psyc of early childhood final

What are the proofs of cognitive development?

Competency, thinking, communicating, reasoning, problem solving, exploration

What is cognition?

Looks at how children gain knowledge and not what they know

What is Piaget’s constructivist theory?

The idea that knowledge is constructed by children through their own experiences

What are the stages of cognitive development according to Piaget?

1. Sensorimotor- the first two years of life where children depend of their senses and movement

2. Preoperational- from the ages of 2-7 where children depend on symbolic representation and egocentricity. Reflective abstraction is key for development at this stage

3. Concrete operational- ages 7-11 children begin to use logic, seeing other viewpoints, and understand objects remain the same despite certain changes

What is symbolic representation?

Typically used by children ages 2-7 and is when they use symbols to demonstrate experiences

What is egocentricity?

The assumption that everyone experiences the world the same as you

What is reflective abstraction?

Important so children can gain mental abilities through thinking about what they are doing

What is conversion?

Recognizing that objects remain the same despite perceptual changes

What is assimilation?

When experiences are made to fit within a child’s schemata

How is behaviorism implicated in learning?

• Learning is controlled by the consequence of behavior(good consequences lead to learning)

• Direct instruction is used when behavioral therapy is applied

What are the memory strategies?

Rehearsal, organization, elaborations

What is the Vgotsky’s sociocultural theory?

It emphasizes the role of social interaction and cultural learning to focus on how children construct knowledge and learn. It believes social context will mold cognitive processes

What are the levels of social context?

1. The immediate level where a child interacts with an adult or older peer

2. Structural level(family or school)

3. General cultural level

What is the zone of proximity?

The sweet spot of learning for children which is where they can use guidance to complete a concept

What are tools of the mind?

Things that will help children solve problems by extending their mental abilities

What are cultural instruments?

Languages, counting systems and mnemonic devices which are passed by generations

What is the significance of cultural instruments?

They shape how individuals think, learn and solve problems in their social group

What are tasks that enhance cognitive development?

• Classification

• Seriation

• Number concepts

• Temporal concepts

• Spatial concept

• Acquisition of skills

What is classification?

Sorting and grouping objects by some common attribute

What is seriation?

Placing objects in a logical sequence or order

What are number concepts?

Understanding quantity

What are temporal concepts?

Understanding time

What are spatial concepts?

The relationships between objects and people

What are the theoretical views of language development?

• Behaviorist view

• Innatist view

• Interaactionist view

Describe the behaviorist view of language development?

• Language is a learned behavior where the rules of conditioning apply

• Parents refinance an infant's language development via feedback

• Complex language is developed via positive feedback

What is the innatist view of language development?

• Noam chomsky believed child are born with a linguistic structure

• Children know innate that communication has deep structure/meaning 

• Language is triggered by verbal communication within the environment

What is the interactionist view of language development?

• A middle ground for the interactionist and innatist views

• Cognitive interactionist believe language is rooted in cognitive development and language is a way to represent symbolic thought 

• Social interactionist believe language is tied to social processes and is guided by internal factors that emerge from the social environment

What are the components of language?

• Learning and understanding ords

• Rules of word use

• Understanding and properly communicating

Describe language development through the first year of life?

• Infants coo and cry

• Second half of year is babbling

• End of first year kids say mama and dada

Describe word use between 18 and 36 months.

• 18- understand 150 and use 50 words

• 12-36 months learn four new words a day

Describe word use between 3 and 6 years.

• 3 years- 3000 words

• 6 years- 10,000- 14,000 words

What are the components of language that relate to meaning?

• Vocabulary

• Semantics- examining the understanding of word meaning

What is the semantic network?

The interrelationship between words

What are the components of language that relate to rules?

• Morphology- word rules(verb tense and plurals)

• Syntax- grammatical rules governing sentence structure

• Pragmatics- aspects of social communication governed by social context

How can spontaneous language be practiced?

Conversations and playing with language

What are language activities?

• Books

• Poetry

• Storytelling

• Flannel Board stories 

• Story enactment

• Puppets

What does emergent literacy mean?

It acknowledges that learning to read and write is a dynamic process that happens in phases