Modifying an existing schema to fit a new experience.
adaptation
Adjusting one's thinking to fit with environmental demands.
animistic thinking
The attribution of life to inanimate objects.
assimilation
Applying an existing schema to a new experience.
basic reflex activity
An infant's exercise of, and growing proficiency in, the use of innate reflexes.
centration
Focusing one's attention on only one dimension or characteristic of an object or situation.
cognition
The mental activity through which human beings acquire and process knowledge.
community of learners
An approach to classroom learning in which adults and children work
together in shared activities, peers learn from each other, and the
teacher serves as a guide.
concrete operations stage
Stage in which the child is able to reason logically about materials that are physically present.
conservation
The understanding that altering an object's or a substance's appearance does not change its basic attributes or properties.
constructivist view
The idea that children actively create their understanding of the world
as they encounter new information and have new experiences.
coordination of secondary circular reactions
An infant's combination of different schemas to achieve a specific goal.
core knowledge systems
Ways of reasoning about ecologically important objects and events, such as the solidity and continuity of objects.
deferred imitation
Mimicry of an action some time
after having observed it; requires that the child have some sort of
mental representation of the action.
egocentric speech
According to Vygotsky, a form of
self-directed dialogue by which the child instructs herself in solving
problems and formulating plans; as the child matures, this becomes
internalized as inner speech.
egocentrism
The tendency to view the world from one's own perspective and to have difficulty seeing things from another's viewpoint.
elementary mental functions
Psychological functions with which the child is endowed by nature,
including attention, perception, and involuntary memory, that emerge
spontaneously during children's interaction with the world.
ends over means focus
Consideration of only the end state of a problem in evaluating an event;
failure to consider the means by which that end state was obtained.
formal operations stage
Stage in which the child becomes capable of abstract thinking, complex reasoning, and hypothesis testing.
guided participation
Learning that occurs as children participate in activities of their
community and are guided in their participation by the actions of more
experienced partners in the setting.
higher mental functions
Psychological functions, such as voluntary attention, complex memory
processes, and problem solving, that entail the coordination of several
cognitive processes and the use of mediators.
horizontal décalage
The term Piaget used to describe unevenness in children's thinking
within a particular stage; for example, in developing an understanding
of conservation, children conserve different objects or substances at
different ages.
inner speech
Internalized egocentric speech that guides intellectual functioning.
intent community participation
Children's participation in the authentic activities of their community with the purpose of learning about the activity.
intuitive substage
The second substage of the preoperational stage during which the child
begins to solve problems by using mental operations but cannot explain
how she arrives at the solutions.
inventing new means by mental combination
Children begin to combine schemas mentally and rely less on physical trial and error.
mediators
Psychological tools and
signs—such as language, counting, mnemonic devices, algebraic symbols,
art, and writing—that facilitate and direct thinking processes.
microgenetic changeChanges associated with learning that occur over the time of a specific learning experience or episode.
object permanence
The notion that entities external to the child, such as objects and
people, continue to exist independent of the child's seeing or
interacting with them.
operations
Schemas based on internal mental activities.
organization
Combining simple mental structures into more complex systems, a term
used by Piaget or also refers to a memory strategy that involves putting
together in some organized form the information to be remembered;
usually entails categorization and hierarchical relations.
preconceptual substage
The first substage of Piaget's preoperational period, during which the child's thought is characterized by the emergence of symbolic function, the rapid development of language, animistic thinking, and egocentricity.
preoperational stage
In this stage, the ability to use symbols facilitates the learning of
language; this stage is also marked by semilogical reasoning,
egocentricity—in which the child sees the world from her own point of
view—and intuitive behavior, in which the child can solve problems using
mental operations but cannot explain how she did so.
primary circular reactions
Behaviors focused on the infant's own body that the infant repeats and modifies because they are pleasurable and satisfying.
reciprocal instruction
A tutoring approach based on the ideas of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding.
reversibility
The understanding that the steps of a procedure or operation can be
reversed and that the original state of the object or event can be
obtained.
