Piagetian+Important+Terms+or+Vocabulary

Please provide a definition of the term, preferably in your own words, and an applied example.

1. **Assimilation** The part of adaptation where we take what we already know about our ideas, "schemes," to use for interpretation of our external world. (we apply already known ways of understanding the world to solve a new problem.) Example: A child knows that a ball is capable of rolling and bouncing. He borrows his friend's ball and rolls and bounces it to him. Play is important for assimilation.

2. **Accommodation** The part of adaptation in which new ideas, "schemes," are created or old ones are adjusted after noticing that our current ways of thinking do not fit the environment completely. (we alter our theories about the world to fit new data.) Example: A child knows that a ball is capable of rolling and bouncing. When the child sees a round glass object that looks like a ball, they think that it is also capable of rolling and bouncing. When they try rolling or bouncing the glass object and it breaks, they have now learned that some round things, such as glass, are not capable of rolling and/or bouncing, but are breakable instead. Example: Realizin that a cat fits into a different category than a dog.

3. **Equilibration** Coming to a balance between assimilation and accomodation. When children are not changing very much, they assimilate more than they accommodate to achieve a cognitive equilibrium.

Childrens make-believe play with others Strengthens child's attention span, memory, logical reasoning, language, literacy, imagination, and creativity Play becomes increasingly detached from the real-life conditions associated with it- early pretending toddlers use realistic objects ex: toy telephone to talk into or cup to drink from, becomes less self-centered- early in 3rd year children become detached participants ex: making a doll feed itself if become less self centered as children realize that agents and recipients of pretend actions can be independent of themselves, and includes more complex combinations of schemes- at 21/2 sociodramatic play increases; children have sophisticated understanding of role relationships and story lines. Example: Two children are pretending that they are veterinarians by taking care of a "sick" dog. More than one child playing house and one cooking food for the others.
 * 4. Sociodramatic play ** (development and benefits)

5. **Dual representation** Viewing symbolic objects as both an object in its own right and as a symbol for something else Example: A doll house can be a doll house but it can also be a symbol of a real house for humans Usually mastered at age 3. First with pictures and then later with models.

6. **Egocentrism** Failure to distinguish symbolic view points of others from their own. meaning they can't give you what the person standing on the opposite side of 3 different colored and sized mountains would see. Example: having the first mountain with a house on it, having a 2nd mountain with a cross on it and having a 3rd mountain with snow on it. Having the litle girl stand on one side of the mountain and having a doll on the other side and asking the little girl what the doll sees and what is closer to her. The little girl would respond the house was the closest to the doll since it is closer to her.

7. **Animistic Thinking** The belief that inanimate objects have life like qualities such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, ect.

Example: The cookies need the light in the oven on so they can see  Example: The sun was setting because it was tired. Example: Mr. Bear told me to leave the light on because he gets scared when we're all gone and it's dark.

 The understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same even when their outward appearance changes. Example: pouring 12 ounces of liquid from a tall skinny glass to a short wide glass and they are able to tell that the liquid did not change.
 * 8. Conservation of Number, Mass, Liquid, and Weight**

Changing the shape of play-doh from a round ball to a flat disc and understanding that it is still the same mas even though it changed shape.

9. **Centration** The tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation or experience, neglecting and disregarding other important features or factors. Example: In conservation of liquid, child centers on the height (or weight) of the water in the glass, not realizing that changes in width compensate for changes in height.

10. **Irreversibility** The inability to mentally go through a series of steps in a problem and then reverse direction, returning to the starting point. Example: When Sam spills her raisins, Sarah thinks Sam has more raisins than her. She is unable to realize that if they were to put Sam's raisins back in the box, they would have the same amount. Example: Sarah thinks Sam's cookie is bigger than hers because she broke hers into many pieces - not realizing they're the same and she could possibly put all the pieces back together to show that.

11. **Class Inclusion Problem** A child is shown 16 flowers- 4 of them are blue and 12 are yellow. The child is asked if there are more yellow flowers or flowers? They respond that there are more yellow flowers. They do not realize both the blue and yellow flowers are included in the "flower" category. The relation between class inclusion developmental stages and the logical necessity of the judgments provided by the children is not yet strongly established.

12. **Three Mountains Task** There are three mountains, each a different color and with a different object on top. A doll is placed on one side, and a child stands on the other. They are unable to say what the doll sees from her perspective. Their egocentric thinking causes them to choose what they see instead.

13. **Discovery Learning** Children are encouraged to discover through spontaneous interaction with the environment (not structured). This is designed to promote exploration and discovery. Examples include: free play, art, music, dress up, etc. Some more examples include: puzzles, building blocks, table games, and books. 14. **Sensitivity to Readiness** Activities are introduced to children that build on their current thinking, challenging their incorrect ways of viewing the world. Their development should not be sped up by imposing new skills before their readiness is indicated.

15. **Individual Differences** All children go through similar sequences of development however at different rates. Example: Usually children around the age of two begin to talk however not all children will start talking at the same time. Some might be younger than two and other might be older than two years.
 * Individual Differences** : in mental development measures intellectual development to predict future performances such as IQ testing, standardized testing.

16. **Decentration** The ability to focus on several aspects of a problem at the same time rather than only being capable of centering on just one.
 * Decentration:** the ability to focus on several aspects of a problem at once and relate them, for example if you have the same amount of water in a glass then take another glass with the same amount of water and pour it into a bowl there is the same amount of water just differnet objects the water is in.

17. **Reversibility** The ability to process steps in a certain order then reverse the steps to get back to the beginning. Example: In regards to the raisin idea, reversibility is the understanding that when Sam spills her raisins, Sarah is able to know that Sam does not have more raisins than her. She realizes that if they were to put Sam's raisins back in the box, they would have the same amount.
 * Reversibility:** the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse direction, returning to the starting point.

18. **Seriation** To arrange in an order. Example: arrange sticks from shortest to longest. Seriation: .the ability to order items along a quantitative dimensions, such as length or weight. Example: Stacking cups by size. Piaget found that older preschoolers could put the sticks in a row to create a series, but made many errors. While children ages 6-7 could create this same series and place them in sequence from largest to smallest. Seriation is a part of the concrete opertational stage.

19. **Cognitive Maps** Collection of beliefs, experiences and info that a person uses to orient himself within an environment such as a social setting. For example a child drawing a map of his neighborhood. Preschoolers often include different landmarks on their maps, but sometimes the arrangement of them is not always correct. Some children do better when told where to put the tree or house within the picture.