 Safiyyah Ayob Vally Wednesdays 13:00-15:00
 Masego Komane Fridays 10:00-12:00
 Mpendulo Nkuna Thursday 13:00-15:00
 Philile Mazibuko Thursdays 09:00-11:00
LEARNING OVERVIEW
1. THE ONSET OF THINKING: PIAGET’S ACCOUNT
2. INFORMATION PROCESSING DURING INFANCY AND EARLY
CHILDHOOD
3. MIND AND CULTURE: VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
4. LANGUAGE
PRACTICE QUESTIONS
1. Piaget described a scheme as a psychological structure that
a.
organises experience.
b.
is used in language but not thought.
c.
we lose as we age.
d.
is only found in those with a set of personal values.
2. Between early and later childhood, schemes tend to have more ____ properties.
a.
functional
b.
conceptual
c.
object-based
d.
abstract
3. Piaget used the term ____ to describe the process by which new experiences are easily
incorporated into existing schemes.
a.
accommodation
b.
scaffolding
c.
assimilation
d.
secondary
4. Neli has a scheme for throwing netballs that she can apply successfully to throwing small rocks or other
types of balls. This successful application would best be described as
a.
assimilation.
b.
animism.
c.
accommodation.
d.
egocentrism.
5. Sandile has just learned how to pick up his cat named Fluffy, who likes to be picked up and does not put up any
struggle. Later, Sandile tries to pick up another cat named Stripey, who scratches when held. The fact that
Sandile learns to leave Stripey alone after he has been scratched provides a good example of
a.
animism.
b.
habituation.
c.
centration.
d.
accommodation.
Compare and contrast the
behaviourist answer, the
linguistic answer, the cognitive
answer, and the socialinteraction answer to the
question, ‘How do children
acquire grammar?’
ANSWER:
The behaviourist answer to acquisition of grammar is through imitation
and reinforcement. One problem with this is that most of children’s
sentences are novel which is difficult to explain in terms of simple
imitation of adults’ speech. The linguistic answer is that children are
born with mechanisms that simplify the task of learning grammar.
Although there are findings that support this view, such as specific
regions in the brain are involved in learning grammar and the
existence of a critical period for acquiring language, they do not
prove the existence of the linguistic answer’s mechanisms. The
cognitive answer is that children learn grammar through powerful
cognitive skills that help them rapidly detect regularities in their
environment, including patterns in the speech they hear. With this
view, children learn language by searching for regularities across
many examples that are stored in memory, not through an inborn
grammar-learning device. The social-interaction answer draws on
each of the views considered above. In addition, this perspective
emphasises that much language learning takes place in the context
of interactions between children and adults, with both parties eager
for better communication.
Provide an example of how
egocentrism, animism,
centration, and appearance as
reality might affect the actions
or thoughts of a child.
ANSWER:
An egocentric child would see the world only through
his eyes. So, if Child A likes the colour blue and asks
Child B what that child’s favourite colour is, Child A
would expect the answer from Child B to be blue.
Animism is the belief that inanimate objects have the
characteristics of living organisms. So, a child might be
concerned that a car sitting in the sun might get a
sunburn. Centration involves a narrow focus of thought.
For example, a child may be upset that she did not get
enough ice cream if it is served in a very big bowl
rather than a smaller bowl (i.e., the more empty space
in the bowl, the less ice cream in the bowl). The idea of
appearance as reality is based on the idea that what
you see is what you get. For example, if you show a
child a glass of water and put a drop of red food
colouring in it, he will easily believe that the glass now
contained cherry juice.
Describe how the processes of
assimilation and
accommodation might come
into play during a child’s
thought process on a visit to a
zoo.
ANSWER: At a visit to the zoo, a child’s parent will name the
animals. When the child sees a lion for the first time, his
mother tells him, ‘That’s a lion.’ A few minutes later a lion
cub comes into view and the child says, ‘Lion’ illustrating
the process of assimilation. He took in the new
information about the lion cub and understood that it
was the same as the much larger lion that he had
previously seen. When they visit the tiger cage next, the
child says, ‘Lion’ because he now believes that furry
animals with four legs that resemble big cats are all lions.
His mother says, ‘No, that’s a tiger, not a lion.’ When his
mother corrects him, the child is forced to
accommodate to this new experience and change his
existing knowledge which illustrates the process of
accommodation.
Describe three guidelines
for fostering cognitive
development in children.
