Deck 6: C: Theories of Cognitive Development

Question 1

Distinguish between assimilation and accommodation and give an example of each.

Answer 1

A good answer will be similar to the following:
· Assimilation occurs when new experiences are readily incorporated into existing schemes. For example, if a child has a scheme for "children I play with at school" and meets a new student, the child might begin to play with the new student at recess and put the new student into the pre-existing scheme of "children I play with at school."
· Accommodation occurs when schemes are modified based on experience. To use the same example of a scheme "children I play with at school," the first time a child invites a school friend home to play, she might modify her scheme to "children I play with at school and at home."

Question 2

What are some commonly accepted weaknesses of Piaget's theory?

Answer 2

A good answer will include the following key points:
·Piaget's theory underestimates cognitive competence in infants and young children and overestimates cognitive competence in adolescents.
·Piaget's theory is vague with respect to processes and mechanisms of change.
·Piaget's stage model does not account for variability in children's performance.
·Piaget's theory undervalues the influence of the sociocultural environment on cognitive development.

Question 3

Compare and contrast the information-processing approach and Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Answer 3

A good answer will be similar to the following:
·Piaget's theory is a single comprehensive theory whereas information processing (IP) represents a general approach encompassing many different theories.
·Piaget's theory is more comprehensive than IP. It links different facets of cognitive development.
·The information-processing approach describes specific components of cognition more precisely than does Piaget's approach.
·Piaget's theory emphasizes the "whole" of cognition while IP emphasizes the "parts."
·Piaget's theory emphasizes periodic, qualitative changes in cognition whereas IP emphasizes gradual, continuous, quantitative changes in cognition.
·Piaget's theory has stages, but IP does not.

Question 4

You are the parent of two young children, ages four and six years. They have been playing outside and they come running inside asking for a drink. All of the drinking glasses in the house, except two, are dirty. One of these glasses is tall and narrow and the other is short and squat. You KNOW that your children will argue with each other if one thinks that the other child is getting more to drink. Based on your knowledge of conservation of liquid in preoperational children, what should you do to avoid an argument? Explain your answer.

Question 5

Describe the ways Vygotsky's perspective can be implemented in classrooms.

Question 6

What are five forms of developmental change that occur with age proposed by information-processing theorists?

Question 7

Describe three characteristics of preoperational thinking.

Question 8

Name and briefly describe the key elements of children's naïve theories of biology:

Question 9

You have been watching your friend Deb trying to teach her son Sean how to do a puzzle. Sean has done this puzzle many times and he usually just needs help with the pieces that are in a difficult area that is all black. Deb is trying to help Sean but her instructions would be appropriate for a child who has never done the puzzle before. What can you tell Deb about Vygotsky's theory, in general, and scaffolding, in particular, that might help her teach Sean in more effective ways?

Question 10

Explain the change in behaviour on the false-belief task that occurs from three and a half years of age to four years. Is this pattern of behaviour more typical of North American children?

Question 11

Name and describe the four stages of Piaget's theory.

Question 12

Name and describe the three components of mental hardware.

Question 13

Your friend Andre is the father of a 12-month-old daughter, Brooke. Mealtime has become a very frustrating time for Andre because Brooke repeatedly pushes her sippy cup and different foods that she is eating off the high chair and onto the floor. The first time that she did this it appeared to Andre that it was an accident but now he is convinced that his daughter is deliberately pushing her cup and food onto the floor to annoy him. Based on what you know about infants being active experimenters, what can you tell Andre that might make him feel better?

Question 14

Recently your friend Martha took her sons to a hands-on children's museum. Martha noticed that her eight-year-old son and her 12-year-old son interacted with some of the displays in very different ways. One display involved opening doors to safes by determining the correct combination. Each safe had three, four, or five buttons that had to be pressed in a particular order to open the door. Martha's eight-year-old son randomly pushed the buttons and never found the correct combinations to any of the safes. Martha's 12-year-old son approached the task in a very systematic manner, trying all possible combinations of buttons until the doors opened. Now Martha is concerned that there is something wrong with her younger son. What can you tell Martha about the differences in concrete operational and formal operational thought that might explain her sons' behaviour?