Deck 9: Cognitive Development in Preschool Children

Question 1

Preoperational children's incorrect responses on conservation tasks are best explained by ________, which is characteristic of their thought.

A)egocentrism
B)deductive reasoning
C)centration
D)animism

Answer 1

centration

Question 2

Which of the following statements describes preoperational children's thought?

A)They do not confuse appearance and reality.
B)They may credit inanimate objects with lifelike properties.
C)They do not narrowly focus on one characteristic of a task.
D)Their thinking is not egocentric.

Answer 2

They may credit inanimate objects with lifelike properties.

Question 3

Piaget used ________ experiments to see whether children realized that characteristics of objects remained the same despite changes in physical appearance.

A)circular reaction
B)conservation
C)deductive reasoning
D)equilibration

Answer 3

conservation

Question 4

________ would best explain why Joey thinks that when he sees Winnie the Pooh on TV and shows him a picture that Winnie the Pooh can see the picture just like he can.

A)Centration
B)Animism
C)Appearance as reality
D)Egocentrism

Question 5

Believing that inanimate objects have life-like properties is a phenomenon called

A)egocentrism.
B)animism.
C)centration.
D)conservation.

Question 6

Juliann is 4 years old. If she is like most 4-year-olds, her naïve theory of biology will include the belief that

A)animals can move by themselves but inanimate objects can only be moved by other people or objects.
B)both animals and inanimate objects grow bigger and physically more complex.
C)the insides of both animate and inanimate objects contain the same kinds of materials.
D)when inanimate objects get damaged, they will heal by themselves, but when animate things are injured they must be fixed by humans.

Question 7

________ is like tunnel vision.

A)Egocentrism
B)Symbolic processing
C)Centration
D)Animism

Question 8

Many 4-year-olds believe that

A)inanimate objects move by themselves.
B)inanimate objects cannot heal themselves.
C)inanimate objects can grow.
D)the internal parts of animate and inanimate objects are the same.

Question 9

The inability of the young child to grasp the fact that his or her view of the world, both literally and figuratively, might be one of many is known as

A)animism.
B)conservation.
C)egocentrism.
D)intellectual realism.

Question 10

Nicole is shown two rows of eight chips. In one row the chips are spread far apart. In the other row, the chips are closer together. If Nicole is in Piaget's preoperational stage, how would she respond if asked which row has more chips?

A)Nicole would say that the spread out row had more chips.
B)Nicole would say that the row where the chips were close together had more chips.
C)Nicole would say that both rows had the same number of chips.
D)Nicole would refuse to answer the question.

Question 11

Piaget's ________ stage is characterized by the child's use of symbols to represent objects and events.

A)formal operational
B)sensorimotor
C)concrete operational
D)preoperational

Question 12

Five-year-old Derek tends to confuse appearance and reality. He is most likely in Piaget's ________ stage of cognitive development.

A)preoperational
B)formal operational
C)concrete operational
D)sensorimotor

Question 13

DeLoache, Miller, & Rosengren (1997) had 2½-year-olds and 3-year-olds watch an adult hide a toy in a full-size room, then asked them to try to find the toy in a scale model of the room. They found that

A)neither the 2½-year-olds nor the 3-year-olds could find the toy in the scale model.
B)only the 2½-year-olds could find the toy in the scale model.
C)only the 3-year-olds could find the toy in the scale model.
D)both the 2½-year-olds and the 3-year-olds could find the toy in the scale model.

Question 14

One cold winter morning, the family car won't start. Marie, a 4-year-old, says that the car "is too tired to start." This illustrates

A)animism.
B)symbolic thought.
C)egocentrism.
D)reversibility.

Question 15

In a conservation of liquid experiment, Victoria is shown two identical beakers filled with the same amount of juice. The juice from one of the beakers is poured into a taller, thinner beaker. Victoria now says that there is more juice in the tall, thin beaker than in the original beaker. Victoria appears to be in Piaget's ________ stage of cognitive development.

