Question 1

Some have argued that the differences in Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories can be traced back to their personal lives and childhood. For example:

Accepted Answer

DC) Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the importance of social interaction in learning, which could be influenced by his warm and involved family environment.D) Piaget's focus on the role of the family and personal interactions in cognitive development could be influenced by his role as a primary caregiver to his children, reflecting his personal life experiences.

Question 2

Vygotsky asserted that children learn skills:

Accepted Answer

Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the importance of social interaction and the role of more knowledgeable others in facilitating learning, which is encapsulated in the concept of guided participation.

Question 3

Parents often include children in family activities in which children receive a lot of support from parents. As the child develops the parents offer less and less support in family activities. This pattern of support is known as:

Accepted Answer

Scaffolding is a process where a more knowledgeable other provides supports to help a learner achieve something they would not be able to do on their own. As the learner's skills improve, the support is gradually removed. This concept is often applied in educational contexts and is also relevant to how parents support their children's development in various activities.

Question 4

Two-year-old Sammy helps his mother make cookies by standing on a chair and helping to mix the dough. At 4, he is able to pour in the ingredients and shape the cookies on the pan. At 6, he helps read the recipe and measure the ingredients. By the time he is 8, he only needs help using the oven. This pattern of parental support is known as:

Accepted Answer

This pattern of parental support is known as scaffolding, where the parent provides gradually decreasing support as the child becomes more capable of performing a task independently.

Question 5

Children's use of language to plan their own behavior, especially when undertaking difficult tasks, is known as:

Accepted Answer

Private speech is the use of language by children to plan and regulate their own behavior, especially during challenging tasks. It's a concept closely associated with Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development, where children talk to themselves to guide their actions and thoughts.

Question 6

The distance between what children can do independently and what they can do with assistance is known as:

Accepted Answer

The zone of proximal development is a concept introduced by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky, which refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Question 7

Joyce wants to encourage play in the zone of proximal development for her nephew. Which present should she get him?

Accepted Answer

The zone of proximal development refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Therefore, a science kit that the nephew cannot do alone but could manage with his mother's help is the best choice to encourage play within this zone.

Question 8

Jayne is learning to tie her shoes. Her mother sees her attempt to tie her shoes and hears her saying, "pull the strings tight. Make a loop. Twist it around and Pull!" This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

The answer of Jayne is learning to tie her shoes....

Question 9

An educational technique in which children work in small groups to solve problems or complete tasks is known as:

Accepted Answer

Cooperative learning is the educational approach where students work in small groups to solve problems or complete tasks, emphasizing collaboration and mutual support among group members.

Question 10

Vygotsky believed that when children worked on problems in small groups:

Accepted Answer

Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the social context of learning and suggests that children learn effectively through interactions with more knowledgeable others, including peers. Working in small groups allows for this kind of interaction, where children can challenge each other's understanding and collaboratively solve problems, leading to better outcomes than individual efforts.

Question 11

After working in small groups with other children, an individual child will:

Accepted Answer

Collaborative learning in small groups allows children to learn from each other, share ideas, and tackle more complex problems than they might be able to on their own. This interaction often leads to improved understanding and the ability to engage in more advanced work.

Question 12

Throughout the preschool period, most children learn:

Accepted Answer

During the preschool years, children experience a rapid expansion of their vocabularies, learning about five new words a day on average. This period is marked by significant language development, allowing children to acquire new words quickly through direct teaching, context clues, and incidental learning.

Question 13

If you point to a car and say "car," a child will understand that is the word for car and not of the wheels. This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

The whole object assumption is a language acquisition principle where children assume that a word refers to the whole object, not its parts, actions, or other properties. When a child hears "car" and understands it refers to the entire car rather than just the wheels, it exemplifies this principle.

Question 14

If you point to a novel object on top of a truck and say "zipple," a child will know the name applies to the novel object and not the known object. This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

The mutual exclusivity bias is a cognitive bias that leads children to assume that each object has one and only one name. When they hear a new word, they tend to map it to an unknown object rather than one that already has a name. This is why in the scenario, the child assumes "zipple" refers to the novel object on the truck, rather than the truck itself, which is likely a known object to the child.

Question 15

Sarah says, "The duck has two feets." This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

The answer of Sarah says, "The duck has two feets."...

Question 16

Children's ability to use the grammatical information in language to help them work out the most likely meanings of new words is known as:

Accepted Answer

Syntactic bootstrapping is the process by which children use the grammatical structure of whole sentences to infer the meaning of new words, particularly the roles that these new words play within the sentence. This ability helps them understand the likely meanings of words they haven't encountered before based on how those words are used grammatically.

Question 17

The word cat can be made plural by adding an -s. This grammatical distinction is known as:

Accepted Answer

A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. In the case of making "cat" plural by adding an "-s," the "-s" is a morpheme that changes the word's meaning to indicate more than one, which is a fundamental aspect of morphological grammar rules.

Question 18

Children's ability to use word meanings to help them work out the most likely grammatical structure of new utterances is known as:

Accepted Answer

Semantic bootstrapping is the process by which children use the meanings of words to infer their grammatical roles and the structure of sentences.

Question 19

Most children have accomplished nearly all of the grammatical distinctions of their language by:

Accepted Answer

By the age of 5 years, most children have mastered the basic grammatical structures of their native language. This rapid acquisition of language skills is a hallmark of early childhood development.

Question 20

Adults who learned English as a second language make fewer grammatical errors if they learned English:

Accepted Answer

Adults who learned English in early childhood are more likely to have a native-like command of the language, including making fewer grammatical errors, due to the critical period hypothesis which suggests that language acquisition is significantly easier in early childhood.

Quiz 8: Cognitive Development