Developmental Psychology

Achieve Test Prep: Developmental Psychology

legged animals ‘dogs’, even if they are not. Another preoperational characteristic is centration . Centration is the tendency to have ‘tunnel vision’, which means to only focus on one object or activity at a time and to be intensely attracted to it. Piaget studied children’s ability to reason and use logic. The principles of those studied are: • Conservation: The understanding that the amount or number is unaffected by the object’s shape or placement. o Classic conservation experiment: A child is presented with two short, wide glasses, each with the same volume of liquid. The child is then asked to pour the contents of one of the short glasses into a tall, slim glass. Due to the inability to demonstrate conservation, the child may assert that the tall glass has more liquid in it than the short glass because the level of liquid is higher. • Irreversibility: The inability of the child to understand that actions, when performed, can be undone to return to the original state.

o Classic irreversibility experiment: a child’s favorite toy is covered with a blanket. The child may not understand the toy is still there, just under the blanket, due to the inability to process irreversibility.

Language and Grammar: Lev Vygotsky refined the cognitive development work of Piaget, focusing more on language development. Vygotsky believed the people in a child’s life were influential for developing the child’s world and their language capabilities. He believed there were a few vital components for language development. • Private speech: o Talking to oneself

o Represents externalized thought, which leads to communication o Eventually becomes inaudible and turns into verbal thought

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): o Difference between what a child can do independently and what the child needs help with

o Children learn faster by pushing the boundaries of the ZPD o Typically children with wider zones are better able to learn

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