Early Childhood

Cognitive Development

- Preoperational Thought

-> Before math operations- can't do that yet

- 3-6 years old

- Causal thinking

-> Good at finding the cause and effect of things- but may lead to anthropomorphism

- Animism

-> Giving inanimate things intention - e.g. Chair pinched me- think non-human things have agency need sophisticated symbolism for this

Symbolism - Pretend Play

Doll house

- Understand that everything in the house represents things) and that they can make a bed out of a shoe box

Symbolism - Numbers/Letters

Understand they have meaning

Symbolism - Gestures

Understand more complex body language

Symbolism - Maps

- When we learn to read maps - understand it symbolizes physical places and environments

- 5 years old

Memory

Attention

Cognitive load

- Instructions: At around the age of 3, instructions need to be step by step- have to break it down because the brain can't hold that sequence- although there is a spectrum (kids with ADHD tend to do worse with this)

- By the time they're five, they can do at least three steps at once

Infantile amnesia

- Around 4th birthda, they still have their implicit memory (ex. If had a good relationship with grandma, they'll still have that), but don't have diary style narrative memory

Delayed imitation

- When kids will imitate your days and weeks later- so you don't know what they will pick up on and not

Inhibition - Executive function

Those who perform poorly at this are more likely to have ADHD

Inhibition - Day/Night Stroop

You have a pic of moon and pic of sun, and when they see sun, they have to say night, and when they see a moon, they have to say day- helps measure executive function

Strip color task

See a bunch of words written

- ex. Word blue written in yellow font and you want them to say the color of the font, not what the word says.

- Preschooler's can't read yet so can't measure inhibition with this

Egocentrism - Perspectives of others

Eg "I'm not hurting his feelings"

Default setting

- they pay attention to their perspective and struggle to consider other people

Ex. if they don't feel annoyed, then they don't think that the other person is annoyed by them"

Egocentrism - Mountain test

- Historical way of testing this

- Build a 3D mountain and let 3 year old walk around the mountain

- On one side there is a cow and on one side there is a goose

- Ask them if they remember what is on the other side of the mountain (validity check- symbolism and object permanence- they will pass this).

- Have another person stand on the other side of the mountain and ask the child what that person sees.

- They will often say that the other person can see what they see

- By 5-6 years of age, we expect them to pass this test

Egocentrism - Telephone nod

- Other way to measure egocentrism before we had facetime

- If you call a 3 year old on a landline, they would often nod or shake their head because they can't understand that you can't see them

Theory of mind - Other's Minds

- Differ from your own

- Our awareness that our own beliefs and perspectives are different from those of others

- Because they are egocentric, this is helpful to see how they view other people's minds

Theory of mind - Intention

- Understand intentions

- Eg: if an adult tries to put a necklace into a cup but drops it, the toddler may finish the action, showing they understand what the adult meant to do

- Researcher will try to reach the object. Infants will often pick up the object that the researcher is reaching for and give it to them.- they can understand people's intention

Theory of mind - Joint Attention

- When infants focus their attention on the same object, person, or experience,as a social partner

- Can involve visual attention, such as both infant and caregiver looking at the same object, and attention from other senses such as touch or hearing

- If you can follow to what someone asks you to look at

- Individual difference: kids who will likely be diagnosed with autism will struggle with joint attention

Theory of mind - Lying

- First sign that they have developed theory of mind

- False belief

- Sally and Anne task

- Lying and false belief come around 5 ½ years of age. Intention, joint attention is early childhood too

Sally & Anne Task

- Sally puts a chocolate in the 1st location then leaves

- Anne moves it to the 2nd location then leaves

- Sally comes back

- Where will Sally look for the chocolate? Child will say 2nd box

- This is called false belief

- kids have a hard time understanding that others don't know what they know

- Usually done with two dolls

- Validity check: where did Sally put the ball? Where did Anne put the ball? Where is the ball right now?

- 3 year olds can pass the validity checks

- When kids can pass this test- that's when they can become liars because they realize that people don't always know what they know

Reversibility

Recall and rewind

Smartie Task

- False belief task: Show preschooler box of chalk, and ask them what they think is in it, they will say chalk.

