Child Development Test 2

Piaget’s Theory on Cognitive Development

Preoperational Stage: 2-7 years

Children organize ways of making sense of experiences (Schemas)

Building a Schema

Assimilation - Equilibration - New Situation - Disequilibrium - Accommodation - Adaptation - Repeat

Unique Characteristics of the Preoperational Stage

Egocentrism, Animistic Thinking, Lack of Conservation, Centration and Irreversibility, Lack of Hierarchal Classification

Egocentrism

Failure to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of others from one’s own

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On simplified tasks with familiar objects, 3-year-olds show a clear awareness of others’ vantage points.

Perspective-taking develops gradually throughout childhood and adolescence.

Animistic Thinking

The belief that inanimate objects have lifelike quality such as thoughts, wishes, feelings, and intentions. (Imagination)

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Preschoolers’ notions of magic are flexible and appropriate.

Lack of Conservation

The idea that certain properties of an object remain the same, even when its appearance changes

Centration and Irreversibility

Centration: the tendency to center attention on a single aspect of the problem

Decentration: the ability to focus on two or more dimensions of a problem at once.

Reversibility: the process of mentally undoing or reversing an action.

Lack of Hierarchical Classification

The organization of objects into categories and subcategories on the basis of similarities and differences.

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Children’s categories differentiate into basic-level categories and subcategories, such as furniture (general), then chairs(basic-level), then rocking chairs and desk chairs (subcategories).

Logical Thought

On simplified, relevant tasks, preschoolers display logical thinking (reducing the number of coins to 3)

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Preschoolers engage in impressive reasoning by analogy about physical changes

* Cut up play-dough
* cut up apple

Development of Make-Believe Play

detaches from real-life conditions associated with it.

becomes less self-centered.

includes more complex combinations of schemes

Benefits of Make-Believe Play

Gains in Social Competence

Sustained attention

Inhibition of impulses

Memory

Logical reasoning

Language and literacy

Imagination, creativity, perspective taking

Enhancing Make-Believe Play

Provide sufficient space and play materials.

Encourage children’s play without controlling it.

Offer a variety of realistic materials as well as materials without clear functions.

Ensure that children have many rich, real-world experiences to inspire positive fantasy play.

Help children solve social conflicts constructively.

Dual Representation

an ability to mentally represent both the symbolic itself and its relation to its referent

Support Children’s Dual Representation

point out similarities between models and real-world spaces.

expose young children to symbols (picture books, drawings, makebelieve, maps)

Piaget’s Educational Applications

Discovery learning: opportunities for spontaneous interaction with environment

Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn building on children’s current thinking

Acceptance of individual differences: activities for individual children and small groups

Piaget’s view of self-directed speech

Egocentric Speech

Vygotsky’s view of self-directed speech

Foundation for all higher cognitive processes

Vygotsky’s Educational Applications

Zone of Proximity (ZPD): teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers

Scaffolding: modeling a skill, providing hints/cues, breaking up tasks, verbal prompts

Student-centered, reciprocal teaching. Teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.

Executive Functions

A diverse cognitive operations and strategies that enable us to achieve our goals in cognitive challenging situations.

8 Key Executive Functions

Impulse control – think before acting

Emotional control – keep feelings in check

Flexible thinking – adjust to the unexpected

Working memory – keep key information in mind

Self-monitoring – evaluate how s/he is doing

Planning and Prioritizing – decide on a goal and a plan to meet it

Task initiation – take action and get started

Organization – keep track of things physically and mentally

Memory - Recognition

Easier for young children and adults

Nearly perfected by age 4 or 5

Memory - Recall

Much poorer than recognition in young children

Associated with language development

Hindered by limited working memory, lack of skill at using memory strategies - rehearse, organize

Episodic Memory

autobiographic memory of personal experiences or events that have happened at a particular time and place

Scripts

routine daily activities

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become more elaborate and spontaneous with age.

help children interpret and predict everyday experiences.

assist children in recall, makebelieve play, and planning.

Problem Solving

try a variety of strategies to solve challenging problems.

observe which strategies work best, which work less well, and which are ineffective.

gradually select strategies on the basis of accuracy and speed.

Theory of Mind (Metacognition) (ToM)

Children’s understanding of mental states of their own and others.

