[PSYC 25] Module 3

Preoperational Stage

Piaget's second stage of cognitive development lasting from ages 2-7. Children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings. Symbolic thought does beyond simple connections of sensory information and physical actions. Stable concepts are formed and mental reasoning emerges, child's cognitive world is dominated by egocentrism is present and magical beliefs are constructed. Has two substages.

Operations

Reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what before they had done only physically

Preoperational Thought

Beginning of the ability to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behaviour

Symbolic Function Substage

The first substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between the ages of 2 and 4. In this substage, the young child gains the ability to mentally represent and object that is not present, which vasty expands the child's mental world.

Egocentrism

Limitation under the symbolic function substage. Is the inability to distinguish between one's own perspective and someone else's perspective and is a salient feature of the first substage of preoperational thought.

Animism

Limitation under the symbolic function substage. Children's belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action. Child using animism fails to distinguish the appropriate occasions for using human and nonhuman perspectives.

Intuitive Thought Substage

Piaget's second substage of preoperational thought occuring roughly between ages 5-7. In this substage, children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions. Named this substage as children seem so sure about their knowledge and understanding yet are unaware of how they know what they know.

Centration

Limitation of preoperational thought where it is a centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others. Most clearly evidenced in young children's lack of conservation.

Conservation

The awareness that altering an object's or a substance's appearance does not change its basic properties. Can be volume, numbers, length, area, etc.

Vygotsky's Theory

Development theory that focuses on children's cognition and emphasises that children actively construct their knowledge and understanding. Children are more often described as social creatures and they develop their ways of thinking and understanding primarily through social interactions. Cognitive development depends on the tools provided by society, and their minds are shaped by the cultural context in which they live in.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Vygotsky's term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance from adults or more-skilled children. It captures a child's cognitive skills that are in the process of maturing and can be accomplished only with the assistance a more-skilled person cal "buds" or "flowers" of development.

Lower Limit of ZPD

Level of skill reached by the child working independently.

Upper Limit of ZPD

Level of additional responsibility the child can accept with the assistance of an able instructor.

Scaffolding

Concept closely linked to the idea of the ZPD which refers to the changing levels of support. A more-skilled person (e.g. teacher) adjusts the amount of guidance given to fit a child's current performance.

Language and Thought

Use of dialogue as a tool for scaffolding is only one example of the important role of language in a child's development. Develops independently from each other, then merges.

Private Speech

Use of language for self-regulation. Is an important tool of though during the early childhood years when children think "aloud" or speak without the intention of anyone listening.

Inner Speech

When children internalises their egocentric speech; becomes their thoughts

Assess the child's ZPD

A teaching strategy where assessments should be focused on determining the child's ZPD. Skilled helpers present children with tasks of varying difficulty to determine the best level at which to begin instruction.

Use the child's ZPD in teaching

A teaching strategy where teaching should begin towards the zone's upper limit in order to the child to reach the goal with help and move to a higher level of skill and knowledge. Offering encouragement to the child so they can practice the skill

Use more-skilled peers as teachers

A teaching strategy which states that apart from the support of adults, children also benefit from support and guidance of more-skilled children.

Place instructions in a meaningful context

A teaching strategy where students are provided with opportunities to experience leaning in the real-world setting

Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas

A teaching strategy where concepts like scaffolding are incorporated in learning environments

Initiative vs Guilt

Erikson's third stage where children become convinced that they are persons in their own right. Children use their perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make something happen.

Self-Understanding

The child's cognitive representation of the self, the substance and content of the child's self-conception and provides the personal identity with its rational underpinnings. Early _______ involves self-recognition.

Understanding Others

Young children also make advances in how they understand others and their capacity to learn from others. Theory of mind includes understanding that others have emotions and desires. Children also learn extensively through observing other's behaviour. Children describe themselves and perceive others in terms of psychological traits. As they mature, children understand that people.

Joint Commitment

Another important aspect of understanding others. By 3, a child's collaborative interactions with others increasingly involve obligations to the partner.

Expressing Emotions

Self-conscious emotions (e.g. pride, shame, guilt) don't develop until ~15-18 months. Children must be able to refer to themselves and be aware of themselves as distinct from others. May also be linked to their parents' own expressive behaviour.

