Development

Question 1

Nature

Answer 1

biologically determined maturation produces developmental change

Question 2

Nurture

Answer 2

experience with environment produces developmental change

Question 3

Sensitive Period

Answer 3

time window where “best” development occurs
nature sets time window, nurture provides experience

Question 4

Evidence for language sensitive period

Answer 4

Johnson & Newport - what age do u need to learn language to speak it like a native speaker - explored relationship between age of arrival in US and grammatical rules
found negative relationship - as age of arrival increases, knowledge of grammar decreases –> best to learn language before age 7

Question 5

Biology & Development relationship

Answer 5

biology influences development (nature) but experience (nurture) influences biology

Question 6

Greenough’s Rich Rat v. Poor Rat Study

Answer 6

rats in two environments - rich (enriched environment) and poor (basic cage, no toys)
found physical differences in brain - rich rats had more connections with neurons –> nurture influences biology

Question 7

Mozart Effect

Answer 7

all research done with adults, Mozart effect doesn’t replicate, normal environment provided by caring parents is “enriched”

Question 8

Studying development - dependent measures

Answer 8

in pre-verbal infants - for mom’s voice - poop, cry, eat (sucking), eye-movements –> infants can learn to suck more vigorously to hear Mom’s voice

Question 9

Studying development in vision

Answer 9

infants’ eyes will spend more time on novel things

Question 10

Speech perception

Answer 10

young infants can distinguish all phonemes (not just in native language), lose this ability around 1 year

Question 11

Motherese

Answer 11

infant-directed speech - attracts attention and exaggerates certain sounds so they’re easier to hear and distinguish

Question 12

13.5 months

Answer 12

first words

Question 13

25-36 months (2-3 years)

Answer 13

grammar - two word utterances (more juice), add plural (dogs), gets over-used (sheeps instead of sheep)

Question 14

regular vs. irregular verbs

Answer 14

conventional theories of language propose that our brains contain an explicit rule about the “-ed” rule, plus a list of exceptions

Question 15

past-tense learning - stage 1

Answer 15

age 1-3, children first learn a small number of verbs, most of which are irregular (come/came, go/went) - show no evidence of an explicit rule at this point

Question 16

past-tense learning - stage 2

Answer 16

age 3-5, children learn many regular verbs and appear to learn to “-ed” rule - can provide past tense for a new word & also regularize irregular verbs they previously used correctly (comed instead of came/goed instead of went)

Question 17

past-tense learning - stage 3

Answer 17

age 5-7, children finally use the correct regular and irregular forms

Question 18

Piaget’s processes for change

Answer 18

assimilation and accommodation

Question 19

assimilation

Answer 19

perceiving or thinking about new objects in terms of existing knowledge

Question 20

accommodation

Answer 20

changing knowledge based on new objects/events

Question 21

Piaget’s stage theory of development

Answer 21

• milestones for each stage, each stage is the foundation for the next
• each stage had a characteristic behavior
• not everyone agrees with Piaget but everyone tends to agree with his observations
• you must finish a stage before moving on to the next

Question 22

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 22

first stage - <2 years, has six substages, infant’s thoughts and actions are nearly identical, milestone is the object concept, (common sense beliefs about objects)

Question 23

object permanence

Answer 23

first part of object concept to develop
understanding objects continue to exist even when they cannot be perceived
- all infants under about 8 months fail object permanence if tested correctly

Question 24

A-not-B task

Answer 24

baby looks for object where they saw it placed, not last place they found it
- demonstrates lack of object permanence
- fail the task under about 12 months (they perseverate)
- appears to depend on development of the frontal lobes

Question 25

preoperational stage

Answer 25

2-7 years, emergence of symbolic thought, development of language as an example: word "explosion" - kids have problems with taking other perspectives --> they're egocentric - can't do mental manipulations

Question 26

Three-mountains task

Answer 26

child asked to describe viewpoints from other viewpoints - older kids know their perspective is different - demonstrates egocentrism

Question 27

conservation task

Answer 27

conservation - understanding that objects stay the same when superficial aspects changed eg. kids view same amount of water in different glasses as different amount of water OR five Xs spaced differently

