Childhood Cognitive Terms

The first eight terms all originated with Piaget’s cognitive stage theory.

• Dual representation--The understanding that an object can be a symbol as well as a thing on its own (like a picture or model). It is not understandable to children until around two-and-a-half or three years. This ability is demonstrated whenever a preschooler pretends an object is something else (for example, when a spoon is used as a “gun” or “microphone” instead of for its actual intended use).
• Egocentrism--Young children’s intellectual tendency to be unable to distinguish the viewpoints of others from their own. The classic Piagetian test for this is the three mountains problem (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969), where children are asked to describe the view of another in a different position. This ability is called perspective taking and is not fully developed until age seven.
• Animism-- Preschoolers’ beliefs that anything that moves or makes noise is alive. Piaget coined this phrase to explain the magical thinking of young children that leads to belief in the supernatural (such as fairies and monsters).
• Centration--The tendency for young children to focus on only one obvious aspect of a situation or thing while ignoring others. For example, Piaget found that children think a line of objects spread apart has more objects in it than a line of the same number of objects closer together. Children focus on the length of the line rather than the number of objects or spacing.
• Irreversibility--The inability of preschoolers to follow problem-solving steps backwards to the start. In Piaget’s classic conservation problem, two glasses with the same amount of water are shown; then one is poured into a larger, shallower dish. This leads preschoolers to think that one now has more liquid than the other. If they were able to reverse their logic, it would be apparent that the amounts must be the same since no water was added or subtracted. Three- to five-year-olds are just beginning to be able to see beyond their physical perceptions.
• Hierarchical classification--The ability to organize objects into logical classes and sub-classes. Piaget’s classic experiment to test for this ability is called a class inclusion problem. Children are shown 16 flowers--four blue and 12 yellow--and asked, “Are there more yellow flowers or flowers?” Pre-operational children will answer “More yellow flowers” because they do not include them in the total flower count. Piaget believed that children weren’t capable of this type of classification until age seven when they understand concrete operations (the last stage in his theory).
• False beliefs--Erroneous assumptions that guide people’s actions. The ability to understand this concept requires metacognition. At around four years of age, most children can understand that others may have a different perspective, or theory of mind. For example, three- to five-year-olds were tested to see if they attribute a false belief to someone else by showing them the following: A character puts candy in a drawer and then leaves. Next, his mother takes out the candy and returns it to a different drawer. Preschoolers are then asked where the first character will look for the candy upon his return. If children thought he would look at the original drawer, then they demonstrate an understanding of false belief (usually around four years). If children instead believe that he will look into the second drawer (where his mother moved the candy to), then they lack this skill (Wimmer & Perner, 1983).
• Transductive reasoning--A Piagetian term that refers to how young children use perceptual similarities to understand cause and effect. For example, if a four-year-old is mean to her baby brother and then he develops a fever, she will believe that she was the cause of his illness. This and animism are types of magical thinking. Because of this tendency, preschoolers need reassurance that their thoughts and actions are not causal for many negative events (like parental fights or death, for example).
• Ordinality--The understanding of the order relationship of quantities. This early mathematical concept begins in toddlerhood and expands in the preschool period. This ability, along with one-to-one-correspondence (the ability to match an object with the number, usually evidenced by touching or moving objects when counting) enables preschoolers to learn to count accurately.
• Cardinality--The mathematical principle that the last number when counting is the quantity of objects in a set. It is this concept that allows children to count on. For example, if counting shoes, the child could start counting from the number two (for the first pair). Ordinality must be first understood.
• Metacognition--The ability to think about thinking, or awareness of your own thought processes. By age three or four, children are able to differentiate between thoughts and actions as well as understand that behaviors are motivated by beliefs. This is the start of theory of mind.
• Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP)--Educational approaches that are both age and individually appropriate, as defined in Chapter One. Preschool-age children learn best through hands-on, child-centered play rather than from early academic instruction (NAEYC). It is important that early childhood educators be able to articulate what specific learning occurs with different activities or materials so that they can explain to parents why children appear to be “just playing” in a good preschool program.
• Process vs. product orientation--Toddlers and preschoolers are interested in the act of creation (the process) rather than the thing created (product). So it is the process of painting or building, for example, that is educational, not the end product picture or structure. Older preschoolers and young school-agers shift their focus toward the product as they mature.
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ)--A score on standardized intelligence tests that represents an individual’s general intelligence, or ability to reason. IQ becomes somewhat stable at around age six and is commonly used to predict academic achievement. There are many types of IQ tests; the most commonly used with children are the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. There are many criticisms of IQ tests as measures of cognitive ability. The major objection is that traditional IQ tests are culturally biased and limited in their ability to measure all intellectual abilities, especially mental processes. There are other theories that attempt to measure and define intelligence in other ways, including multiple intelligences and the triarchic theory.