scaffolding
An instructional process in which the more knowledgeable partner adjusts
the amount and type of support he offers to the child to fit with the
child's learning needs over the course of the interaction.
schema (plural, schemas)
An organized unit of knowledge that the child uses to try to understand a
situation; a schema forms the basis for organizing actions to respond
to the environment.
secondary circular reactions
Behaviors focused on objects outside the infant's own body that the
infant repeatedly engages in be cause they are pleasurable and
satisfying.
sensorimotor stage
Piaget's first stage of cognitive development, during which children
change from basic reflexive behavior to the beginnings of symbolic
thought and goal-directed behaviors.
stages of development
Comprehensive, qualitative changes over time in the way a child thinks.
symbolic function
The ability to use symbols, such as images, words, and gestures, to represent objects and events in the world.
symbolic thought
The use of mental images and concepts to represent people, objects, and events.
tertiary circular reactions
Behaviors in which infants experiment with the properties of external
objects and try to learn how objects respond to various actions.
theory of mind
Understanding of the mind and how it works.
zone of proximal development (ZPD)
The region of sensitivity for learning characterized by the difference
between the developmental level of which a child is capable when working
alone and the level she is capable of reaching with the aid of a more
skilled partner.
attention
The identification and selection of particular sensory input for more detailed processing.
autobiographical memory
A collection of memories of things that have happened to a person at a specific time or place.
automatization
The process of transforming conscious, controlled behaviors into unconscious and automatic ones.
cognitive map
A mental representation of the spatial layout of a physical or geographic place.
cognitive processes
Ways that the human mental system operates on information.
connectionist models
Information processing approaches that describe mental processes in terms of the interconnections of the neural network.
deductive reasoning
Logical thinking that involves reaching a necessary and valid conclusion based on a set of premises.
elaboration
A memory strategy in which one adds to information to make it more meaningful and thus easier to remember.
encoding
The transformation of information from the environment into a mental representation.
episodic memory
Memory for specific events, often autobiographical in nature.
executive control process
A cognitive process that serves to control, guide, and monitor the success of a problem-solving approach a child uses.
executive control structure
According to Case, a mental blueprint or plan for solving a class of problems.
generalization
The application of a strategy learned while solving a problem in one situation to a similar problem in a new situation.
hierarchical categorization
The organization of concepts into levels of abstraction that range from the specific to the general.
Information-processing approaches
Theories of development that focus on the flow of information through
the child's cognitive system and particularly on the specific operations
the child performs between input and output phases.
long-term memory
The mental processing unit in which information may be stored permanently and from which it may later be retrieved.
mediational deficiency
Inability to use strategies to store information in long-term memory.
memory span
The amount of information one can hold in short-term memory.
mental representation
Information stored mentally in some form (e.g., verbal, pictorial, procedural).
metacognition
The individual's knowledge about knowing and his control of cognitive activities.
microgenetic analysis
A very detailed examination of how a child solves a problem.
multistore model
A model of information processing in which information moves through a series of organized processing units—sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
narrative form
A temporally sequenced account that conveys meaning about an event.
neo-Piagetian theories
Theories of cognitive development that reinterpret Piaget's concepts from an information-processing perspective.
organization
Combining simple mental structures into more complex systems, a term
used by Piaget or also refers to a memory strategy that involves putting
together in some organized form the information to be remembered;
usually entails categorization and hierarchical relations.
planning
The deliberate organization of a sequence of actions oriented toward achieving a goal.
problem solving
The identification of a goal and of steps to reach that goal.
production deficiency
Inability to generate and use a known memory strategies spontaneously.
propositional reasoning
Logical thinking that involves evaluating a statement or series of statements based on the information in the statement alone.
rehearsal
A memory strategy in which one repeats a number of times the information one wants to remember, either mentally or orally.
script
A mental representation of an
event or situation of daily life, including the order in which things
are expected to happen and how one should behave in that event or
situation.
selective attention
A strategy in which one focuses on some features of the environment and ignores others.
semantic memory
All the world knowledge and facts a person possesses.
sensory register
The mental processing unit that takes information from the environment and stores it in original form for brief periods of time.
