Glossary of Terms
Body
The physical apparatus housing our understanding, which changes its shape and proportions as we grow from neonate through to adulthood; cannot be considered in isolation from near-body (peripersonal) space, our immediate realm of operations
Bodily integration
The unifying of the two sides of the body that progresses throughout the first 18 months of post-natal life, so that head, arms and trunk all come to act in concert, and fashion the crucial early understanding into that of an effective learning organism
Brickbuilding (3-D Praxis)
The assembling of parts in three spatial dimensions
Choice (origins of)
The withholding of attention from one spatial location in order to direct it towards another
Coding
This begins with the earliest accidental associations between perceptions and develops eventually into the organised use of arbitrarily selected symbols
Continuant behaviours
Repeated transferring of objects from one location to another, relative to body midline, and the continual switching of focus which this entails
Drawing (2-D Praxis)
The making of marks on a surface with a hand-held implement
Experience
That which is created through the exercising of individual fundamental understanding
General Understanding
The state that embodies our essential ability to act upon, and be influenced by, our environment; our adaptive capacity
Interest (origins of)
The directing of attention towards a particular spatial location
Matching
A natural counterpart to sorting, this involves noticing discrepancies and dissimilarities in the search for 'that which is least unlike the given model'
Memory
The system for storing information about patterns of movement, which enables the system to anticipate, and to some extent predict, movement variants that have not yet been produced
Motivation
The tendency to produce movement
Movements, movement patterns
Crucially for the development of fundamental understanding, all movements of the body are accompanied by intrinsic (biochemical) reinforcement. The clearer and more pronounced the movements the more they are reinforced.
Reasoning
The use of the understanding in an organised fashion, made possible by adequate exercising of the learning-how-to-learn tools
Seriation
The arranging of items into coherent order, or pattern
Sorting
The allocating of objects or patterns to sets on the basis of perceived similarities. This leads on to classification and the spontaneous creation of categories as a means of organising experience.