- When they open it up they see smarties, then when asked what they thought was in it before they will say smarties

- There is variability between 3 and 4 years old

Rock task

- Throw kids a rock, when it's actually a soft toy rock"False belief task

- Can't reverse back to when they were misinformed

- they can't go earlier back in their brain.

- E.g before I passed you the rock, what did you think it was?

- They will say they thought it was a soft rock and they will think that someone else who hasn't seen the toy rock before will think that it's a soft toy

From online: assess an individual's ability to understand that others can have beliefs that are different from reality, a skill known as theory of mind

Centered Thinking

Centered thinking: can't pay attention to two dimensions at once

Classification: They can classify things well and sort things by shape/color- but if you ask them to

Card sort test:

- Ex. if you show shapes and ask 3 year old kids to say what shape it is, they will say the shapes.

- But then if you ask them to say the color of the shaes instead, they will continue to say the shapes, not the color.

- At 5 years old, they will pivot and say the color instead of the shapes

- Also measures inhibition

Conservation

- Certain properties are maintained, even when appearance is changed

Conservation - Volume

Liquid volume- task:

- Take colored liquid and pour roughly equal amounts of liquid in both same glasses and ask them if there is more liquid in one glass or if they are the same, and shift until they say there is equal in both.

- Then get a different glass and pour one of the glasses liquid into the new one.

- A child who is still stuck in centered thinking, can only choose the height or the diameter of the glass, and the dimension that is most salient is height... so the child will most likely say there is more liquid in the tall, skinny glass.

- When you pour it back, they will say that the liquid is equal again→ this is because they don't yet have conservation of volume and are stuck in centered thinking

Conservation - Mass

- Task: take plato balls and ask preschooler if there is more plato in one ball, or if they are equal, and once they say that it is equal then you take one and squish it.

- Depending on how you present it to the preschooler, then one dimension will be more salient to them and they will say there is more plato in one than the other.

- 3 year olds don't have conservation of volume or mass, and by 5 ½ years, they start to get it but may not understand why

Conservation - Number

- Make two rows of five and ask which row has more.

- Then take one row and spread them out, and even kids who can count to 30 will say that the spread out row will have more.

- They can't attend to both numeracy and length

Conservation - Length

- Take sticks and ask which one is longer. Once they say that they're the same, you move one to the side. English readers will say that the one one the right will be longer because they can't attend to the front and the end.

- Kids who read arabic will say the one on the left will be longer

- Other task: you have two cookies and you give them one. They will say it's not fair, and if you cut their cookie in half to have two pieces then they would be happy and say that it is fair now

- Kids think that when appearance are changes, something is drastically different

Emotional development

More complex and mature

Emotional development - autonomy

Toilet and pajamas:

- This is when power struggles start to happen, they want to do things themselves and have that control over themselves

- This also occurs in infancy

Emotional development - delayed gratification

- When they can start to wait for new things

- Ex. marshmallow test (kids around 3 will eat the marshmallow, but more kids in the older range of preschool age will show delayed gratification

- This is new- doesn't occur in infancy"

Emotional development - self-regulation

Aggression

- Intentional aggression (in infancy, it is usually not intentional)

- Aggression tends to peak at 24 months (2 years), and then slowly goes down (must understand that aggression is not worth it due to consequences)

- When they start to understand that they can manipulate

Constructive:

- Helpful tools of regulation

Complex emotions

- Secondary emotions

- Other evaluative

- Self-evaluative

Complex emotions: secondary emotions

Self-conscious emotions

- Require you to have a sense of self so that you can start evaluating others and yourself- these are context specific emotions

- Complex, social-evaluation

- Context specific

Complex emotions: other evaluative

Positive and negative evaluations:

- Think about people in either a positive or negative way

Perspective taking:

- Compassion: may try to share and listen to others - show they understand the person's perspective - this develops more as theory of mind develops

- Empathy: when someone is crying and the child goes to pat their back or hug them

- Envy: when you want something that someone has, but you want them to have it too and you don't begrudge them for it