short-term, or working, memory
The mental processing unit in which information is stored temporarily;
the "work space" of the mind, where a decision is made to discard
information, work on it, or transfer it to permanent storage in long-term memory.
strategies
Conscious cognitive or behavioral activities used to enhance mental performance.
transitive inference
The mental arrangement of things along a quantitative dimension.
utilization deficiency
Inability to use a known memory strategy or to benefit from the use of such a memory strategy.
world knowledge
What a child has learned from experience and knows about the world in general.
achievement motivation
A person's tendency to strive for successful performance, to evaluate
her performance against standards of excellence, and to feel pleasure at
having performed successfully.
associative learning
According to Jen sen, lower level learning tapped in tests of such
things as short-term memorization and recall, attention, rote learning,
and simple associative skills. Also called level I learning.
Bayley Scales of Infant Development
A set of nonverbal tests that measure specific developmental milestones
and are generally used with children thought to be at risk for abnormal
development.
cognitive learning
According to Jensen, higher level learning tapped in tests of such
things as abstract thinking, symbolic processing, and the use of
language in problem solving. Also called level II learning.
congenital
Characteristic acquired during development in the uterus or during the birth process and not through heredity.
creativity
The ability to solve problems, create products, or pose questions in a way that is novel or unique.
culture-fair test
A test that attempts to minimize cultural biases in content that might influence the test taker's responses.
cumulative risk
The notion that risk factors in children's life circumstances have
cumulative negative effects on their intellectual performance.
deviation IQ
An IQ score that indicates the extent to which a person's performance on a test deviates from age-mates' average performance.
factor analysis
A statistical procedure used to
determine which of a number of factors, or scores, are both closely
related to each other and relatively independent of other groups of
factors, or scores.
Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence
A test of how infants process information, including encoding attributes
of objects and seeing similarities and differences across objects.
Flynn effect
Increase in the average IQ score
in the populations of the United States and other developed countries
since the early 1900s, a phenomenon identified by J. R. Flynn
general factor (g)
General mental ability involved in all cognitive tasks.
Head Start
A federally funded program that provides disadvantaged young children
with preschool experience, social services, and medical and nutritional
assistance.
inclusion
A policy by which children of all
ability levels, whether learning disabled, physically handicapped, or
mentally retarded, are included in the same classroom.
intellectual giftedness
A characteristic defined by an IQ score of 130 or over; gifted children
learn faster than others and may show early exceptional talents in
certain areas.
intelligence quotient (IQ)
An index of the way a person performs on a standardized intelligence test relative to the way others her age perform.
Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC)
An intelligence test designed to measure several types of information
processing skills as well as achievement in some academic subjects.
learning disabilities
Deficits in one or more cognitive processes important for learning.
mental age
An index of a child's actual performance on an intelligence test compared with his true age.
mental retardation
A characteristic defined by an IQ score below 70 together with
difficulty in coping with age-appropriate activities of everyday life.
psychometrician
A psychologist who specializes in
the construction and use of tests designed to measure various
psychological constructs such as intelligence and various personality
characteristics.
recovery
The ability to recognize a new stimulus as novel and to direct attention to it in preference to a familiar stimulus.
reliability
The degree to which a test yields consistent results over time or successive administrations.
specific factors (s)
Factors unique to particular cognitive tasks.
standardization
The process by which test
constructors ensure that testing procedures, instructions, and scoring
are identical, or as nearly so as possible, on every testing occasion.
Stanford-Binet Test
The modern version of the first major intelligence test; emphasizes verbal and mathematical skills.
stereotype threat
Being at risk of confirming a negative stereotype about the group to which one belongs.
successful intelligence
Ability to fit into, change, and choose environments that best fulfill
one's own needs and desires as well as the demands of one's society and
culture. Includes analytical, creative, and practical abilities.
tacit knowledge
Implicit knowledge that is shared by many people and that guides behavior.
test norms
Values, or sets of values, that describe the typical test performance of a specific group of people.
theory of multiple intelligences
Gardner's multifactorial theory that proposes eight distinct types of intelligence.
triarchic theory of intelligence
A theory that proposes three major components of intelligence:
information-processing skills, experience with a task, and ability to
adapt to the demands of a context.
two-generation program
A program of early cognitive intervention that extends help to parents as well as to their children.
validity
The extent to which a test actually measures what it claims to measure.
