Concrete Operational Thinking

Concrete Operational Thinking

• Concrete operational thinking involves systematic mental rules or procedures
• This way of thinking is reversible
• Mathematical operations like addition and multiplication exemplify this thinking style
• They are systematic and reversible, as addition can be reversed by subtraction

Class Inclusion Task

• The class inclusion task explores the relationship between subordinate and superordinate categories
• For instance, when children are shown two subclasses of flowers (yellow and red) within the superordinate class of flowers, they are asked, "Are there more yellow flowers or more flowers here?"
• Typically, 7-8 year olds can answer this correctly

Seriation

• Seriation is the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension, such as length or weight
• In a seriation task, children are asked to arrange sticks of various lengths in order from shortest to longest
• Ages 4-5 can manage a few sticks but struggle to add new ones in the middle
• Ages 6-7 can easily insert a stick into the middle of a series and put several sticks in order
• This is because they can simultaneously consider two relationships (A>B and B>C)

Transitivity

• Transitivity is the ability to reason about the relations (greater than or less than) between items in a serial order, referring to items of different lengths
• Children are shown pairs of different colored sticks, and having seen that Stick A is longer than B, and B is longer than C, they are then asked to judge without looking whether A is longer than C

Conservation

• Children can seriate based on length before seriating on the basis of other characteristics
• These include liquid volume or weight

Classification

• Classification skills are fundamental to understanding biology, geology, and other natural sciences

Reversible Mental Operations

• Reversible mental operations enable children to think more logically and systematically

Selective Attention

• Selective attention involves focusing on relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information
• Efficiency of selective attention improves significantly from early childhood through adulthood
• Background noise causes greater interference for children attending to an auditory stimulus like a story
• The brain regions involved in maintaining vigilance during distraction, such as the anterior cingulate gyrus and prefrontal cortex, continue to develop through middle childhood
• Selective and executive attention are important in school tasks like math, reading comprehension, and writing
• Studies show a correlation between measures of attention and performance on academic tasks

Mental Rotation Task

• In a mental rotation task, individuals view two letters in different orientations
• They then decide whether the letters are the same, or mirror images of each other

Name Retrieval Task

• In a name retrieval task, participants view pairs of pictures and determine if they're physically identical, or share the same name

Executive Attention

• Executive attention involves maintaining focused attention across changing task conditions
• It also involves inhibiting competing responses among other processes

Go/No-Go Task

• In the Go/No-Go Task, participants watch a series of Pokemon cartoon pictures every 4 seconds and press a button if they see any of four characters (Go trials)
• They are told not to push the button if they see a particular character (No-Go trials)
• This activates frontal lobe areas and requires one operation (pushing the button on "Go" trials) while inhibiting another operation (not pushing the button on "No-Go" trials)

Lemonade Problem

• In the lemonade problem, efficient encoding into working memory increases the likelihood of retention for appropriate operations (addition, subtraction, or drawing pictures)
• The faster and more accurately children perform the calculations, the less likely they are to lose track or make mistakes

Working Memory

• Working memory is a mental workplace where individuals carry out cognitive operations and temporarily store information

Baddeley's Influential Model

• This model portrays working memory as a workspace with limited capacity
• It allows the temporary storage of information until it can be used for thinking and solving problems
• The three memory systems operate with limited capacity
• When asked to remember a random list of words, young children typically remember 3-4, whereas adults can recall 6-7

Components of Working Memory

• There are four components of working memory
• Limited capacity storage systems are visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and episodic buffer
• The central executive acts like a supervisor, regulating information flow through the three storage systems, directing where to store information, and what to do with it
• The central executive also directs movement of information from long-term memory into the working memory system (addition and multiplying facts) and into long-term memory (episodic memory of steps for problem-solving)
• The visuospatial sketchpad holds and manipulates 3-4 pieces of visual/spatial information
• This may hold sums or products a child writes down on paper when solving a lemonade problem
• The phonological loop holds and manipulates a limited number of articulated sounds
• Such as the number of names the child uses to add and multiply lemonade profits
• The episodic buffer keeps track of what the system is doing at any given time
• Example: "I am multiplying the number of cups times the price per cup."

