Final answer:
Accommodation is the cognitive process of altering one's schemata in response to new information, as distinct from assimilation, which integrates new experiences into existing schemata without changing them. This occurs as part of cognitive development and was described by Jean Piaget.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question pertains to the cognitive development concept in psychology, particularly involving Jean Piaget's theory on how children adjust their schemata to understand new information in their environment. The process by which schema changes in order to understand something new in the environment is called accommodation. Accommodation is defined as the adjustment of a schema by changing a scheme to accommodate new information that is different from what was already known. For example, in the scenario provided, Abdul mistakenly identifies a sheep as a dog based on his existing schema of dogs being furry, four-legged creatures. When corrected by his mother, Abdul must accommodate his animal schema to differentiate between dogs and sheep. In contrast to accommodation, there is also assimilation, which involves integrating new information into existing schemata without changing the schemata, such as adding a new breed of dog to the 'dog' schema without needing to alter the overall concept of what a dog is.