chapter 7 physical and cognitive development in early childhood

physical growth and motor development

• changes in height and weight occur more slowly than in infancy

• each year, children gain about 5-8 cm in height and about 2.7 kg in weight

• children who exhibit higher motor activity levels demonstrate a significantly better ability to control or inhibit their behavior allowing for successful task achievement

• children’s motor activity levels increase linearly with age and tend to peak between 7-9 years of age-later previously thought

• sleeping: most 3-5 year olds need 10-13 hours of sleep

physical growth and motor development improvement

• preschool child makes steady progress in motor development

• the most impressive gains are in large muscle skills

• small-muscle, or fine motor abilities also improve

• although early training (beginning at about 2 ½ ) can accelerate the development of fine motor skills, drawing skills still follow the developmental sequence

the brain and nervous system

• continue in early childhood, although at a pace slower than in infancy

• lateralization

• myelinization of the reticular formation

• hippocampus

• handedness

lateralization

• the functional specialization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain

• the corpus callosum grows and matures most during this time

• genes provide the mechanism for lateralization but experience shapes the pace

• language is primarily centered in the left brain

corpus callosum

connects the right and left hemispheres

myelinization of the reticular formation

the brain structure that regulates attention and concentration, is another important milestone of early childhood brain development

hippocampus in the brain and nervous system

maturation of this probably accounts for improvements in long term memory function across the preschool years, and explains infantile amnesia

handedness

a strong preference for using one hand or the other that develops between 2-6 years of age. right ___ is a dominant gene

infantile amnesia

• the cut-off age for our earliest memories seems to occur around 2 ½ years of age

• text says several factors facilitate the long-term narrative memory of early life events including:

  • the child’s ability to verbally describe the event

  • the emotional impact it had at the time

  • the importance of the event to the child

  • the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the event

  • the age of a child when it occurred

• freud thinks its trauma of birth

preoperational stage of thinking (2-6/7 years)

children become proficient in the use of symbols in thinking and communicating but still have difficulty thinking logically

characteristics of preoperational stage of thinking (2-6/7 years)

• egocentrism

• centration

• conservation

egocentrism

the young child’s belief that everyone sees and experiences the world the way she does

centration

the child thinks of the world in terms of one variable at a time

• having trouble sorting 2 or more variables

conservation

the understanding that matter can change in appearance without changing in quantity (not developed before age 5)

Preoperational stage substages

• preconceptual

• intuitive

preconceptual

• 2-4 years

• imaginary friends

intuitive

• 4-7 years

• limitations on perceptual tasks

imaginary friends

• frequent

• children know the difference between real and not real friends

• imaginary friends have cognitive and emotional benefits

• children are more engaged to play

• children are less shy, more social

• ex. of a study where some were ghosts and bringing an imaginary friend was allowed

errors preoperational children make

• “sun sleeps”

• “I fell because the phone was ringing”

• Pronouns unidentified during story telling because they know who they’re talking about

• mountain scene task

• pencil example

• maynard the cat becomes a dog

• classification tasks

mountain scene task

The child is asked to pick out a picture that shows how the mountains look at her, and then pick out a picture  that shows how the mountains look to the doll. Child may think that the doll will see what they see from different point of views.

Pencil example

what does the pencil feel like to me when pointed in different point of views.

• child has pointy side and other pov has the round side

• answer: “sharp and pointy”

Maynard the cat

• dog mask on cat

• 3 year old think it’s a dog

• 6 years old think it’s a cat with a dog mask

Class inclusion example

• are all these jellybeans? yes

• are there more red jellybeans? yes

• are there more red jellybeans or more jellybeans? more red jellybeans

• problem: whole part (jellybeans) and relations (red jellybeans)

Distance velocity

• Two station A’s leave at the same time

• Two station B’s arrive at the same time

• both trains take two different routes

• did they go the same speed? yes

Conversation of number

• 2×5 coins

• “does this line have more than the other”

  • child says no

• then same 2×5 but one row is spread apart

  • child claims the row more spread apart has more coins while changing the formation right in front of the child!

Seriation

the process of arranging objects in a series or order based on a specific characteristic, such as size, shape, or time. 

Animistic thinking

giving life-like qualities to inanimate objects

Irreversible thinking

pouring short glass into tall glass but cannot imagine other way around

Indirect measure

modified Piagetian number conservation task

• does this line have the same number as this line or does one of them have more?