- Jealousy: when resources are scarce and you want something that somebody else has but you both can't have it, so you want to take it from them - competitive element

Complex emotions: self evaluative

- How you judge yourself

Positive evaluations:

- Pride

- Triumph

Negative evaluations

- Self consciousness

Pride:

- When you evaluate yourself and are proud of yourself

- There is a facial expression with this: tend to put chin up

Triumph:

- When you evaluate your behaviour positively

- Tend to put their hands in the air: humans would raise their hands when they won at war because it intimidates the enemy

Guilt:

- About the behaviour: I did a bad thing

Shame:

- About the self: I am a bad person

- Identity-tied

Embarrassment:

- A part of you that you want to be private has become known

Emotional development: self-esteem

- Doesn't occur in infancy, emerges in early childhood

Early self-esteem:

- 3 and 4 years

- Parental Approval

- Unconditional positive regard

- When your parents give you love without conditions - you don't have to succeed to receive their love

- A typical four year old will answer 5 to everything in a five point scale

- They will say that they are the best at everything

- They are still struggling with theory of mind and so don't yet have the skills to compare their skills to other kids

- It is typical for four years olds to have an inflated self-esteem

- It is worrisome when there are 3-4 year olds who say they are ⅗ on the scales

- This can be corrected with parental approval

- As they get older, their scores will jump down one or two notches

Tree metaphor

If a tree is planted, you expect it to grow in a cone shape and grow on all sides, and Rogers believes that this is what happens to kids with unconditional positive regard- they can grow in all aspects of themselves. When given conditional positive regard, you become a bent tree, and only grow in the ways that your parents want you to

Social development - early childhood

Initiation vs guilt:

- Start to build capacity to initiate play with other kids

- Believed that kids who were told not to go up to others would feel guilt and struggle to make friends

Social development: siblings - Rivalry

When you go into the homes of early young children who have siblings who are also young (3-6 years), they fight about one conflict/minute

Social development: siblings - Communication and Support

- Kids with siblings tend to be able to articulate their perspective taking faster

- Tend to have more support

- Older kids develop mentorship skills, younger siblings tend to develop skills faster

- Develop intricate bonds with siblings"

Social development: Play - Free Play

Unstructured

Child structured:

- Kids get to choose what they are going to do

- Bored time at home is important for their development

Screen free

Cognitive and social skills:

- Cognitive skills: problem solve, think about connections

- Social skills: if around others, they have social skills development

Emotional well-being

- Tend to show resilience and perseverance, deal with frustration tolerance

Creativity

- In affluent, developed nations, kids are getting less free time

Pretend play

Pretend Play

- A form of free play

- Particularly beneficial

- Perspective taking

-> Ex. playing with dolls- you take perspectives of them

- Symbolism

- Role playing

- Cooperation

- Imagination friends- Increases social understanding and higher emotional IQ

Pretend Play- Vygotsky

- Learning through

- Social interaction

- He believes we learn, not through our own self exploration, but through social interaction

- Language

- Cultural interactions

-> The types of behaviors that your caregivers do with you can facilitate good skills

- Private speech:

-> Disagreed about private speech ideas of other psychologists

-> He believed that it was good and not a sign of maladaptation

- Private speech:

-> Kids will say what's on their mind, don't have an inner monologue yet (that develops around age 5)

-> Other psychologists believed that this showed immaturity, but Vygotsky believed private speech was good

- Make believe:

-> Believed in the power of make believe and pretend play as a catalyst of development

Zone of proximal development- Vygotsky

From online:

- Range of skills a learner can master with assistance but can't yet accomplish independently

Range of skills

Teaching under/over:

- This is when you either try to teach something that is too easy or too difficult

Self-efficacy:

- Another word for self-confidence

- If you teach over, self-efficacy will tank

- If you teach under, they will feel that what they are learning is not meaningful

Building blocks:

- Stay within range of skills, but teach them the next building block

- Push them to a level that they can manage

- There are certain skills that we are ready for at certain ages

- Your range of skills that you are ready to obtain

- This has influenced modern education: Assets approach to education: teach what they are ready for- things that are obtainable but not too easy

Zone of Proximal Development- Scaffolding

- Scaled-support

- Learner led

- Gradual independence

- Give them as much support as they need and don't take away support until they are ready

Social development: Play - Play Development

Nonsocial play:

- Birth to age 2

- We play, but not with others- infant interacting with toy object- they aren't initiating with others

Parallel play:

- Intersect but with little interaction

- 2-3 years

- You can put two toddlers in the same room, and they may glance at each other and not yet play with each other.