Pride and Guilt

Two emotions that become common in early childhood

Understanding Emotions

Increased understanding of emotion occurs is an advancement of emotional development that occurs in early childhood. Children increasingly understand that certain situations are likely to evoke particular emotions, facial expressions indicate specific emotions, emotions affect behaviour and emotions can be used to influence others' emotions.

2-4 (Understanding Emotions)

At ages _______, children considerably increase the number the number of terms they use to describe emotions. Children also learn about the causes and consequences of feelings.

4-5 (Understanding Emotions)

At ages _______, children show an increased ability to reflect on emotions and a growing awareness for the need to manage their emotions to meet social standards.

Emotion-Based Prevention Program (EBP)

Program designed to improve young children's understanding of emotion. Consists of a teacher-conducted emotion classroom course, emotion tutoring and coaching teacher dialogues, and weekly parent messages that reinforce the classroom lessons. Was found to be
effective in improving children's emotion knowledge and children showed a decrease in their expression of negative emotions and internalising behaviours.

Regulating Emotions

An important aspect of development and plays a key role in children's ability to manage the demands and conflicts they fact in their interactions with others. Its growth may be considered as fundamental to becoming socially competent.

Executive Function

Increasingly thought to be a key concept in describing a young child's higher-level cognitive functioning.

Emotion-Coaching Parents

Parents who monitor their children's emotions, view their children's negative emotions as opportunities for teaching, assist them in labelling emotions, and coach them to effecting deal with emotions. They interact with their children in a less rejecting manner, use more scaffolding, and praise and are more nurturant than emotion-dismissing parents.

Emotion-Coaching Parents

Children of these parents are better at soothing themselves when they're upset, more effective in regulating negative affect, focus their attention better, and have fewer behaviour problems that children of emotion-dismissing parents.

Emotion-Dismissing Parents -MAYBE

View their role as to deny, ignore, or change negative emotions

Moral Development

Development that involves thoughts, feelings, and behaviours regarding riles and conventions about what people should do in there interactions with other people.

Moral Feelings

Feelings of anxiety and guilt are central to the account of mortal development provided by Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Children attempt to reduce anxiety, avoid punishment, and maintain parental affection by identifying with parents and internalising their standards of right and wrong, forming the superego (the moral element of personality). Positive feelings can also contribute to a child's moral development.

Empathy

A positive feeling that can contribute to a child's moral development. Involves responding to another person's feelings with an emotion that echoes the other's feelings.

Perspective-Taking

The ability to discern another's inner psychological states/consider the alternative views/perspectives of others. Empathy often requires this.

Sympathy

An other-oriented emotional response in which an observer experiences emotions that are similar or identical to what another person if feeling, and often motivates prosocial behaviour.

Heternomous Morality

First stage of moral development, occurring from about 4-7 years old. Children think of justice and rules and unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people and believe rules are unchangeable and are handed down by all-powerful authority.

Immanent Justice

The concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately; also implies if something unfortunate has happened to someone, the person must have transgressed earlier. Believed by heternomous thinkers.

Autonomous Morality

At around 10 years old and older, children become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and in judging an action they consider the actor's intentions and consequences.

Moral Behaviour

Process of reinforcement, punishment and imitation explain the development of moral behaviour. Situation also influences behaviour as when children are presented with a model who behaves morally, children are more likely to imitate.

Self-Control

Social cognitive theorists also suggest that the ability to resist temptation is closely tied to the development of ________. To achieve this _________, children must learn to delay gratification. Cognitive factors are also important in the child's development of __________.

Conscience

The great governor of initiative during the initiative vs guilt stage. An internal regulation of standards of right and wrong that involves an integration of all three competes of moral development: thought, feeling, and behaviour.

Parenting and Young Children's Moral Development

In Ross Thompson's view, young children are moral apprentices, striving to understand what is moral. Among the most important aspects of the relationship between parents and children that contribute to children's moral development are relational quality, parental discipline, pro- active strategies, and conversational dialogue.

Parent-Child Relationships

Parents' introduce children to the mutual obligations of close relationships. Parents' obligations include engaging in positive caregiver and guiding children to become competent human beings. Children's obligations include responding appropriately to parents' initiatives and maintaining a positive relationship with parents.

