Introduction to All that Development and Language Practice Test

Understanding how mental frameworks are changed to fit new information is the key idea here. This process is accommodation. Schemas are the built-up mental structures we use to organize knowledge. When something new doesn’t quite fit an existing schema, accommodation involves modifying that schema so the new information can be incorporated, or forming a new schema if needed. For example, a child who has a schema for animals as “dogs” and encounters a new animal that isn’t a dog may adjust their understanding to include this new creature within a broader animal category. Assimilation, by contrast, would involve fitting the new information into the existing dog schema without changing it. Egocentrism is about lacking the ability to see things from another’s point of view, which isn’t about altering schemas. So altering a schema to incorporate new information is accommodation.