- If one stops playing, the other may stop too

Associative play:

- Sharing but pursuing own goals

- 2-4 years

- Have two kids around same age, and they share things

- Ex. they color their own pictures, but they share the crayons

- Ex. building their own things with blocks, but share the blocks

Social play:

- Cooperation

- 4.5 years and up

- Sharing a goal

- Ex. pretend shared play - like playing a house

- Ex. colouring a picture together

- Social play has the special benefits

The type of play we do develops over time, some types only come at certain ages

Social development: Play - Play Preferences

- Only count when unstructured play time, when other kids around

- Ex. on playground, at recess, etc

- Some kids prefer social and some kids prefer solitary

- Social vs Solitary

- Lonely vs Alonely

Social play preferences

Dyadic:

- You just want to play with one other kid

- Girls tend to prefer dyadic play

Group:

- Play with three or more kids

- Ex. team sports play, dance party, etc

- Tend to be more physical activities

Solitary play preferences

Engaged:

- Engaged in something that has a goal and is constructive

- Ex. the child who prefers to read, do a puzzle, dribble a basketball

- Tend to be healthy introverts

Reticence:

- We are worried about these kids

- No obvious goal, not doing anything constructive

- May have developmental condition, but may not

- Ex. kids who just wander or hover (hovering effect), onlooking behavior, stimming behavior

- Maladaptive because not developing social or cognitive skills, but may develop self regulation skills

- These are the kids that will struggle with social skills"

Lonely v Alonely play preferences

Lonely: you can feel lonely even when you're not alone- you don't feel connected to the crowd. You're not satisfied with your level of social connection

Alonely: you are overstimulated and you desire less social stimulation

Linguistic development

- Toddler Talk

-> Can't comprehend them all

-> Good pragmatic skills; knows listener isn't understanding

-> Mouth just physically can't

- We don't tend to refer kids to speech pathologist at 3 or 4 unless there's something really wrong

Morphemes

- Smallest Unit of Meaning

- Not syllable/letter/word

- Cats has 2 morphemes: Cat (info about thing) + s (info about plurality)

- Swimming pools have 4 morphemes

Grammar Rules

Underextension:

- 1-2 years

- Call all furry things a dog; neurons to apply new labels

Overregularization:

- 3-5 years

- Rule-based

- Novel sentences

- Pronouns

- Overapplying rules

-> ex. foots instead of feet, swimmed instead of swam

- Safe and normal

Pronouns

- Little kids struggle: midgender a lot despite actually understanding your gender

- Synapse issue: "not a JK Rowling"

Written Language

- Graphemes

-> smallest part of written language: letters

- First letter of name (age 3)

- First name (age 3-4)

- 3-letter sight words (age 4-5)

- Rhyming words (age 4-5)

Writing Development

About 6 steps; don't know when

- Preschool Scribbling

- Linear Scribbling

- Pseudo Letters

- Pseudo & Real Letters

- Reversals & Omissions

- Typical Writing at age 5

Stages may look a bit different with character languages

Physical Development

Age 2: Half adult height (50%)

Age 3: Sleep 12 hours/night

Gross Motor:

- Hop, stairs, walk backwards

Fine Motor:

- Preschool skills

Self-Care

- Hand-Eye Coordination

- Self-Feeding

- Basic cutlery skills (but cutting steak still freaky)

- Dressing

-> Zippers (age 3)

-> Buttons (age 5)

-> Shoe Tying (age 6)

Cultural Variations

Culture Specific Skills

Generational Skills:

- Less exposure to needlepoint

- Less familiar with opening milk carton the old way

-> Neurological implications

- Technology Related Skills