Milestones in Awareness of Mental Life:

Age 1: Babies view people as intentional beings who can share and influence one another’s mental states.

Age 2: Children display clearer grasp of others’ emotions and desires.

Age 3: Children realize that thinking is internal, but focus only on desires, not beliefs.

Age 4: Children realize that both beliefs and desires determine behavior, and become aware of false belief

ToM: Social Interactions

children’s understanding of thoughts, feeling, and desires of others leads to successful social interaction and prosocial behaviors.

ToM: Attachment

secure attachment facilitates the formation of coherent and organized mental representation of relationships that they can effectively predict attachment figure’s behaviors.

ToM: Parenting

maternal elaborative discourse is a stronger predictor of children’s ToM understanding and parental responsiveness supports the development of ToM.

ToM: Language

language provides a window into the minds of ourselves and others.

Autism

limited ability to engage in nonverbal social behaviors

delayed, stereotyped language

much less make-believe play than other children

narrow, intense interests

Rarely use words such as believe, think, know, feel, and pretend

Impaired theory of mind linked to autism may be due to several brain-based deficits

How to Promote Executive Function (Attention)

adult scaffolding of attention supports gains in language and executive function (plan, organize and complete tasks)

Adults can foster sustained attention through joint attention.

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Children learn from parental encouragement and cultural tools that support planning.

Cooking – following recipes

Playing games – having directions, rules, strategies

Patterns for construction – making paper airplanes, boats

How to Promote Executive Function (Memory/Problem Solving)

Memory: assist children in recall, make-believe play, and planning.

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Parents-child communication:

Elaborative style: Elaborative style leads to better recall and more organized, detailed personal stories one to two years later.

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Problem-solving: scaffolding and assistance from adults

Emergent/Early Literacy

developmental process that begins at birth whereby children acquire the foundation for reading and writing.

5 Components of Early Literacy

Phonological awareness

Print knowledge

Vocabulary

Fluency

Comprehension

Supporting Emergent Literacy

Provide literacy-rich home and preschool environments.

Engage in interactive book reading.

Provide outings to libraries, museums, parks, zoos, and other community settings.

Point out letter–sound correspondences, play language–sound games, read rhyming poems and stories.

Support children’s efforts at writing, especially narrative products.

Model literacy activities.

Mathematical Reasoning

Builds on informal knowledge

Ordinality

order relationships between quantities

Cardniality

last number when counting is the total

Estimation

ability to generate approximate answers

Fast mapping

the initial stage of word learning - what is learnt from the first few encounters with a new word.

Mutual Exclusivity Bias

only one name or label can be applied to an object

Syntactic Bootstrapping

discovering word meanings by observing how words are used in syntax

Overregularization

applying rules to words that are exceptions

Semantic bootstrapping

children utilize conceptual knowledge to create grammatical categories when acquiring their first language

Supporting Early Language Learning (Infants/Toddlers)

Parents should:

respond to coos and babbles.

establish and respond to joint attention.

play social games

play make-believe with toddlers.

have frequent conversations.

read and talk about storybooks together.

Supporting Early Language Learning (PReschoolers)

Listening attentively

Elaborating on what children say

Modeling correct usage

Stimulating children to talk further

Recasts: restructuring incorrect speech into correct form

Expansions: elaborating on children’s speech, increasing its complexity

2-3 years Language Milestones

Knows some spatial concepts, such as "in" or "on"

Knows pronouns, such as "you," "me" or "her"

Knows descriptive words, such as "big" or "happy"

Uses 3-word sentences

Speech is becoming more accurate, but may still leave off ending sounds. Strangers may not be able to understand much of what is said.

Answers simple questions

Begins to use more pronouns, such as "you" or "I"

Uses question inflection to ask for something, such as "my ball?"

Begins to use plurals, such as "shoes" or "socks" and regular past tense verbs, such as "jumped"

3-4 years Language Milestones

Groups objects, such as foods or clothes

Identifies colors

Uses most speech sounds, but may distort some of the more difficult sounds, such as l, r, s, sh, ch, y, v, z, th. These sounds may not be fully mastered until age 7 or 8.

Uses consonants in the beginning, middle, and ends of words. Some of the more difficult consonants may be distorted, but attempts to say them

Strangers are able to understand much of what is said

Able to describe the use of objects, such as "fork" or "car"

Has fun with language; enjoys poems and recognizes language absurdities, such as, "Is that an elephant on your head?"

