested in.