• 4-7 year olds preoperational children say “the same” the first time they are asked and that the transformed line has more because it is longer

2 possibilities of indirect measure

• Piaget says its because they can not conserve number

• the nature of the task leads children to change their answer

using a puppet to test beliefs about aging

• length = cannot conserve number

• number = can conserve number

• old stereotype grandma puppet

• teacher puppet

• child puppet

theory of mind

a set of ideas constructed by an individual to explain other people’s ideas, beliefs, desires, and behavior

• correlated with performance on Piaget’s tasks and working memory development

• development of a theory of mind is enhanced by pretend play and shared pretense with other children

• some level of language facility may be a necessary condition for the development of a theory of mind

information processing theories

• short term storage space (STSS)

• operational efficiency

short term storage space

theorist Robbie Case’s term for the working memory

• there is a limit to how many ‘schemes’ can be attended to

operational efficiency

a neo-Piagetian term that refers to the maximum number of schemes that can be processed in working memory at one time 

• this improves as the child ages

encoding

organizing information to be stored in memory

storage

keeping information

retrieval

getting information out of memory

information processing

metamemory and metacognition improve during early childhood

metamemory

knowledge about how memory works and the ability to control and reflect on one’s own memory function

• ex. how are you going to study for the test?

metacognition

knowledge about how the mind thinks and the ability to control and reflect on one’s own thought processes

• ex. how are you able to think the best?

  • different environment 

    • quiet vs loud

Vygotsky: sociocultural theory

emphasizes the role of social factors in cognitive development; group learning is central to cognitive development

periods/stages in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

• primitive period

• naive psychology period

• egocentric speech stage

• ingrowth stage

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: primitive period

not understanding things have different names

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: naive psychology period

don’t understand symbolic characteristics of words - not using full sentences

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: egocentric speech stage

• uses language as a guide to solve problems 

• becomes internalized by 6-7 years old

  • inside their head

  • ex. “be careful”

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory: ingrowth stage

logical thinking results from internalization of speech acquired from children and adults in a social world 

• 6-7 year olds

• can count in your head now

Vygotsky

Logical thinking of older children develops because of internalization of speech routines acquired from older children and adults

growth in language

• vocabulary grows rapidly in this timeframe:

  • age 1 year = a dozen words

  • age 2 ½ = 600 words

  • age 5 or 6 = 15,000 words

• fast mapping

• children rapidly form a hypothesis about a new word’s meaning, then uses the word often, getting feedback to help them judge the accuracy of their hypothesis

fast mapping

the ability to categorically link new words to real-world referents

Language": The grammar explosion

• inflections

• questions and negatives

• overregulation

• complex sentences

inflections

• additions that change meaning

• earliest inflection in english is the addition of -ing: “where going”

• ex. adding ‘s’ makes plural

questions and negatives

• a set of rules is used that doesn’t match adult speech

overregularization (overgeneralization)

• using rules when they don’t apply

• ex. instead of “I went to the park” → “I go to the park” 

• ex. “brush hairs,” “tooths → teeth”

complex sentences

• using conjunctions to combine two ideas or using embedded clauses

language: phonological awareness

• children’s understanding of the sound patterns of the language they are acquiring

• knowledge of the language’s system for representing sounds with letters

• can be learned in school through instruction

• the greater a child’s phonological awareness, the faster he/she learns to read

• primarily develops through world play

• increase in chronological awareness = increase in reading

invented spelling

a strategy young children with good phonological awareness skills use when they write

other characteristics found to help contribute to growth in phonological awareness

shared or dialogic reading

first modern standardized intelligence test

published  in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon

intelligence quotient (IQ)

the ratio of mental age to chronological age; also, a general term for any kind of score derived from an intelligence test

• normal __: mental age = chronological age

Wechsler intelligence scales for children (WISC-V 2014)

• the child is presented different types of problems, each ranging from very easy to very hard on five primary indices

• the WISC-VCDN edition of the test has been standardized to reflect the Canadian norms for children

Five primary indices of Wechsler intelligence scales for children

• verbal comprehension

• visual spatial

• fluid reasoning

• working memory

• processing speed

general intelligence is predictive of some aspects of life success

• strong predictor of academic performance

• impact on job performance

• influence on income and occupation

• specific vs general intelligence illness and death) 

measuring intelligence 

• IQ tests do a fairly good job of predicting success in school but don’t measure other variables of success/wealth

• IQ scores are quite stable across time

• IQ tests have several important limitations; there is concerns over cultural biases associated with indigenous children

Individual differences

• evidence for heredity

• evidence for environment

evidence for heredity

both twin studies and studies of adopted children show strong heredity influences on IQ

evidence for environment

adoption studies provide support for an environmental influence on IQ scores

french adoption study

low ses children adopted into middle/high ses homes vs non-adopted how ses children

combining the information

• heredity is highly important influence on IQ

• while initial intelligence is highly heritable, IQ is clearly due to environment or family influences, or interactions between environment and heredity

reaction range

a range between upper and lower boundaries for traits such as intelligence, which is established by one’s genes; one’s environment determines where, within those limits, one will fall

• good environment = high IQ upper of reaction range

• bad environment = IQ bottom of reaction range