Semantic Memory

• Semantic memory is the knowledge of words and concepts, visualized as a network with nodes and links between nodes
• When a child learns about a new animal (e.g., moose), they might enter it into their knowledge base, creating links between the new item and other existing items
• Adding to the semantic network accelerates in middle childhood due to changes in cognition (faster processing speed)

Consolidation

• Consolidation is a process by which new information is securely stored in memory
• A large part of long-term memory involves creating more individual concepts (like moose) and linking them more strongly over time with other concepts (deer, warm-blooded, herbivore)

Development of Long-Term Memory

• Three processes are involved in the development of long-term memory:
  • Rehearsal: A memory strategy of reading items singularly or in groups when trying to remember lists
    • Young children need an extrinsic reward/instruction to rehearse, while older children do it spontaneously
    • Effective rehearsal involves rehearsing sets (cat, desk, yard) instead of items in isolation (cat, cat, cat)
  • Rehearsing in sets creates stronger temporary associations between unrelated items in memory, increasing recall likelihood
    • Example: (cat, desk, yard, cat, desk, yard, spoon, tree, pen, spoon, tree pen)
    • This can be trained
  • Organization Strategies: Semantically related items are grouped together for encoding or retrieval during rehearsal/recall
    • Words like moose, pig, deer are separated into groups of wild animals and farm animals
    • This can be trained and is more effective with a well-developed knowledge base

Knowledge/Expertise

• Children's use of memory strategies and recall varies across information
• In areas with knowledge/expertise, memory is better
• Organization occurs by categories, allowing recall in chunks
  • A child highly interested in animals may develop a semantic network earlier and understand concepts like herbivores or domestication
• Amount of time and energy spent learning a subject, not age, affects memory

Metamemory

• Metamemory is knowing how memory works

Metacognition

• Metacognition is understanding the mind and cognitive processes like attention, memory, and cognition

General Intelligence (g)

• General intelligence is a single ability underlying separate cognitive tests

Hierarchical Model of Intelligence

• In this model, "g" consists of sub-abilities
  • G is at the top
  • Ability in the middle (verbal, spatial, numerical, working memory, processing speed)
  • Individual skills (vocabulary, verbal analogies, and general knowledge) are the bottom of the verbal ability hierarchy

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)

• WISC has 15 subtests: 10 determine the Full-Scale IQ score, and 5 are optional
• All 15 subtests measure 4 distinct indices including Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed

IQ (Intelligence Quotient)

• IQ is an overall score on a test of intelligence

Standard Deviation

• The standard deviation measures the variability or spread of scores around the mean

Normal Distribution

• A normal distribution is an arrangement where most values cluster in the middle and taper off symmetrically, resembling a bell's shape when graphed

Intellectual Giftedness

• Intellectual giftedness marks the presence of unusual talents/abilities in an individual
• Scores are above 130 (unusually high ability)

Intellectual Disability

• Scores below 70 indicate unusually low ability

Heritability

• Heritability reflects the proportion of total IQ variability due to genetic variation

Shared Environment Values

• Shared environment values represent the proportion of IQ variability attributable to environment shared in common by members of each twin pair

Special Needs Children

• These are children identified as needing special attention and support in one or more developmental areas

Intellectual Disability (ID)

• Intellectual disability is a general delay in cognitive development
• It affects about 1% of the global population

Adaptive Behavior Deficit

• This is a problem in carrying out daily living skills such as communication and socialization

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

• IDEA mandates placing children with ID in the least restrictive environment, maximizing social interaction and learning with non-disabled peers

Inclusion

• Inclusion involves integrating a child with disabilities into the regular classroom as much as possible

Enrichment

• Enrichment involves keeping the child in their grade and providing extra activities, research projects, or tutoring

Acceleration

• Acceleration speeds up education via grade skipping, advanced placement, or early college entrance

Linguistic Intelligence

• Linguistic intelligence means sensitivity to words' sounds and meanings, and how language can be used

Logico-Mathematical Intelligence

• Logico-mathematical intelligence is understanding logical and numerical patterns and reasoning about logical problems

Spatial Intelligence

• Spatial intelligence is the ability to perceive the visual World accurately, perform Transformations on perceptions, and recreate visual experience

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence

• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence means using the body skillfully for expressive, goal-directed purposes and handling objects skillfully

Musical Intelligence

• Musical intelligence is perceiving and producing pitch, rhythm, melody, and music's aesthetic aspects

Interpersonal Intelligence

• Interpersonal intelligence shows sensitivity and responsiveness to others' moods, behaviors, and motivations

Naturalistic Intelligence

• Naturalistic intelligence means observing, recognizing, and classifying varieties of animals, plants, and minerals

Metalinguistic Awareness

• Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to reflect on language

Double Meanings

• Metalinguistic awareness yields jokes and understanding of double meanings

Communication

• Communication's purpose is the use of language

Pragmatics

• Pragmatics uses language to achieve communicative and social goals and improves in middle childhood

Phonological Awareness

• Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words to understand spellings mapping onto language sounds

Phonological Decoding

• Phonological decoding uses sound correspondence to sound out words
  • Learning which sounds go with which letters and how to use this knowledge to pronounce unfamiliar words

Sight Word Vocabulary

• Sight word vocabulary are words children read quickly or without sounding

Self-Teaching Mechanism

• The self-teaching mechanism is repeated decoding to recognize sight words
  • Children gain the ability to recognize thousands of words.
    • English is difficult because of unpredictable pronunciations
    • Thus the self-teaching mechanism works more slowly, and some memorization is also required