A)preoperational
B)concrete operational
C)sensorimotor
D)formal operational

Question 16

Centration is characterized by

A)difficulty in seeing the world from another's outlook.
B)crediting inanimate objects with lifelike properties.
C)believing an object's appearance tells what the object is really like.
D)focusing on one aspect of a problem while ignoring other relevant aspects of the problem.

Question 17

When preoperational children are asked to identify different perspectives of model mountains on a table, which of the following characteristics of preoperational thought do they demonstrate?

A)egocentrism
B)animism
C)centration
D)intellectual realism

Question 18

Timmy, who is in Piaget's preoperational stage, was told a story in which a person felt sad but looked happy. When Timmy was asked whether the person in the story was really happy or sad, Timmy would probably say that the person was

A)happy.
B)sad.
C)both happy and sad.
D)confused.

Question 19

Four-year-old Natasha saw her mother put on a witch costume at Halloween and became frightened, refusing to go anywhere near her. Natasha's sudden fear of her mother, whom she normally loves to be around, is best explained by which characteristic of preoperational thinking?

A)egocentrism
B)appearance as reality
C)centration
D)animism

Question 20

According to Piaget, preschoolers are in the ________ period of cognitive development.

A)preoperational
B)concrete operational
C)sensorimotor
D)formal operational

Question 21

Which of the following statements about children's attention is true?

A)Younger children are as likely as older children to remind themselves that they need to pay attention.
B)Younger children know fewer attentional "tricks of the trade" than older children.
C)Younger and older children are equally distracted by extraneous information.
D)When asked whether two objects are the same, younger children are more likely than older children to compare the objects feature by feature.

Question 22

Which of the following best targets autobiographical memory?

A)asking who, what, where, when, why
B)listing events in chronological order
C)describing your inner speech
D)removing the individual from the situation

Question 23

How accurate is the counting of preschoolers?

A)no mistakes
B)few mistakes
C)many mistakes
D)there are too many individual differences to be able to make a generalization about preschooler counting

Question 24

According to Gelman & Meck (1986), the one-to-one principle, the stable-order principle, and the cardinality principle are usually mastered by

A)five months of age.
B)one year of age.
C)three years of age.
D)five years of age.

Question 25

Autobiographical memory typically begins in

A)infancy.
B)the preschool years.
C)the school-age years.
D)adolescence.

Question 26

When Dan sees three objects, sometimes he counts them as "1, 2, 5" and other times as "2, 1, 5." Dan

A)appears to have mastered the one-to-one principle and the stable-order principle.
B)appears to have mastered the one-to-one-principle but not the stable-order principle.
C)appears to have mastered the stable-order principle but not the one-to-one principle.
D)does not appear to have mastered the one-to-one principle or the stable-order principle.

Question 27

A developmental psychologist is most likely to use a false belief task to study

A)theory of mind.
B)egocentrism.
C)animism.
D)attention.

Question 28

The ________ principle states that number names must be counted in the same order.

A)stable-order
B)cardinality
C)one-to-one
D)propositions

Question 29

Research on attention in preschoolers in which children's focused attention was evaluated while they watched a puppet show or while they engaged in free play, indicated that

A)younger and older preschoolers did not differ in their focused attention in either the puppet show or free play settings.
B)older preschoolers showed more focused attention in the puppet show setting, but did not show more focused attention in the free play setting.
C)older preschoolers showed more focused attention in the free play setting, but did not show more focused attention in the puppet show setting.
D)older preschoolers showed more focused attention in both the free play and puppet show settings.

Question 30

According to what we know about theory of mind, at 3 years of age children do not

A)understand that they and other people have desires.
B)understand that desires can cause behaviour.
C)emphasize desires when trying to explain other people's behaviour.
D)understand that other people's behaviour is based on beliefs.

Question 31

Four-year-old Ashton and three-year-old William are each given a false belief task. They have accurate information about where a toy is (they know it's in a toy-box) but a girl in a story does not (she thinks the toy is under a bed). If they are asked where the girl in the story will look for the toy,

A)they will both say the girl will look in the toy-box.
B)they will both say the girl will look under the bed.
C)Ashton will say the girl will look in the toy-box, but William will say under the bed.
D)Ashton will say the girl will look under the bed, but William will say in the toy-box.

