Question

REVIEW: Select two of the following features of preoperational thought: egocentrism, a focus on perceptual appearances, difficulty reasoning about transformations, lack of hierarchical classification. Present evidence indicating that preschoolers are more capable thinkers than Piaget assumed.

REVIEW: Describe features of social interaction that support children’s cognitive development. How does such interaction create a zone of proximal development?

Answer 1

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality; an inability to understand or assume any perspective other than their own. Although egocentrism and narcissism appear similar, they are not the same.

Adolescent egocentrism is a term that David Elkind used to describe the phenomenon of adolescents' inability to distinguish between their perception of what others think about them and what people actually think in reality.Egocentrism, in psychology, the cognitive shortcomings that underlie the failure, in both children and adults, to recognize the idiosyncratic nature of one’s knowledge or the subjective nature of one’s perceptions.

Since Piaget, research within developmental psychology on children’s theory of mind (their understanding of the mental lives of others) has continued to explore egocentrism in many areas of social and cognitive reasoning, such as perception, communication, and moral judgment. Such research has generally maintained its focus on young children’s instantiations of egocentrism and the developmental stages at which these are overcome.

Although egocentric biases are generally more subtle in adulthood than in infancy, the persistence of some forms of egocentrism in adulthood suggests that overcoming egocentrism may be a lifelong process that never fully reaches fruition.

Hierarchical Classification-

Hierarchical Classification is a system of grouping things according to a hierarchy, or levels and orders. A hierarchy can be seen in positions of authority in which people are ranked in an unwavering order of authority, with a "boss" at the top and "entry level" employees at the bottom. The military uses hierarchical classification to organize its members: generals are at the very top, followed by colonels, captains, and then sergeants.

The categorization of species is another example of hierarchical classification. At the very top is the kingdom which is the broadest category, followed by phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. For humans, the classification would be Animalia (kingdom), Chordata (phylum), class (Mammalia), order (primates), family (Hominidae), genus (homo) and species (sapiens). It goes from a very broad category (all animals) all the way down to our unique species (sapiens).

A hierarchical classifier is a classifier that maps input data into defined subsumptive output categories. The classification occurs first on a low-level with highly specific pieces of input data. The classifications of the individual pieces of data are then combined systematically and classified on a higher level iteratively until one output is produced. This final output is the overall classification of the data. Depending on application-specific details, this output can be one of a set of pre-defined outputs, one of a set of on-line learned outputs, or even a new novel classification that hasn't been seen before. Generally, such systems rely on relatively simple individual units of the hierarchy that have only one universal function to do the classification. In a sense, these machines rely on the power of the hierarchical structure itself instead of the computational abilities of the individual components. This makes them relatively simple, easily expandable, and very powerful.

Cognitive Development-

Early childhood generally refers to the period from birth through age 5. A child's cognitive development during early childhood, which includes building skills such as pre-reading, language, vocabulary, and numeracy, begins from the moment a child is born.

Easy ways help child's cognitive development-

• Sing-a-longs. Sing songs with child and encourage him to sing along with you
• Identify Noises
• Practice the Alphabet
• Practice Counting
• Practice Shapes and Colors
• Offer Choices
• Ask Questions
• Visit Interesting Places

Cognitive development is Jean Piaget's theory. Through a series of stages, Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational period.

The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help, and what they can't do.By interacting with Childrens,we can create a Zone of proximal development and can help childrens with Cognitive Development.