Development Psychology Chapter 9: Study Guide With Complete Solutions

As children move from the sensorimotor to the preoperational stage, the most obvious change is an extraordinary increase in__________________________. - ANSWER representational, or symbolic, activity. True or False: Piaget believed that language is the most important factor in cognitive development. - ANSWER False Piaget's view of make-believe as mere practice of representational schemes is regarded as too limited. Play not only reflects but also contributes to children's cognitive and social skills Important changes in make-believe play during early childhood. - ANSWER Play detaches from the real-life conditions associated with it. Play becomes less self-centered. Play includes more complex combinations of schemes. Give an example of the following important changes in make-believe play during early childhood - Play includes more complex combinations of schemes. - ANSWER Dwayne can pretend to drink from a cup, but he does not yet combine drinking with pouring. Later, children combine schemes with those of peers in sociodramatic play, the make-believe with others that is under way by the end of the second year and that increases rapidly in complexity during early childhood. Already, Sammy and his classmates can create and coordinate several roles in an elaborate plot. B y the end of the preschool years, children have a sophisticated understanding of role relationships and story lines. Give an example of the following important changes in make-believe play during early childhood - Play becomes less self-centered. - ANSWER At first, make-believe is directed toward the self. For example, Dwayne pretends to feed only himself. Soon, children begin to direct pretend actions toward objects, as when a child feeds a doll. Early in the third year, they become detached participants, making a doll feed itself or pushing a button to launch a rocket. Make-believe becomes less self-centered as children realize that agents and recipients of pretend actions can be independent of themselves. Give an example of the following important changes in make-believe play during early childhood - Play detaches from the real-life conditions associated with it. - ANSWER Children younger than age 2, for example, will pretend to drink from a cup but refuse to pretend a cup is a hat. They have trouble using an object (cup) that already has an obvious use as a symbol of another object (hat). After age 2, children pretend with less realistic toys—for example, a block for a telephone receiver. Gradually, they can flexibly imagine objects and events without support from the real world, as Sammy's imaginary control tower illustrates. sociodramatic play - ANSWER The make-believe with others that is under way by the end of the second year and that increases rapidly in complexity during early childhood. Summarize contributions of make-believe play to children's cognitive development. - ANSWER Make-believe strengthens a wide variety of mental abilities, including sustained attention, memory, logical reasoning, language and literacy. Summarize contributions of make-believe play to children's social development. - ANSWER Imagination, creativity, and the ability to reflect on one's own thinking, regulate one's own emotions and behavior, and take another's perspective True or False: Recent research indicates that the creation of imaginary companions is a sign of maladjustment. Explain your answer. - ANSWER False Children with an invisible playmate typically treat it with care and affection and say it offers caring, comfort, and good company, just as their real friendships do. Such children also display more complex and imaginative pretend play, are advanced in understanding others' viewpoints and emotions, and are more sociable with peers. Strategies for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play. - ANSWER Provide sufficient space and play materials. Encourage children's play without controlling it. Offer a variety of both realistic materials and materials without clear functions. Ensure that children have many rich, real-world experiences to inspire positive fantasy play. Help children solve social conflicts constructively. Strategy for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play - Provide sufficient space and play materials. - ANSWER Generous space and materials allow for many play options and reduce conflict. Strategy for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play - Offer a variety of both realistic materials and materials without clear functions. - ANSWER Children use realistic materials, such as trucks, dolls, tea sets, dress-up clothes, and toy scenes (house, farm, garage, airport) to act out everyday roles in their culture. Materials without clear functions (such as blocks, cardboard cylinders, paper bags, and sand) inspire fantastic role play, such as "pirate" and "creature from outer space." Strategy for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play - Ensure that children have many rich, real-world experiences to inspire positive fantasy play. - ANSWER Opportunities to participate in real-world activities with adults and to observe adult roles in the community provide children with rich social knowledge to integrate into make-believe. Restricting television viewing, especially programs with violent content, limits the degree to which violent themes and aggressive behavior become part of children's play. Strategy for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play - Help children solve social conflicts constructively. - ANSWER Cooperation is essential for sociodramatic play. Guide children toward positive relationships with agemates by helping them resolve disagreements constructively. For example, ask, "What could you do if you want a turn?" If the child cannot think of possibilities, suggest options, and assist the child in implementing them. Strategy for enhancing preschoolers' make-believe play - Encourage children's play without controlling it. - ANSWER Model, guide, and build on young preschoolers' play themes. Provide open-ended suggestions (for example, "Would the animals like a train ride?"), and talk with the child about the thoughts, motivations, and emotions of play characters. These forms of adult support lead to more elaborate pretending. Refrain from directing the child's play; excessive adult control destroys the creativity and pleasure of make-believe. dual representation - ANSWER The ability to view a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol. Difficulty with dual representation may contribute to 2-year-olds' scale errors—for example, attempts to put on dolls' clothes or sit in a doll-sized chair Factors that contribute to children's understanding of dual representation. - ANSWER Adults pointing out similiarities of models to real world examples. exposing young children to diverse symbols—picture books, photographs, drawings, make-believe, and maps—helps them appreciate that one object can stand for another Piaget described preschoolers in terms of what they (can / cannot) understand. Operations or mental actions that obey logical rules. - ANSWER Cannot egocentrism - ANSWER The inability to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of others from one's own. Piaget believed that this is is the most serious deficiency of preoperational thought. animistic thinking - ANSWER The preoperational belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, and intentions. conservation - ANSWER The idea that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes. At snack time, Sammy and Priti had identical boxes of raisins, but when Priti spread her raisins out on the table, Sammy was convinced that she had more. The inability to conserve highlights three aspects of preoperational children's thinking. List and describe them. - ANSWER First, their understanding is centered, or characterized by centration. They focus on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features. In conservation of liquid, the child centers on the height of the water, failing to realize that changes in width compensate for the changes in height. Second, children are easily distracted by the perceptual appearance of objects. Third, children treat the initial and final states of the water as unrelated events, ignoring the dynamic transformation( pouring of water) between them. irreversibility - ANSWER An inability to mentally go through a series of steps in a problem and then reverse direction, returning to the starting point. This is the most important illogical feature of preoperational thought. hierarchical classification - ANSWER p. 322) The organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences. What Piagetian task demonstrates limitation of hierarchical classification? - ANSWER Piaget's famous class inclusion problem demonstrates this. Preoperational children center on the overriding feature, red. They do not think reversibly, moving from the whole class (flowers) to the parts (red and blue) and back again. Challenges - ANSWER Current research (challenges / supports) Piaget's view of preschoolers as cognitively deficient. 2 examples of nonegocentric responses in preschoolers' everyday interactions. - ANSWER 4-year-olds show clear awareness of others' vantage points. Even 2-year-olds realize that what they see sometimes differs from what another person sees. When asked to help an adult look for a lost object, 24-month-olds—but not 18-month-olds—handed her a toy resting behind a bucket that was within their line of sight but not the adult's. Appear in young children's conversations. For example, preschoolers adapt their speech to fit the needs of their listeners. Four-year-olds use shorter, simpler expressions when talking to 2-year-olds than to agemates or adults.