cd: key terms

• what is accommodation?

  in piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the process of adjusting or changing existing schemas because new, conflicting information creates disequilibrium
• what is assimilation?

  in piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the process of fitting new experiences into existing schemas without making any change
• what is autism?

  a mental disorder which usually appears in early childhood and typically involves avoidance of social contact, abnormal language and so-called ‘stereotypic’ or bizarre behaviours
• what is class inclusion?

  the relation between two classes where all members of one class are included in the other
• what is cognitive development?

  the process by which our mental processes change as we age
• what is conservation?

  the ability to distinguish between reality and appearance, for example to understand that quantity is not changed even when a display is transformed
• what is egocentrism?

  seeing things from your own viewpoint and being unaware of other possible viewpoints
• what is equilibration?

  experiencing a balance between existing schemas and new experiences
• what is false belief?


  the understanding that others may hold and act on mistaken beliefs
• what are mirror neurons?

  neurons in the brain that react when a person performs an action and also when another individual performs the same action. this means that an observer experiences the actions of another as if it were their own
• what is a nativist approach?

  a theory that suggests humans are born with innate abilities
• what is object permanence?

  a child’s understanding that objects that are no longer visible nevertheless continue to exist
• what is perspective-taking?

  involves being able to view a situation or emotions from another person’s viewpoint
• what is a physical reasoning system?

  an innate system that provides a framework for reasoning about the displacements and interactions of physical objects
• what is the sally-anne test?

  a story about two dolls. sally doesn’t know that her marble has moved but we do. where will she look for her ball - where she left it or where we know it is? this is used to test whether a child has a theory of mind
• what is scaffolding?

  an approach to instruction that aims to support a learner only when absolutely necessary, i.e. to provide a support framework to assist the learning process
• what is a schema?

  a cluster of related facts usually based on previous experiences, and used to generate future expectations
• what is the theory of mind?

  an individual’s understanding that other people have separate mental states and that others see the world from a different point of view to their own
• what is violation of expectation research?

  a method of conducting research with infants using their surprise as a measure of whether what they see is not what they expect to see. thus we know what their expectations are
• what is zone of proximal development?

  in vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development, the ‘region’ between a person’s current abilities, which they can perform with no assistance, and their potential capabilities, which they can be helped to achieve with the assistance of ‘experts’