Expresses ideas and feelings rather than just talking about the world around him or her

Uses verbs that end in "ing," such as "walking" or "talking"

Answers simple questions, such as "What do you do when you are hungry?"

Repeats sentences

4-5 years Language Milestones

Understands spatial concepts, such as "behind" or "next to" • Understands complex questions

Speech is understandable, but makes mistakes pronouncing long, difficult, or complex words, such as "hippopotamus"

Uses some irregular past tense verbs, such as "ran" or "fell"

Describes how to do things, such as painting a picture

Lists items that belong in a category, such as animals or vehicles

Answers "why" questions

5 years Language Milestones

Understands time sequences (for example, what happened first, second, or third)

Carries out a series of 3 directions

Understands rhyming

Engages in conversation

Sentences can be 8 or more words in length

Uses compound and complex sentences

Describes objects

Uses imagination to create stories

Factors Affecting Mental Development (Home Environment)

Availability of toys, games, and reading material

Regular parent–child conversations

Clean, uncluttered rooms

Parental pride, affection, and warmth

Stimulation of academic behavior

Modeling and encouragement of social maturity

Opportunities for regular outings

Avoidance of physical punishment

Signs of Developmentally Appropriate Early Childhood Programs

Safe, clean, richly equipped physical setting

No more than 18–20 children with 2 teachers

No more than 8–10 children with each teacher

Small-group and individual activities chosen by children

Positive adult–child interactions

Specialized, college-level teacher preparation

Encouragement of parent observation and participation

State licensing and voluntary accreditation (NAEYC, NAFCC)

Media Impacts on Cognitive Development (TV)

Time spent watching educational programs (such as Sesame Street) leads to:

gains in early literacy and math skills.

academic progress in elementary and high school.

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Background TV viewing (leaving on all day, during dinner):

impairs sustained attention.

decreases quantity and quality of parent–child interaction.

delays acquisition of reading skills.

Media Impacts on Cognitive Development (Computers)

rich educational benefits.

Computer-learning centers in early childhood classrooms encourage language, literacy, and arithmetic skills.

Simplified computer languages introduce programming skills and promote problem solving and metacognition

Erikson’s Theory: Initiative

Eagerness to try new tasks, join activities with peers

Trying out new skills through play

Acting out family scenes and highly visible occupations

Erikson’s Theory: Guilt

Overly strict superego, or conscience, leading to too much guilt

Related to excessive threats, criticism, punishment from adults

Self Understanding/Awareness

Infants’ implicit sense of self-world differentiation

Explicit self-awareness in toddlerhood

Self-awareness leads to efforts to understand another’s perspective.

Effortful Control

ability to inhibit impulses and manage negative emotion, behave in socially acceptable ways

Compiance

Toddlers show clear awareness of caregivers’ wishes and expectations.

Assertiveness and opposition occur alongside eager, willing compliance

Temperament

early appearing, stable individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation

Personality

what makes our actions, thoughts, and feelings relatively consistent and makes us different from one another

Structure of Temperament

Easy children: 40%

Difficult children: 10%

Slow-to-warm-up children: 15%

Unclassified children: 35%

Genetic Influences

Responsible for about half of individual differences

Role of ethnicity, gender

Environmental Influences

Cultural caregiving styles

Differential treatment of boys and girls

Emphasis on sibling differences

Differential susceptibility to rearing experiences

Goodness-of-Fit Model

How temperament and environment can together produce favorable outcomes

5 Personality Traits

Openness to Experience

Conscientiousness

Extroversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Self-Concept

general term used to refer to how someone thinks about, evaluates or perceives themselves

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* Self Image
* Self Esteem/Worth
* Ideal Self

Self-Esteem

Judgments we make about our own worth and feelings associated with those judgments

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Young children’s self-judgments:

Learning things in school

Making friends

Getting along with parents

Treating others kindly

Children with High/Good Self Esteem

Confidence in own abilities

Self-acceptance

Not worrying about what others think about them

Optimistic

Children with Low/Bad Self Esteem

Lack of confidence

Want to be or look like someone else

Always worrying about others’ judgments about them

Pessimistic

Best Clue to Infants Emotions

Facial Expressions

First Appearance of Basic Emotions

Happiness:

