CHAPTER 15: SLIDESHOW Flashcards
What does specialization allow for?
many new abilities
What does pruning do?
make connections more efficient
How are preschoolers’ problem solving skills affected?
by past sensory and motor experiences
Symbolic thought
the ability to use symbols (words, sounds, images, toys, household
items, etc.) to represent concrete things
How does pretend play develop and change?
- Symbol realism – go from objects that look very similar to the intended object to more abstract
representations - Context – go from more realistic contexts to less realistic concepts
- Roles – go from role-playing people who are very much like them to people who are very
different from them - Number of actions – go from one action to a sequence of actions
- Involvement of others – start pretend play alone, but will later play with other children or adults
Mental images
symbols of objects and past experiences that are stored in the mind, and function as a form
of mental representation
How do mental images function in preschoolers’ thinking?
- Memories are often stored as mental images
- Imagery is crucial to language meanings (semantics)
- Imagery is involved in spatial reasoning as a person “sees” how something would look if rotated,
turned over, or synthesized - Mental imagery plays a crucial role in inventive or creative thinking
How are preschooler drawings affected?
They become more realistic
How do preschoolers draw?
They draw first and decide what it means next
Memory capacity
refers to what a
person does with their memory, not how much is remembered.
Working memory
Improvements allow preschoolers to follow directions, connect events in stories, stay true to the
pretend roles they play, play games with several rules, and follow new sequences of rules
Long-term memory
- Explicit and implicit memories continue to form
- Develop episodic memory – the memory of personal experiences and events
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
The stage children reach before they acquire logical thinking skills, which Piaget
calls operations
How long does the preoperational stage last?
six years of childhood, beginning in the last year of
toddlerhood, extending through the preschool years, and ending after the first two school
years.
Preoperational substages
- The preconceptual substage
- The intuitive substage
Substage 1: Preconceptual/Symbolic
2-4 years
* Children start to develop and understand some concepts, but many are still incomplete or
illogical.
Substage 2: Intuitive
4-7 years
* A growth spurt in the brain helps preschoolers make a transition to the intuitive substage
* Brain pruning refines the sensory and motor skills developed earlier, memory and problem-
solving functions increase, and functional specialization and lateralization of the brain begin
toward the end of the intuitive substage.
* Children are sometimes able to grasp a problem’s solution by relying on their mental
imagery rather than using logical reasoning. By using their intuition, they “feel their way
through” problems instead of thinking logically about them
* Children can imagine new roles for themselves, understand how one factor affects another,
and use intuition to solve problems
Egocentrism
The preschooler’s belief that everyone thinks in the same way and has the same ideas as
they do
Egocentrism can lead preschoolers to…
- Think others like what they like
- Think others see objects the way they do
- Believe others understand what they’re thinking
Centration
Centering attention on only one part of an object or event instead of seeing all parts at the
same time
Transformations
sequences of changes
Why are transformations difficult for preschoolers?
Preschool children tend to focus on single steps, stages, or events, and may have difficulty
following transformations.
Reversibility
reversing transformations
Transductive reasoning
- Mentally linking events without a logical reason
- May lead to flaws in logic, such as overgeneralization