Whole Language Approach

• The whole language approach uses interesting, meaningful text with minimal phonics

Phonics Approach

• Phonics approaches teach phonological decoding and sight word recognition - Spelling patterns correspond to sounds, teaching how to decode words

Place Value Concept

• Place value concepts involve adding or subtracting multi-digit numbers and understanding number values - E.g., knowledge that the number 323 has 3 100s, 2 10s, and 3 ones

Mental Number Line

• The mental number line is the core of mathematical thinking, and involves accurate placement of numerical quantities along the line

Fact Retrieval

• Fact retrieval involves retrieving a memorized sum from memory

Specific Learning Disorder

• This is a developmental disorder that interferes with the ability to learn specific academic skills in the domains of reading, writing, or mathematics

Dyslexia

• Dyslexia involves slow development of printed word recognition and spelling

Phonological Decoding

• Phonological decoding means sounding a word out

Sight Word Recognition

• Sight word recognition means learning to recognize a word and retrieving its pronunciation from memory quickly

Five Classification and Conservation Tasks Study

• Children were asked to classify objects hierarchically and by color from kindergarten to third grade
  • Improvements were seen on all tasks, with some mastered more quickly
  • It was found that the variations in the age at which children solved all versions of the tasks was not that important

7-8 Year Old Transitivity Study

• Children had to remember the two relations in most transitivity problems to answer them

Markman and Seibert STUDY

• The Piaget class inclusion question may be confusing and may lead to errors
• Instead of standard term (here), when children 5-6 were tested with "bunch" 70percent answered correctly -Only 45 percent answered correctly when the standard term was used
• Children 4-5 are capable of logical thinking
  • Flexible reversible thinking continues to improve during middle childhood

Los Angeles and Mayan Children Study

• Children in L.A. solved the concrete operational tasks in the standard format earlier than Mayan children in Mexico.
• When using material in weaving, Mayan children outperformed the children in L.A.

Go-No-Go Task Found

• Children and adults showed higher activity in three frontal cortex areas on the “no-go” trials than they did on the “go” trials
• The difference was larger for children than adults

Durston Studies

• Older children are able to maintain focused attention and inhibit inappropriate responses with less effort between ages 9-11
  • The development of this ability continues into early adulthood

Robert Kail Study

• Developmental changes in processing speed were measured by performing reaction time tasks -The trajectory of change in processing time was similar for ages 6-21
  • The same pattern was found in children from different cultures
  • Common mechanisms such as the improvements were related to brain growth

Subsequent Study

• Refined the picture of change in processing speed for ages 5-17
• Findings indicate improvements continue steadily - The growth function resembles biological growth patterns such as pruning

Working Memory Task Study

• Working memory tasks rely on brain regions that include lateral prefrontal and posterior parietal areas
• School-age children activate the same brain network as adults when they perform working memory tests -There is a general increase in working memory

Memory Study

• Young children can use rehearsal and organization strategies -But only when given formal training not spontaneously

Memory List Study

• 6 year olds with a 20 item word list were found to increase rehearsal over time
  • Those who found more powerful strategies performed better

Semantic Network of Dinosaurs study

• Participants were an intelligent 4 1/2 year old child's knowledge of 40 dinosaurs
  • They were divided into sets where one was more semantic

General Findings for Dinosuar study

• The child found that that retention of the names in the better structured set was superior
• Children with high metamemory scores were more likely to study in the first and second grade

General Findings for Testing Scores study

• IQ scores can fluctuate with

1. attention
2. effort consistency

• Estimate of heritability increases
• shared environment descreases when studying over long periods

Findings with the Enriched Environment

If you have

1. high SES children is higher,71 percent 2.heritability has shown to not be fixed
2. there were limited test scores

Findings with children across time

Across time the children

1. were focused more on the talent
2. found new ways to make words

General findings for preschool children study

1, those who had listened to a story then were given the opportunity showed signs of better understanding 2. bilingual kids could not do just as well, but had potential - educators should provide a lot more in order to help these children

General Findings that phonics were effective

1. practicing allowed better learning 2.us children are typically less aware, due to the way languages work there
2. it is crucial to concrete what is abstract by 3-5th grade

Findngs about testing Scores

• Five step study revealed the importance of testing scores

1. a student can build a list and have better success for the test 2.boys have higer dyslexia grades and have ADHD behavior 3.. dyslexia is more noticeable

• these injuries can cause The list of injuries goes here
• dyslexia has been studied to normal brain activity with new medicine and science

General Findings of piaget and indelder

• concrete thinkers think differently of others and have better ways of coming to conclusions
• they have better ways of shifting the mental image
• that all children can have what it takes