Question 32

Your sister has decided to take your 2½-year-old niece, Carrie, and your 4-year old niece, Jadine, to see a puppet show. You have just read about the study on children's focused attention and active inattention while watching a puppet show and during free play, so you decide to use their findings to predict your nieces' behaviour during the show. What would you be most likely to say?

A)"Even if they like the show, Carrie and Jadine will probably spend less than half the time with their attention focused on the show."
B)"Jadine will probably pay attention close to 100 percent of the time, but Carrie will pay attention less than half the time."
C)"Both Carrie and Jadine will probably both be focused on the show for close to 100 percent of the time."
D)"Carrie will probably pay attention close to 100 percent of the time, but Jadine is not likely to pay attention for even half the time."

Question 33

________ refer(s) to people's memory of the significant events and experiences of their own lives.

A)Infantile amnesia
B)Inner speech
C)Egocentrism
D)Autobiographical memory

Question 34

At what age to children begin to count?

A)1 year
B)2 years
C)3 years
D)4 years

Question 35

The one-to-one principle states

A)that the last number name differs from the previous ones in a counting sequence by denoting the number of objects.
B)that number names must be counted in the same order.
C)that there must be one and only one number name for each object that is counted.
D)the conventional sequence of the number names.

Question 36

Ten-year-old John remembers his first day of kindergarten, the day he met his best friend in grade school, and the day he was selected to play on the travel soccer team. This information is part of his

A)theory of mind.
B)inner speech.
C)autobiographical memory.
D)egocentrism.

Question 37

A person's beliefs about connections between thoughts and behaviour are central to

A)Piaget's theory.
B)the theory of mind.
C)information processing theories.
D)Vygotsky's theory.

Question 38

Katy has trouble keeping her attention on a task. What might help Katy improve her attention?

A)Remove all objects that are not necessary for the task.
B)Play some music while Katy is working on her task.
C)Stop reminding her about staying on task and expect her to be responsible for paying attention on her own.
D)Invite some other children to sit at the table and keep her company while she works.

Question 39

Who has mastered the stable-order principle?

A)Jacob, who sometimes counts five objects as "1, 2, 4, 5, 6" and other times as "1, 2, 3, 5, 7"
B)Will, who always counts five objects as "1, 2, 5, 7, 8"
C)Nate, who consistently counts five objects as "1, 2, 3, 4, 5"
D)Both Will and Nate.

Question 40

________ is the process by which we select information that will be processed further.

A)Habituation
B)Orienting response
C)Attention
D)Differentiation

Question 41

The ________ principle is illustrated by a child who counts a set of Star Wars figures "1, 2, 5, 8 . . . Eight! There are eight Star Wars figures!"

A)cardinality
B)stable-order
C)one-to-one
D)addition

Question 42

Which of the following is positively related to the size of a child's vocabulary?

A)having parents who speak to the child infrequently
B)having parents who read books with them
C)having parents who rarely ask their children questions
D)viewing cartoons on television

Question 43

The view of development as an apprenticeship is part of

A)Piaget's theory.
B)neo-Piagetian theories.
C)the naïve theory of psychology.
D)Vygotsky's theory.

Question 44

Bilingual children

A)have lower IQ scores than monolingual children.
B)do not understand the fine points of grammar as well as monolingual children.
C)are at a linguistic disadvantage when they begin elementary school.
D)are more likely than monolingual children to understand that words are simply arbitrary symbols.

Question 45

What was the main finding of the research on Vygotsky by Jamieson (1995) at the University of British Columbia?

A)deaf children use private speech in sign language
B)only deaf children with deaf mothers use private speech in sign language
C)very few children use private speech
D)only hearing children use private speech

Question 46

Private speech

A)eventually becomes inner speech.
B)involves talking aloud to others.
C)is more likely to occur while performing easy tasks than difficult tasks.
D)is the amount of assistance given that exceeds the amount that the child needs.