Authoritarian Parenting

A parenting style where parents are restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhorts the child to follow their direction and respect their work and effort. Places firm limits and controls on the cold and allows little verbal exchange. May spank the child frequently. Enforce rule rigidly but not often explain them, and show rage towards children

Authoritarian

Children of parents with a ________ parenting style often feel unhappy, fearful, and anxious about comparing themselves with others, fail to initiate activity, and have wee communication skills.

Authoritative Parenting

A parenting style where parents exercise some control and direction over their children. They encourage children to be independent but sill places limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing. They show pleasure and support in response to children's constructive behaviour but also expect mature, independent, and age-appropriate behaviour from the children.

Authoritative

Children of parents with a ________ parenting style are often cheerful, self-controlled and self-reliant, and achievement-oriented; they tend to maintain friendly relations with peers, cooperate with adults, cope well with stress and engaged in more prosocial behaviour.

Neglectful Parenting

A parenting style where the parent is uninvolved in the child's life.

Neglectful

Children of parents with a ________ parenting style develop a sense that other aspects of the parents' life are more important than they are. They tend to be social incompetent, have poor self-control, don't handle independence well
, frequently have low self-esteem, are immature, and may be alienated from the family.

Indulgent Parenting

A parenting style where parents are highly involved with their children but place few demands or controls on them and let their children do what the want.
Parents often follow this parenting styles because they believe if they do, their children will become creative and confident.

Indulgent

Children of parents with a ________ parenting style never learn to control their own behaviour and always expect to get their way.
They rarely learn respect for others, have difficulty control their behaviour and might be domineering, egocentric, noncompliant, and have difficulties in peer relations.

Coparenting

The support that parents provide one another in jointly raising a child.

Play

A pleasurable activity in which children engage for its own sake, and its functions and forms vary and is an important aspect of a child's development.

Play's Function

Play helps children master anxieties and conflicts (Freud/Erikson). Permits children to work off excess physical energy, to release pent-up tension and is an important context for cognitive development.

Piaget

____________'s perspective on play. Children's cognitive development constrains the way they play. Play permits children to practice their competencies and acquired skills in a relaxed and pleasurable way and provides the perfect setting for children to exercise their cognitive structures.

Vygotsky

____________'s perspective on play. Play is considered to be an excellent setting for cognitive development. Is
specifically interested in the symbolic and make-believe aspects of play and believed that parents should encourage imaginary play because it advances the child's cognitive development, especially creative thought

Daniel Berlyne

____________'s perspective on play. Described play as exciting and pleasurable in itself because it satires our exploratory drive, which involves curiosity and a desire for information about something new/unusual. Play encourages exploratory behaviour by offering children the possibilities of novelty, complexity, uncertainty, surprise, and incongruity.

Sensorimotor Play

A type of play confined to infancy. Behaviour engaged in by infants that lets them derive pleasure from exercising their existing sensorimotor schemas. By ~9 months, infants begin to select novel objects for exploration and play and are especially responsive to objects/toys that make noise or bounce. Often involves practice play.

Practice Play

Play that involves repetition of behaviour when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination of skills are required for games or sports. Type of play that can be involve throughout life.

Pretense/Symbolic Play

Play in which the child transforms the physical environment into a symbol. Between 9-30 months, children increase their use of objects in symbolic play. They learn to transform objects, substituting them for other objects and acting towards them as if they were those other objects.

Social Play

Play that involves interaction with peers
This type of play dramatically increases during the preschool years. For many children, this type of play is the main context for you children's social interactions with peers.

Constructive Play

Play that combines sensorimotor and repetitive activity with symbolic representation of ideas. Occurs when children engage in self-regulated creation or construction of a product or a solution.
Type of play that increases during the preschool years as symbolic play increases and sensorimotor play decreases.

Games

Activities that children engage in for pleasure which include rules and often involve competition with one or more individuals. Often played between ages 10-12 and begin to decrease in popularity after age 12.

Screen Time

Term used to describe the amount of time individuals spend with television, DVDs, computers, video games, and hand-held.

Negative

Passive learning, distracted from other tasks, learning stereotypes, decreased time spend in play, less time interacting with peers, higher rates of aggression, decreased physical activity, lower cognitive development, poor sleep habits, and increased risk of being overweight/obese are all examples of the ________ effects of TV/screen time.

Positive

Gaining cognitive skills, learning about the world and social reasoning and attitudes towards outgroups are some examples of how some shows (e.g. Sesame Street) have ________ effects.