Smile: from birth

Social smile: 6–10 weeks

Laughter: 3–4 months

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Anger:

General distress: from birth

Anger: 4–6 months

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Sadness:

Distress to “still face”: 2–7 months

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Fear:

First fears: 6–12 months

Stranger anxiety: 8–12 months

Self-Conscious Emotions

Infants and toddlers recognize emotion in others’ facial expressions

Preschoolers become increasingly sensitive to praise and blame

By age 3, self-conscious emotions are clearly linked to self-evaluation

Emotional Self-Regulation

The strategies we use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can accomplish our goals

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Children with poor emotion regulation - empathy leads to personal distress, not to sympathy

Development of Empathy/Sympathy

Sociable, assertive temperament

secure parent-child attachment relationship

Parents/Caregivers promote preschoolers’ emotional understanding by

Labeling and explain emotions

expressing warmth and enthusiasm when conversing with children

engaging in elaborative discussions about causes of emotion

Siblings/Friends promote preschoolers’ emotional understanding by

negotiate

act out emotions in play (make-believe)

help increase social skills - getting along with others

Morality

The ability to distinguish right from wrong, to act on this distinction, and to experience pride when doing right things and guilt or shame in wrongdoing.

3 Components of Morality

Emotional component

Cognitive component

Behavioral component

Moral Imperatives

Protect people’s rights and welfare

Violations viewed as more wrong than violations of social conventions

Examples: unprovoked hitting, stealing

Social Conventions

Protect people’s rights and welfare

Violations viewed as more wrong than violations of social conventions

Examples: unprovoked hitting, stealing

Matters of Personal Choice

Do not violate rights; up to the individual

Examples: friends, hairstyle, leisure activities

Induction

gives children information about how to behave that they can use in future situations.

encourages empathy and sympathetic concern, which motivate prosocial behavior.

gives children reasons for changing their behavior, encouraging them to adopt moral standards that make sense.

Modeling Moral Behavior

Warmth and responsiveness

Competence and power

Consistency between assertions (words) and behavior

Effectiveness of Occasional Punishment

consistency; a warm parent–child relationship; explanations

Alternatives to Punishment

time out (removing children from immediate setting)

withdrawal of privileges

Positive Parenting

Use transgressions as opportunities to teach.

Reduce opportunities for misbehavior.

Provide reasons for rules.

Arrange for children to participate in family routines and duties.

When children are obstinate, try compromising and problem solving.

Encourage mature behavior.

Be sensitive to children’s physical and emotional resources.

Authoritative Parenting

Acceptance: High

Involvement: High

Control: Adaptive

Autonomy: Appropriate

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Outcomes: positive social behaviors and psychological functioning; high self-esteem and better emotion regulation

Authoritarian Parenting

Acceptance: Low

Involvement: Low

Control: High

Autonomy: Low

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Outcome: social-emotional maladjustments – anxiety, internalizing problems, externalizing symptoms

Permissive Parenting

Acceptance: High

Involvement: Low

Control: Low

Autonomy: High

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Outcome: impulsive behaviors are often common, and self-regulation is absent

Uninvolved Parenting

Acceptance: Low

Involvement: Low

Control: Low

Autonomy: Indifferent

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Outcome: adversely affected both school attainment and psychological functioning

Nonsocial activity

Unoccupied, onlooker behavior or solitary play

Parallel Play

Playing near other children with similar toys, without trying to influence them

Associative Play

Engaging in separate activities, but exchanging toys and comments

Cooperative Play

Working toward a common goal (as in make-believe play)

Nonsocial activity

Aimless wandering

Hovering near peers

Functional play involving immature, repetitive motor action

Information-Processing of Social Problem Solving (Crick & Dodge)

1. Notice social cues
2. Interpret Social Cues
3. Formulate Social Goals
4. Generate possible problem-solving strategies
5. Evaluate probable effectiveness of strategies
6. Enact response
7. Peer evaluation and response

Direct Parental Influences on Early Peer Relations

Arranging informal peer activities

Encouraging child to be a good “host”

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Offering guidance on:

How to act toward others

How to enter a play group

Discourage teasing

Give suggestions for managing conflict