Question 47

When Lydia first used a computer, her teacher gave her a great deal of assistance. As Lydia has developed greater expertise in her computing skills, her teacher has given her less and less assistance, providing pointers only as needed. The change in the amount of assistance that Lydia's teacher has provided is an illustration of

A)scaffolding.
B)accommodation.
C)private speech.
D)the theory of mind.

Question 48

Nicole who lives in Quebec, Canada, is being reared in a home where both English and French are spoken. She is likely to

A)learn language at the same rate as a child who is learning only one language.
B)learn language more slowly at first because she will mix words from the two languages but will be as proficient or better in language skill than monolingual children later in childhood.
C)learn language more quickly at first because she is exposed to more words but have less proficient language skills than monolingual children later in childhood.
D)be delayed in her language growth throughout infancy and childhood.

Question 49

When 6-year-old Josie does a craft project on her own, she can do very simple projects successfully. However, when her mother helps her, she can complete much more elaborate projects successfully. The difference between what Josie can do on her own and what she can do with her mother's help is indicative of her

A)theory of mind.
B)preoperational thought.
C)semantic bootstrapping hypothesis.
D)zone of proximal development.

Question 50

Which child appears to have mastered the cardinality principle?

A)Kelsey, who always counts three cars as "1, 2, 3"
B)Casey, who consistently counts three cars as "10, 9, 8"
C)Jenny, who sometimes counts three cars as "1, 2"
D)Haley, who counts three cars as "1, 5, 6 ... SIX CARS!"

Question 51

The zone of proximal development refers to

A)the highest level of achievement a child can reach without assistance.
B)the difference between what a child can do with and without help.
C)a teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learner's need.
D)comments not intended for others but intended to help children regulate their own behaviour.

Question 52

Who is most likely to use telegraphic speech?

A)9-month-old Linda
B)18-month-old Lorna
C)3-year-old Lucinda
D)5-year-old Louisa

Question 53

According to the ________ principle, the last number name differs from the previous ones in a counting sequence by denoting the number of objects.

A)stable-order
B)propositional
C)cardinality
D)one-to-one

Question 54

All of the following are how-to-count principles described by Gelman & Meck (1986) except

A)one-to-one.
B)stable-order.
C)addition.
D)cardinality.

Question 55

________ consists only of words directly relevant to meaning.

A)Semantic bootstrapping
B)A grammatical morpheme
C)Overregularization
D)Telegraphic speech

Question 56

According to Vygotsky, development is optimal when

A)the child learns independently.
B)a child is guided by someone with more skill.
C)someone with more skill does not interfere by trying to structure a task for the child.
D)the amount of assistance given exceeds the amount that the child needs.

Question 57

When is a child most likely to use private speech?

A)on a difficult task
B)on an easy task
C)after a correct response
D)after developing expertise on a task

Question 58

________ refers to a teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learner's needs.

A)The zone of proximal development
B)Private speech
C)Scaffolding
D)Hypothetical reasoning

Question 59

You are on a committee formed to make a recommendation to a school system about how to best help non-English-speaking children master both academic content and English. Based on research in this area, what language would you recommend be used for instruction?

A)English only
B)the children's native language only
C)both English and the children's native language
D)either English or the children's native language-it doesn't matter which one is used

Question 60

Which of the following statements is true regarding the influence of the environment on language development?

A)The frequency of parental speech is not related to the size of a child's vocabulary.
B)Naming objects that are the focus of a child's attention is not related to word learning.
C)Children who are passively exposed to television shows such as cartoons have larger vocabularies than other children.
D)Questioning children while reading to them forces them to identify the meanings of new words.

Question 61

Learning theorists propose that

A)language is learned through imitation and reinforcement.
B)children have an inborn mechanism to help them learn grammar.
C)there is a critical period for learning language.
D)grammatical rules are too complex for children to infer solely on the basis of speech they hear.

Question 62

Which of the following grammatical forms have most children mastered by the time they enter kindergarten?

A)forming sentences with the required auxiliary verb before the subject
B)using negation
C)using embedded sentences
D)Children have usually mastered all of the above grammatical forms by the time they enter kindergarten.