Question 28

concrete operational stage

Answer 28

7-11 years, increase symbolic thought, kids can perform mental manipulations (operations) but only on physical objects - pass conservation tasks but still lack formal reasoning - transitivity - if A>B and B>C, then A>C - can only think about what they can see/see the world as they know it, can't use rational reasoning/abstract thought eg. tell kid feather breaks glass, they disagree from what they know, tell older kid, they can agree from what they were told

Question 29

formal operational stage

Answer 29

11+ years, ability to think abstractly - example "justice", "truth", algebra, etc. - counterfactual thinking - pinnacle of logical reasoning

Question 30

Vygotsky's Theory of Development

Answer 30

stresses importance of cultural and social factors in the development of thinking - the mind is constructed by social forces - addresses Piaget's shortcomings

Question 31

Vygotsky's two mechanisms for mental change

Answer 31

internalization and working within the zone of proximal development

Question 32

Internalization

Answer 32

social factors become part of the individual (modeling) - eg. learning to point, using a pencil

Question 33

working within the zone of proximal development

Answer 33

working on problems that you cannot solve but you're ready to learn, finding the right peer group - eg. Montessori schools - learning from those a little bit older than you - similar but they know more you can learn from

Question 34

language acquisition step 1

Answer 34

pre-linguistic 0-2 months - vegetative sounds: crying and other bodily sounds (crying, burping, lip smacking) - no linguistic meaning

Question 35

language acquisition step 2

Answer 35

cooing 2-4 months - vowel-like sounds, trills, and raspberries (high pitched) - can perceive and produce speech sounds (phonemes) of all languages - not just an imitation of adult speech developmental purpose: helps baby develop muscle control needed for true language

Question 36

language acquisition step 3

Answer 36

babbling 6-12 months 3 main stages - reduplicated: repeated consonant-vowel sounds (mamama, bababa, dadada - common first productions) - variegated (non-reduplicated): non-repeated consonant-vowel sounds (badada) can go back and forth between consonant sounds - jargon: starts to sound more like talking, uses prosody: intonation, timing, stress, still does not make sense, shows skills

Question 37

language acquisition step 4

Answer 37

one word utterances 9-18 months - holophrases: single word that expresses a complete thought (each word means different things - mom) - begin to make associations between words and objects - gain sensitivity to native phonemes but lose ability to perceive and produce non-native phonemes easily

Question 38

language acquisition step 5

Answer 38

two-word utterances 18-24 months - telegraphic speech: uses concise, command-type words and phrases (open door, want milk) - common errors at this stage - over-extension: uses a single word to cover many things (doggy for all 4-legged animals) - under-extension: uses a single word to refer to one specific item (doggy for just family dog) - over-regularization: extending regular grammar rules to irregular words (i goed)

Question 39

language acquisition step 6

Answer 39

multi-word 30+ months - children have tools needed for language (other skills are still learned later) - grammar and articulation errors are still common

Question 40

manual babbling

Answer 40

- deaf babies' signs approximate adult-like signs - children born deaf also babble vocally but dont progress without further past a certain point

Question 41

bilingualism

Answer 41

follows similar timeframe, better memory & process, cognitive function, self-control

Question 42

Theories for language acquisition

Answer 42

- Behavioral (Skinner) - Cognitive (Piaget) - Nativist (Chomsky) - Interactionist (Bruner/Vygotsky)

Question 43

Behavioral Theory

Answer 43

Skinner - language develops as a result of children imitating their caregivers or those around them - children are born as a "tabula rasa" (blank slate) - no innate ability to learn language on their own and use operant conditioning to develop language

Question 44

Cognitive Theory

Answer 44

Piaget - individuals have to understand a concept before they can use language to express it, as a child's brain develop, their language develops, children create schemas as they learn about the world - as we develop, our language develops

Question 45

Nativist Theory

Answer 45

Chomsky - language learning is innate and doesn't need to be learned from experience, language acquisition device (LAD): part of the brain that contains knowledge about language and grammar (not physical structure but result of multiple brain processes)

Question 46

Interactionist Theory

Answer 46

Vygotsky - recognizes we have a genetic predisposition to language learning (nativist) and that we need language exposure to acquire language (behaviorist)