Early childhood

21 - 27

Describe what happens during brain development

• between 12 - 24 months

  • myelinasation continues, especially in cortex and between cortex & brain stem

  • myelinisation is responsible for increase in brain size and weight

• at 20 months

  • cortex reaches its maximum thickness

• at 24 months

  • axons reach adult length and density

  • distribution and relative size of brain structures are adult-like 70% of adult weight

• beyond 24 months

  • brain development slows

Describe the process of learning how to walk

• 6 – 12 months: crawling & shuffling on buttocks

• By 12 months: can pull self-upright; take first steps

• By 18 months: most children can walk independently

  • Walking is not a maturational process

Describe the process of developing fine motor skills

• Major advancements in control of fine motor skills are made in early childhood

• Voluntary reaching starts at 3 months old but is smooth and effortless by 11 months

• 12 month old: able to use pincer grasp; major step-change advance

• 24 month old: child able to feed self

• 30 month old: child able to dress/undress self

Describe the development of language

• From 12 months

  • Child produces first words

  • Not necessarily real words, e.g. ‘oof’ = animal

 

• From 18 months

  • ‘telegraphic speech’ appears, e.g. ‘mommy sit’

  • Rapid increase in vocabulary: 20 word vocabulary increase to 200 words at 21 months

 

• Between 24 – 27 months

  • Child produces 3 & 4 word utterances

  • Error reveal use of grammatical rules, e.g. ‘I runned fast’: overregularisation of ‘ed’

 

• Around 3 years

  • Rapid increase in use of grammatical rules (e.g. negative)

  • Pronunciation improves greatly

What is Skinners (1950) behaviourist theory

• proposed language is learnt via operant conditioning

• Children imitate adult utterances; adults selectively reinforce them

• Reinforce sounds into words

• Reinforce words in correct context, e.g. parent smiles when child says ‘doggie’ only when dog is present

• Propose we learn to use whole sentences through imitation and reinforcement

Arguments in favour of Skinners behaviourist theory

• adults do reinforce children’s speech

  • “say ‘please’ and I will give you a cookie”

• explains why children learn local language and dialect

Limitations of Skinners behaviourist theory

• overregulatisation of grammatical rules, adults don’t use such words - suggests that children develop grammatical rules

  • e.g. ‘my teacher holded the baby rabbits’

What was Chomsky (1950) nativist theory

• proposed humans have innate language-learning system

• Argued grammar is too complex to be learnt by cognitive immature child, so perhaps humans have innate knowledge of grammar

• Suggest humans have a “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD)

• LAD contains universal rules of grammar found in all languages

• Innate knowledge enables child to interpret the specific grammar of native language

Argument in favour of Chomsky nativist theory

• universal properties of language learning suggest innate mechanism:

  • language occurs in all cultures

  • children in all cultures go through the same stages of language development

  • language share universal properties (e.g. nouns, verbs)

Limitations of Chomsky nativist theory

focuses on grammar and ignores social interaction

What was Bruner (1983) social interaction theory

• argues that preverbal social interactions form the basis for learning language

  • E.g. joint focus of attention, gesturing, interpretation of gurgles as meaningful; pre-verbal form of simple conversation

Arguments in favour of Bruner (1983) social interaction theory

• Children raised in isolation have linguistic deficits

• Adult-child speech facilitates learning

  • Shorter, simpler and repetitive utterances

  • Slower speech, longer pauses, more stress

  • Higher and more varied pitch

  • Same features in many cultures

Limitations of Bruner (1983) social interaction theory

not clear how it could account for, e.g. over regularisation errors

What does it mean to form categories and why is it important

forming categories is essential to make sense of the world and interact with it effectively

Describe the growth of categorisation

• at 12 months

  • children ground objects based on perceptual similarity, e.g. ‘A’ is different from ‘2’

• at 2 years old

  • can group perceptually different objects into hierarchical categories, e.g. can group objects into ‘kitchen utensils’ even if the objects are perceptually different

  • categories can include anything, e.g. kitchen utensils, animal, plants, etc

• after age 2

  • rapidly learn new ‘basic level’ categories

  • categories are subdivided with age; ‘furniture’-‘chairs’-‘dining chairs’

  • organisation helps thinking about the world in a meaningful way, e.g. ‘dog’ is linked to: ‘has 4 legs’, ‘is an animal’

Describe Lewis & Brooks-Gunn (1979) study - recognition of the self

• 9 – 24 months old placed in front of a mirror

• Mother puts red dye on child’s nose

  • < 15 months: reach to red nose in mirror; as in not related to themselves

  • > 15 months: more likely to touch own nose with increasing age

• Suggests increasing awareness of the self

• By age 2: prefer to look at picture of self, not other children, i.e. self-concept is well formed

Self-concept provides a reference for

interpreting social world

A child’s ability to display emotion

• < 1 year

  • Ability to display ‘basic emotion’, i.e. those that can be inferred directly from facial expressions

  • E.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise

 

• 1.5 – 2 years

  • Ability to display more complex ‘self-conscious’ emotions, e.g. pride, shame. Embarrassment. Guilt

  • Requires self-awareness (occurs 18 months – 2 years)

 

• 3 years

  • Children become able to use ‘emotional masks’, i.e. can display an emotion that they don’t feel

  • Easier to act happy than sad or angry

  • Become better at concealing negative emotions (e.g. become able to hide anger in presence of an adult)

  • Emotional deception is due to social pressures (e.g. encourage positive emotional displays to promote good relationships)

What is pro-social behaviour

behaviour that benefits others without expected benefit in return

How is pro-social behaviour shown in children

• before 1 - 2 years: seek comfort for self in response to another’s distress

• after 1 - 2 years: more likely to comfort others

Between 6 - 12 month old children develop cognitive & motor skills enabling

physical aggression

Hartup (1974) identified 2 kinds of aggression

• hostile: aggressive behaviour where harm is the main motivation

• instrumental: behaviour that is aggressive in form, but motivated by a goal other than harm (e.g. to get a toy)

Amount and type of aggression changes over early childhood - Holmberry (1980) found

• 1 year olds: 50% of all actions directed towards other children were coercive

• 3.5 year olds: falls to 17%

Describe the development of play

• Before 1 year:

  • Infants start playing with objects (picking up, banging together, etc)

  • Play becomes more sophisticated as motor skills develop, but remains physical

 

• Between 1 – 2 years:

  • Pretend play emerges around 12 months: temporarily substitutes different properties for the object being played with

  • Pretend play develops gradually: initially depends on real objects, e .g. drinking from a cup. Become able to use less realistic substitutes, e.g.  banana = phone

 

• Initially, symbolic play is directed towards self, e.g. pretending to eat using a spoon

• Later is directed towards other objects, e.g. child pretends to feed a doll

 

• Around age 2 years:

  • Child becomes detached in symbolic play, e.g. child makes a doll feed itself

 

• Around age 2.5 years onwards:

  • ‘Sociodramatic play’ emerges: pretend play with other children

  • Children share the same ‘scheme’ and act out roles

  • Sequence of play development mirrors increasing social, cognitive & verbal sophistication

Burns & Brainerd (1979); Connolly & Doyle (1984) - Is play important for development?

• Children who spend more time in sociodramatic play:

  • Better cognitive & emotional development than peers

  • Seen as more socially competent by teachers