Child development exam 2

Newborns

perceive an object moving before them and reach for it

2 ½ months

coordination of reach and grasp

5 months

no longer reach for an object beyond their grasp

9 months

guide movements with a single glance

Development of locomotion

The integration of movements of many parts of the body

Stages of loco motion development

• 1st month-creep by making pushing movements with knees and toes

• 2nd month-head held up, but leg movements diminish

• 3rd month-control over movement of head and shoulders increases

• 4th month-ability to support upper body with arms improves

• 5th month-midsection raised, but head lowers

• 6th month-midsection and head raised, but tend to rock back and forth

• 7th month-coordinated arm and leg movements enable crawling

Basics principles of genetic epistemology

The internal construction of reality must begin at the beginning.
Babies start with reflexes, sensation, limited motor activity and curiosity that is active

basic principles of genetic epistemology

Newborns do not have language, symbols, logic, and objectivity yet but they think egocentrically and non-consciously.

Qualitative stages of genetic epistemology

• sensorimotor (0-2 yrs) action

• preoperational (2-7 yrs) action with symbols, representation

• concrete operational (7-11) action with coordinated systems of logical thought (internalized mental actions, or operations) in concrete settings.

• Formal operations (adolescence) formal systems of logical thought examine din themselves and hypothetically

Sensorimotor stage

• Begins at birth with the child acting upon the world with innate reflexes

• there are six substages in the sensorimotor stage

• ends at 18-24 months when they have achieved complete object permanence and they’re capable of representation.

• Representation is the end of the sensorimotor stage and the beginning of the preoperational stage.

Scheme

memory of an action. A new experience is assimilated to the scheme when the same action is used to investigate the experience and gets a similar result .

Accommodation

When a novel action is developed to successfully adapt to the environment

Circular reaction

the motivation to instinctively to want to repeat pleasurable experiences; since all knowledge must come through action, they must repeat the action to get the same experience over and over again

Object permanence

Understanding that objects have substance, maintain their identity when they change location, and continue to exist when out of sight.

Piaget’s A-not-B Task

A test used to study infants’ understanding of object permanence in which a researcher hides an object at location A while the infant watches.

Deferred imitation tasks

Test whether infants can later reproduce the actions of other people based on live interactions or what they see on screens

Prelinguistic development

3 months: Match behavior to that of another person
9 months: social referencing and point at an object (evidences of secondary intersubjectivity)
18 months: will not point unless caregiver is present

Syntax

rules of a given language for the sequencing of words in a sentence and the ordering of parts of words

Phonemes

Basic sounds in a language. Newborns can perceive the differences between the phonemes of language and exposure to native language they will cease to differentiate sounds that are not a part of that language.

Words

Mediators that allow a child to operate indirectly on an object via an adult

Morphemes

smallest units of meaning in the words of a language

Overextensions

applying a verbal label too broadly

underextensions

applying the label too narrowly

levels of abstractions

children between ages of 2 and 4 seem to label all sets at the same intermediate level of generality

Contexts of action

words have played a role

Conceptual categories

the structure of word meanings changes accordingly

holophrases

simple word utterances of babies that some believe stand for entire phrases or sentences

Grammatical morphemes

units that create meanings by showing relations between other elements within sentence

Complex constructions

Words added to the end of a sentence to turn it into a question

Pragmatics

Social uses of language whether it be proto-imperatives or proto-declaratives (the little girl that said “gou!” pointing to piper in the park)

Learning-theory explanation

• Due to environment they learn language

• Mechanisms: conditioning, expansion and imitation

• word phenomenon: word meaning

Nativist explanation

• Major causal factor: hereditiy, innate ability (Chomsky)

• Mechanism: Via LAD

• syntax

Innateness argument

• Children have a “poverty of stimuli” in the inputs of language

• children use important words such as nouns and verbs before msot common words

• children make rule-governed mistakes they never hear

• children brought up with pidgins turn that language into a creole

• there is a critical period for learning a first language

Poverty of stimuli

Graphic presentations of vocalizations show that we make few breaks between words.

Language instinct arguments

• Language is generative, syntax bound, and not imitative (chomsky)

• deaf children and parents construct proto-languages

• deaf children who learn from inexpert parents regularize sign language and use it better than their parents

• children brought up with pidgins create creole languages out of them

Connectionist theory

• counters the nativist idea and rather infants build language from the bottom up or top to bottom based on the input

Dynamic systems theory

Childrens experiences contribute to language development to grow the brain’s network.

Scaffolding

the rich variety of strategies that adults use to guide children to higher levels of thinking than children can achieve on their own

Dual language learners

Children who learn 2 languages because they are exposed to a native language at home that differs from the language of the community

Communicative accomodation

the adjustments that caregivers make to language and behaviors when communicating with young infants

Emotion elicitiors

internal or external triggers that instigate an emotion. For example infant hunger causes distress

Physiological changes

The body’s reaction to the emotional experience.