Wechsler Intelligence Scales
Three intelligence tests for preschool children, school-age children,
and adults that yield separate scores for verbal and performance IQ as
well as a combined IQ score.
authoritarian parenting
Parenting that is harsh, unresponsive, and rigid and in which parents tend to use power-assertive methods of control.
authoritative parenting
Parenting that is warm, responsive, and involved yet unintrusive and in
which parents set reasonable limits and expect appropriately mature
behavior from their children.
coparenting
Parenting in which spouses work
together as a team, coordinating their child-rearing practices with each
other; coparenting can be cooperative, hostile, or characterized by
different levels of investment in the parenting task.
extended family
A family that includes relatives such as grandparents, aunts, uncles,
nieces, and nephews within the basic family unit of parents and
children.
joint legal custody
A form of child custody in
which both parents retain and share responsibility for decisions
regarding the child's life, although the child usually resides with one
parent.
joint physical custody
As in joint legal custody, parents make decisions together regarding
their child's life, but they also share physical custody so that the
child lives with each parent for a portion of the year.
latchkey children
Children who must let themselves into their homes after school because one parent or both parents are working outside the home.
permissive parenting
Parenting that is lax and in which parents exercise inconsistent
discipline and encourage children to express their impulses freely.
sexual abuse
Inappropriate sexual activity
between an adult and a child for the perpetrator's pleasure or benefit;
the abuse may be direct (sexual contact of any type) or indirect
(exposing a child to pornography or to the live exhibition of body parts
or sexual acts).
Socialization
The process by which parents and others ensure that a child's standards
of behavior, attitudes, skills, and motives conform closely to those
deemed appropriate to her role in society.
traditional nuclear family
The traditional family form, composed of two parents and one or more
children, in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother the
homemaker.
uninvolved parenting
Parenting that is indifferent and neglectful and in which parents focus on their own needs rather than their children's needs.
Piaget used children's incorrect responses on tests as a basis for understanding how children think.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is referred to as a constructivist view.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Piaget believed that some children skip the concrete stage of cognitive development due to their high intellectual abilities.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Containment events and occlusion events are examples of event knowledge.
A)True
B)False
A)True
One of the preoperational child's major accomplishments is the acquisition of language.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Current research suggests that Piaget may have overestimated the timing or onset of children's cognitive abilities.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Vygotsky proposed that cognitive development is the result of children's
interactions with more experienced members of their cultural community.
A)True
B)False
A)True
According to Vygotsky, higher mental functions emerge spontaneously in children's interaction with the world.
A)True
B)False
B)False
When considering cognitive function, Vygotsky and Piaget had similar views on the importance of egocentric speech.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Vygotsky's theory emphasizes microgenetic change rather than ontogenetic change.
A)True
B)False
A)True
In Piaget's theory, an organized unit of knowledge is called a(n)
C) schema.
Two-year-old Miguel
visits the zoo for the first time. When passing the lion cage, Miguel
exclaims, "Kitty!" Miguel is demonstrating
D) assimilation
When a child adjusts an existing schemata to fit a new experience, the child is
A) accommodating.
Ray, age 5 months,
watches as Mom places his teddy bear beneath his blanket during a game
of peek-a-boo. Mom observes that Ray forgets about his bear if she
leaves it hidden for more than a few seconds. According to Piaget, Ray
has not yet developed
B) object permanence.
Alice's
3-month-old baby, Amy, finds sucking her fingers very pleasurable after
accidentally placing her hand in her mouth one day. Amy now prefers to
suck on her fingers instead of her pacifier. Amy is most likely in which
stage of development?
A) primary circular reactions
According to Piaget, in the substage called "coordination of secondary circular reactions" an infant is able to
.D)engage in internal problem solving.
A) plan deliberately to attain a goal.