ANSWER:
1) Cognitive growth occurs as children construct their own understanding of the
world, so the teacher’s role is to create environments where children can discover
how the world works. A teacher shouldn’t simply try to tell children how addition
and subtraction are complementary, but should provide children with materials
that allow them to discover the complementarity themselves.
(2) Children profit from experience only when they can interpret the experience
with their current cognitive structures. Consequently, the best teaching
experiences are slightly ahead of the children’s current level of thinking. As
youngsters begin to master basic addition, don’t jump directly to subtraction, but
go to slightly more difficult addition problems.
(3) Cognitive growth can be particularly rapid when children discover
inconsistencies and errors in their own thinking. Therefore, teachers should
encourage children to look at the consistency of their thinking, but then let
children take the lead in sorting out the inconsistencies. If a child is making
mistakes in borrowing on subtraction problems, the teacher shouldn’t correct the
error directly, but should encourage the child to look at a large number of these
errors to discover what he or she is doing wrong.
(
You work for the police service in a
major city. A brutal crime has just
been committed and the only
witness is a five-year-old boy.
Discuss concerns that you might
have over the accuracy of the boy’s
testimony. Then describe ways that
you might use to improve the
accuracy of the child’s recollection.
ANSWER:
Two main concerns are that preschool children are
suggestible and easily confused due to limited sourcemonitoring skills. The following are ways to improve the
accuracy of the child’s recollection: (1) Interview children
as soon as possible after the event in question. (2)
Encourage children to tell the truth, to feel free to say ‘I
don’t know’ to questions, and to correct interviewers when
they say something that’s incorrect. (3) Start by asking
children to describe the events in their own words, follow
up with open-ended questions, and minimise the use of
specific questions. (4) Allow children to understand and
feel comfortable in the interview format by beginning with
a neutral event before moving to the event of interest. (5)
Ask questions that consider other explanations of the
event.
Four-year-old Siya appears to be
talking to himself as he is building a
tower of blocks. Describe
Vygotsky’s take on this behaviour
(for example, Is this normal
behaviour? Is this a helpful
behaviour? Will this behaviour go
away?).
ANSWER:
Private speech is a child’s comments that are
not intended for others but are designed to help
children regulate their own behaviour. Vygotsky
viewed private speech as an intermediate step
toward self-regulation of cognitive skills. Private
speech is children’s way of guiding themselves,
of making sure they do all the required steps in
solving a problem. As children gain greater
skill, private speech becomes inner speech,
which was Vygotsky’s term for thought. Children
are more likely to use private speech on
difficult tasks and after a mistake.
On her way to the United States for
the first time from her home
country, non-English-speaking
Yasini has a baby aboard her sea
transport vessel. Describe how
Yasini’s baby will be affected in
language development by growing
up in a country with a language that
is different than Yasini’s native
language.
ANSWER:
At two months, infants begin cooing, which consists of vowel-like
sounds. At about six months, babies begin babbling, which is
speech-like sound that has no meaning and consists of vowelconsonant combinations. However, early on infants can
distinguish sounds that may be important in one language and
ignored in another. Presuming Yasini will continue to use her first
language while learning English, her baby will be exposed to the
language of her new country. Over the next few months,
babbling becomes more elaborate as babies experiment with
more complex speech sounds, but by 10 to 12 months babies
begin to only notice the language distinctions in the language
they are more exposed to. At about 8 to 11 months, infants’
babbling sounds more like real speech because infants stress
some syllables and vary the pitch of their speech. In the end,
Yasini’s baby will likely understand both Yasini’s native language
and English; however the baby will grow up speaking English
better than Yasini’s native language.
Define and provide an
example of overextension,
underextension, a referential
style, an expressive
linguistic style, and
telegraphic speech.
ANSWER:
Overextension occurs when children define words more broadly
than adults do. For example, a child uses the word ‘car’ to refer to
cars, buses, and trucks. Underextension occurs when children
define words more narrowly than adults do. For example, a child
uses the word ‘car’ only to refer to the family car. Referential style
is a language-learning style of children whose vocabularies are
dominated by names of objects, persons, or actions. For
example, a child has 41 name words in her 50-word vocabulary
but only two words for social interaction. Expressive style is a
language-learning style of children whose vocabularies include
many social phrases that are used like one word. Some examples
of this are ‘go away’ and ‘I want it’. Children with an expressive
style have a more balanced vocabulary with plenty of words for
social interactions, questions, and name words. Telegraphic
speech contains only the words necessary to convey a message.
One example of this is ‘He eating’ rather than ‘He is eating.’