Cognitive appraisal

Individuals’ interpretation of their feelings. For example, infant is frightened by a loud bang because it unexpecgtedly disrupts the environment

Emotional expression

the outward display of an emotion for example an infant crying during distress

Functions of emotions

Regulatory functions:
emotions prepare individuals to respond to threats in the environment and thus survive

social functions:

communicate meaningful social information with the face, voice and body

Anger

grows in intensity and frequency from 4-16 months

Fear

infants display fear in threatening situations

Self-conscious emotioins

Emotions that related to a sense of self and awareness of others which includes pride, embarassment, guilt and shame

Discriminating emotions

The ability to distinguish among emotional expressions

Social referencing

Using emotions (social referencing) entails seeking and using information in ambiguous social situations

Emotion regulation

the monitoring, evaluating and moderating of emotional responses (infants begin to independently control their emotions like sucking a thumb for comfort)

Effortful control

The capacity to voluntarily regulate attention and behaviors when responding to emotionally challenging situations (child looking away from a frightening scence)

inhibitory control

the suppression of a dominant/preferred response in favor of an acceptable response —> for example: a child suppressing the urge to eat a cookie (dominant response) and instead eats dinner (acceptable response)

Evocative effects

A type of gene-environment association in which a child’s inherited characteristics evoke strong responses from others that strengthen the child’s characteristics

Attachment

An emotional bond most prominent in infants from 6-18 months which is evidenced by separation anxiety

Explanations for attachment

• Freud: caused by reduction of hunger drive

• Erikson: become attached to people who reliably attend to their needs and who otherwise foster a sense of trust

• Bowlby: provides a balance between an infant’s need for safety and varied learning experiences

Psychoanalytic views of bond

• Sigmund Freud: the oral phase which the infant must be gratified at the breast or else there will be poor impulse control

• Erik H Erikson: trust vs mistrust and the infant must be gratified on demand otherwise there are deep mistrust of all relationships

• Anna Freud: Ego and the mechanisms of defense

Ethological evidence

Konrad Lorenz did a study on birds imprinting. Birds imprint by sight but also have experience in egg with their own chirping. The critical period for that was within the first 24 hours after hatching and attachments can be extended but they cannot be reversed.

• Lambs also attach within the first 48 hours after birth to the first moving thing they see.

• When separated from the attachment object, they run around, bleating wildly. This is separation anxiety

Animal research (Harlow’s surrogate mother study)

• The cloth mother which does not provide nourishment which acts as a secure base. The wire mother provides nourishment but does not act as a secure base. It contradicted the drive-reduction theories of attachment

• Although soothing tactile sensations provide a baby with a sense of security that is more important to the formation of attachment than food and they are not sufficient.

• Social interactions seem to be necessasry for healthy emotional development

Bowlby’s stages of attachment

• Phases to internal working model which is preattachment from birth to 6 weeks. 2 months social smile

• Attachment in the making (6 weeks to 6-8 months) which is around 9 months

• Clear cut attachment occurs from 8 months to 18-24 months.

Secure attachment

Child reacts positively to a stranger as long as mother is present. Becomes upset when mother leaves and is unlikely to be consoled by a stranger but calms down as soon as mother reappears

Anxious/avoidant attachment

Child is indifferent to where mother is sitting. May or may not cry when mother leaves. Is as likely to be comforted by a stranger as by mother. Is indifferent when mother returns

Anxious/resistant

Child stays close to mother and appears anxious even when mother is near. Becomes very upset when mother leaves but is not comforted by her return. Simultaneously seeks renewed contact with mother and resist her efforts to comfort.

Causes of variation in patterns of attachment

• Parental behaviors: mothers’ level of sensitivity to their infants’ signal of needs are related to higher levels of secure attachment

• Characteristics of the child: Infants who had spent more time playing w objects than interacting sociably w their mothers were more likely to display signs of insecure attachment

• Family influences: maternal depression and marital discord

• Cultural influences: children who slept at home have higher levels of secure attachments

Criticisms of critical period in attachment

Jerome Kagan: the stability in relationship is not due to early experience but stability of temperament

Michael Lamb: If more than a third of infants change their attachment style between 12-18 months then its not so set after all. It cou8ld be due to the ongoing changes in interaction styles with the mother and child.

Self recognition

• 3 months: little interest at all

• 4 months: reach out and touch mirror

• 10 months: reach behind them if a toy is slowly lowered behind their back while they are looking in the mirror, but will not try and rub off a red spot that has been surreptitiiously applied to their nose

• 18 months: will reach for their own nose when they see the red spot and when asked, “whos’s that?” they will answer with “me”