One-year-old
Ashley continually drops objects from her highchair and appears to be
fascinated by watching the objects fall. Ashley is most likely at which
stage of Piaget's theory?
B) tertiary circular reactions
Which of the following is an example of a core knowledge system?
B) event knowledge
According to Piaget, the preconceptual substage is characterized by
C) animistic thinking.
Which of the following is a criticism of Piaget's three-mountains task?
C) The task of reconstructing the display may be beyond a young child's ability.
Three-year-old Kasey saw a tree with droopy leaves and commented that the tree was "tired." Kasey's thinking reflects
D) animistic thinking.
One
reason preoperational children are not able to solve conservation tasks
is that they focus on only one dimension of an object. Piaget referred
to this as
B) centration.
Researchers use a "false-belief task" to study which of the following?
A) theory of mind
According to Vygotsky, voluntary attention as well as logical and abstract thinking are part of
C) the zone of proximal development.
An application of Vygotsky's theory to enhance reading comprehension is called
C) reciprocal instruction.
Information-processing
theory assumes that children use the knowledge they have acquired from
earlier problem solving to modify responses to new problems.
A)True
B)False
A)True
We lose information from the sensory register within 15 to 30 seconds.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Connectionist models of human information processing are often referred to as neural networks.
A)True
B)False
A)True
The action-relevant features of objects are called affordances.
A)True
B)False
A)True
As children get older, they rely less on selective attention when they are learning new tasks.
A)True
B)False
B)False
One of the simplest strategies for memory recall is rehearsal.
A)True
B)False
A)True
It has been determined that young children do not use strategies to help them remember because of a mediational deficiency.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Autobiographical memory emerges in the early years of life and develops substantially over the preschool years.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Young children are less rigid in their applications of scripts than older children and adults.
A)True
B)False
B)False
The two components of metacognition are knowledge about knowing and control of cognitive functioning.
A)True
B)False
A)True
The sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory are all components of the
C) multistore model.
Parallel distributed processing is an essential part of which information-processing model?
A)multistore model
B)connectionist model
C)neo-Piagetian model
D)post-Vygotsky model
)connectionist model
The process of changing information into mental representations is called
B) encoding.
The first time Kendra
sees a dog, she notices that it has four legs. The second time she sees a
dog, she observes that it has a tail. The third time, she notices the
dog's tongue. This description of perceptual learning best fits
D) enrichment theory.
The perception of the invariant properties of objects and events is essential to the
A) differentiation view.
Why might 4-year-old Brianna not receive much educational benefit from the lessons Big Bird delivers on SESAME STREET?
C) She is more likely to pay attention to Big Bird's appearance than to what he is saying.
The textbook mentions each of the following as a memory strategy commonly used by adults EXCEPT
A) mediation.
Children's spontaneous use of organization to facilitate memory appears in
C) late elementary school.
A
memory strategy that involves adding to the information one wants to
remember in an effort to make the information more meaningful is called
D) elaboration.
Which of the following represents the correct sequence in the development of a cognitive map?
A) landmark knowledge, route knowledge, combine routes
Young children have trouble using symbolic representation because of their inability to
D) form a dual representation.
Researchers have used syllogisms to study
D) propositional reasoning.
Research using sequential touching has confirmed that infants have some knowledge of
B) class-inclusion relationships.
According to Gelman, if a child understands the cardinal principle of counting, then she understands that
A) a single number can be used to describe the total of a set.
According to the textbook, which one of the following is related to metacognition?
A) development of a theory of mind
Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence is an example of the factor analytic approach.
A)True
B)False
B)False
The Raven Progressive Matrices test was designed as a culture-fair test.
A)True
B)False
A)True
The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children uses mental age as a basis for estimating intelligence.
A)True
B)False
B)False
High-IQ children are likely to show greater amounts of change in their IQ test results over time than low-IQ children.
A)True
B)False
A)True
When mastery-oriented children perform poorly, they blame their own lack of ability for their performance.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Minority children are more likely to be inappropriately classified as mentally retarded than European-American children.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Non-genetic factors contribute about 20 percent of the variation in IQ scores.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Head Start children exhibit higher social skills than similar children who have not participated in the program.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Mental retardation is diagnosed by assessing the child's mental functioning and his or her adaptive behavior.
