| animism | Tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive.
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| autobiographical memory | Memory of specific events in one's own life; a type of episodic memory.
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| central executive | In Baddeley's model, element of working memory that controls the processing of information.
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| centration | In Piaget's theory, tendency of preoperational children to focus on one aspect of a situation and neglect others.
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| conservation | Piaget's term for awareness that two objects that are equal according to a certain measure remain equal in the face of perceptual alteration so long as nothing has been added to or taken away from either object.
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| decenter | In Piaget's terminology, to think simultaneously about several aspects of a situation.
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| egocentrism | Piaget's term for inability to consider another person's point of view; a characteristic of young children's thought.
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| emergent literacy | Preschoolers' development of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that underlie reading and writing.
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| encoding | Process by which information is prepared for long-term storage and later retrieval.
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| episodic memory | Long-term memory of specific experiences or events, linked to time and place.
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| executive function | Conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or solve problems.
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| fast mapping | Process by which a child absorbs the meaning of a new word after hearing it once or twice in conversation.
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| generic memory | Memory that produces scripts of familiar routines to guide behavior.
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| irreversibility | Piaget's term for a preoperational child's failure to understand that an operation can go in two or more directions.
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| long-term memory | Storage of virtually unlimited capacity that holds information for very long periods.
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| pragmatics | Practical knowledge needed to use language for communicative purposes.
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| preoperational stage | In Piaget's theory, the second major stage of cognitive development, in which children become more sophisticated in their use of symbolic thought but are not yet able to use logic.
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| pretend play | Play involving imaginary people or situations; also called fantasy play, dramatic play, or imaginative play.
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| private speech | Talking aloud to oneself with no intent to communicate.
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| recall | Ability to reproduce material from memory.
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| recognition | Ability to identify a previously encountered stimulus.
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| retrieval | Process by which information is accessed or recalled from memory storage.
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| scaffolding | Temporary support to help a child master a task.
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| script | General remembered outline of a familiar, repeated event, used to guide behavior.
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| sensory memory | Initial, brief, temporary storage of sensory information.
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| social interaction model | Model, based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, which proposes that children construct autobiographical memories through conversation with adults about shared events.
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| social speech | Speech intended to be understood by a listener.
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| Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales | Individual intelligence test for ages 2 and up, used to measure knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory.
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| storage | Retention of information in memory for future use.
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| symbolic function | Piaget's term for ability to use mental representations (words, numbers, or images) to which a child has attached meaning.
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| theory of mind | Awareness and understanding of mental processes.
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| transduction | In Piaget's terminology, preoperational child's tendency to mentally link particular experiences, whether or not there is logically a causal relationship.
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| Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Revised (WPPSI-III) | Individual intelligence test for children ages 21⁄2 to 7 that yields verbal and performance scores as well as a combined score.
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| working memory | Short-term storage of information being actively processed.
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| zone of proximal development (ZPD) | Vygotsky's term for the difference between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with help.
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