Question 63

Children use rules such as "agent + action," "action + object," "action + location," and "attribute + entity" to

A)form grammatical morphemes.
B)form two-word sentences.
C)use semantic bootstrapping.
D)produce overregularizations.

Question 64

Which child showed overregularization?

A)Rachel, who said "I goed to the store"
B)Whitney, who said "Me go"
C)Clarissa, who said "I went to the store"
D)Isabelle, who said "I go to the store every day"

Question 65

Research in which chimpanzees are trained to use language reveals all of the following except that

A)chimpanzees can be taught to communicate using gestures.
B)chimpanzees can communicate using plastic chips as words.
C)chimpanzees cannot master anything beyond the simplest of grammatical rules.
D)acquisition of language by humans need not involve any innate mechanisms.

Question 66

Which of the following statements reflects how children acquire grammar?

A)Children learn grammar by means of reinforcement and imitation.
B)The human brain is not specialized to process language.
C)Humans seem to be innately prepared to process language and learn grammar.
D)Language can be acquired easily at any time during one's life.

Question 67

The production of two-word speech

A)usually occurs around the first birthday.
B)is haphazard and is not based on any rules.
C)follows rules that are very different from language to language.
D)is often called telegraphic speech.

Question 68

Which of the following is an example of overregularization?

A)mans
B)women
C)children's
D)mice

Question 69

Children's use of grammatical morphemes is based primarily on

A)learning individual words.
B)the use of rules.
C)inflection.
D)telegraphic speech.

Question 70

Berko's classic study in which she showed children a nonsense object labeled a "wug" and then presented the child with a picture of two of these objects to see how the child would supply the plural form of "wug" demonstrated that preschool

A)children's use of grammatical morphemes is based on rules.
B)children do not use inflection.
C)children's language is not based on memory for individual words.
D)children acquire a rule for using "un + verb" to reverse or stop the action of a verb.

Question 71

Dr. White is a learning theorist who believes that language is learned purely through imitation and reinforcement. Which of the following would she have the most difficulty explaining?

A)Children learn the language that is spoken by their family members rather than a different language.
B)Children produce many more sentences than they have ever heard.
C)Children eventually learn to avoid overregularization.
D)Children learn words more rapidly if their parents speak to them frequently.

Question 72

________ occurs when children apply rules to words that are exceptions to the rule.

A)An underextension
B)An overextension
C)Overregularization
D)Semantic bootstrapping

Question 73

When Angela says "Me down" instead of "I would like to get down," she is using

A)overregularization.
B)a grammatical morpheme.
C)telegraphic speech.
D)underextension.

Question 74

Which of the following is an example of telegraphic speech?

A)"Baby hungry"
B)the "ing" in "kicking"
C)using the word "car" to refer to trucks, vans, and automobiles
D)using the word "dog" to refer only to the family dog

Question 75

The order in which children acquire grammatical morphemes depends on

A)the complexity of the morpheme, with the acquisition of simpler morphemes occurring before that of more complex morphemes.
B)the frequency of occurrence of the morpheme in the language.
C)the frequency with which children's parents use the morpheme.
D)the age at which children begin speaking.

Question 76

Children's first questions

A)are marked by intonation alone.
B)are formed by attaching a wh- word to the beginning of the sentence without the required auxiliary verb.
C)are formed by attaching a wh- word and the required auxiliary verb to the beginning of a sentence.
D)are formed haphazardly in forms that cannot be predicted.

Question 77

A child who says "I am eating my lunch" instead of "Me eat" is using

A)telegraphic speech.
B)overextension.
C)overregularization.
D)grammatical morphemes.

Question 78

________ are words or endings of words (such as -ed or -ing) that make a sentence grammatical.

A)Overextensions
B)Underextensions
C)Grammatical morphemes
D)Overregularizations

Question 79

Which would occur first in language development?

A)comprehension of passive sentences
B)use of negation
C)use of intonation to indicate a question
D)use of embedded sentences

Question 80

Which grammatical morpheme would you expect a child to learn last?

A)adding -ed to indicate past tense
B)adding -s to indicate plural
C)adding -ing to denote ongoing action
D)the various forms of the verb to be