A)True
B)False
A)True
The creative person excels at divergent thinking while the intelligent person excels at convergent thinking.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Charles Spearman proposed that intelligence consists of
C) a general factor and a number of specific factors.
According to Sternberg, intelligence cannot be separated from the situation in which it is exercised. This is referred to as
C) context.
Sternberg (2001) found that salary and job performance of adult workers was predicted by
C) tacit knowledge.
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development consist of each of the following components EXCEPT
B) the reflex scale.
According to the Stanford-Binet Test, a child with a mental age of 10 and a chronological age of 8 would have an IQ of
C) 125.
The deviation IQ is a concept used by which intelligence test?
B) Wechsler Intelligence Scales
The extent to which a test produces consistent results is referred to as
A) reliability.
Which of the following involves correlating performance on a test with a criterion?
C) validity
Arthur Jensen suggests that intelligence is mainly due to
C) genetics.
Mercer's 1971 study of children and young adults with IQ scores below 70 found that
C) a majority of African-American and Latino children passed the test for adaptive skills.
Scarr and Weinberg's
(1976) study of African-American children who were adopted by
economically well-off European-American parents found that
A) children who were adopted at a younger age had higher IQ scores.
Research on parent-child
interactions has found that infants from which social class were most
likely to stop vocalizing and listen when their mothers spoke?
B) middle class
According to the textbook, the most successful cognitive intervention endeavors focus on
B) the parent-child relationship.
A general characteristic of gifted children is
A) efficient use of their cognitive skills.
Which of the following characterizes divergent thinking?
A) imaginative thinking
Boys are more susceptible to the negative effects of family disharmony than girls.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Authoritative parenting is correlated with the behavior of conflicted-irritable children.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Firstborn children are generally more self-controlled and studious than their siblings.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Being poor in early childhood is much more detrimental than being poor in middle childhood.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Maternal employment is negatively correlated to children's socioemotional development.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Children in well-functioning single-parent households are better adjusted than children in conflict-ridden nuclear families.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Divorce has more adverse consequences for young girls than young boys.
A)True
B)False
B)False
Adolescence triggers behavior problems in both boys and girls in divorced and remarried families.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Preschool children of teen mothers display higher levels of aggression and less ability to control impulse behavior.
A)True
B)False
A)True
Sexual abuse is more common in families who live in poverty.
A)True
B)False
B)False
According
to Baumrind, which of the following parenting styles is associated with
energetic-friendly children who generally exhibit positive development?
C) authoritative
According to the
ecological family system perspective, the ability of the family to adapt
to changes both inside and outside the system is referred to as
B) interdependency.
Under which family conflict resolution conditions did teachers rate children as tending to externalize problems?
A) when there is hostile interaction between parents
The birth of the first child
A) is associated with a shift toward a more traditional division of family roles.
According to Baumrind, permissive parenting is correlated with which type of child behavior?
C) impulsive-aggressive
According to the textbook, supporters of the status quo tend to be:
C) firstborn sons.
Since the early 1970s, the percentage of U.S. children living in poverty has
D) risen by more than 60 percent.
Research suggests that children perform best in school when achievement is supported both by the children's parents and
D) peers.
Which of the following characterizes the changing American family?
C) decrease in the average household size
Which parenting style is typical of stepfathers generally?
B) uninvolved
The
Terman study found that those who had experienced parental divorce in
childhood were adversely affected in which one of the following areas?
A) longevity
Following a divorce, the best predictor of children's adjustment is the
A) degree of parental conflict.
Which of the following is TRUE regarding parenting after the age of thirty?
B) Older fathers may be generally more involved in the parent role.
Which of the following is TRUE regarding teenage pregnancy and parenthood?
D) Adolescent children of teen mothers have higher rates of incarceration.
Two factors commonly seen in abuse of children are a distressed marriage and
D) the abuse of one of the marital partners by his or her own parents
