Early Childhood

3 years old

• Children begin to lose their babyish roundness and take on the slender, athletic appearance of childhood

• Brain is approximately 90% of adult weight

• Cannot turn or stop suddenly or quickly

• Can jump a distance of 15-24 inches

• Can ascend a stairway unaided, alternating feet

• Can hop

• Handedness is evident

• All primary teeth are evident

• Can now pick up tiny objects between their thumb and forefingers (tho still clumsy)

• Know the difference between reality and imagination

• Can use 900 to 1000 words

• Typically begin to use plurals, possessives, and past tense

4 years old

• Peak of the density of synapses in the prefrontal cortex

• More effective control of stopping, starting, and turning

• Can jump a distance of 24-33 inches

• Can descend a long stairway alternating feet if supported

• Able to categorize objects to identify similarities and differences

• Can tell the differences in size

• They conversate in sentences and may be declarative, negative, interrogative, or imperative

• Can recognize facial expressions, recognize emotions thru vocal cues and body postures

5 years old

• Can start, turn, and stop effectively in games

• Can descend a long stairway, unaided

• Run hard and enjoy races with each other

• Hand, arm, and body move together under better command of the eye

• Can now count to 20 or more and know the relative sizes of the numbers 1 through 10

• Speech is quite adultlike

• Children understand the public aspects of emotions (understand the things that causes others to be sad or happy)

6 years old

• Brain is 90% of its peak volume

• Permanent teeth begins to appear

• Has an expressive vocabulary of 2,600 words and understands more than 20,000

7 years old

Children start to understand that mental states can drive emotions

Growth Hormone Deficiency

absence or deficiency of growth hormone produced by pituitary gland to stimulate the body to grow

Enuresis

• repeated involuntary urination at night by children old enough to have bladder control

• genetics may play role

Handedness

the preference of using one hand over the other

Stunted Children

normal weight but shorter than they should for their age and may have cognitive and physical deficiencies, visible in developing countries

Preoperational Stage

• Jean Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development

• Lasting from ages 2 to 7, characterized by the expansion in the use of symbolic thought

• Children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings

• Dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs

• Does not yet perform Operations (which are reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what before they could do only physically)

Preoperational Thought

beginning of the ability to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behavior

2 substages of Preoperational Stage

• Symbolic function

• Intuitive Thought

Symbolic Function

• being able to think about something in the absence of sensory or motor cues

• can use symbols, or mental representations such as words, numbers, or images to which a person has attached meaning

• The most extensive use of symbolic function is language

• Occurs between ages of 2 and 4

Deferred Imitation

children imitate an action at some point after observing it

Pretend Play

fantasy play, dramatic play, or imaginary play; children use an object to represent something else

Intuitive Thought

• begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions

• Occurs approx. 4-7 yrs of age

• Children also begin to able to understand the symbols that describe physical spaces

• Piaget believed that children cannot yet reason logically about causality

Transduction

they mentally link two events, especially events close in time, whether or not here is logically a causal relationship

Identities

the concept that people and many things are basically the same even if they change in outward form, size, or appearance

Animism

tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive

Centration

• the tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation and neglect others

  • Children cannot Decenter (think about several aspects of a situation at one time)

  • Involves on focusing on one dimension while ignoring the other

Irreversibility

failure to understand that an action can go in two or more directions

Egocentrism

young children center so much on their own point of view that they cannot take in another’s

Conservation

the fact that two things are equal remain so if their appearance is altered, as long as nothing is added or taken away

Theory of Mind

• the awareness of the broad range of human mental states – beliefs, intents, desires, dreams, and so forth – and the understanding that others have their own

  • Allows us to understand and predict the behavior of others and makes the social world understandable

Memory can be described as a filing system that has three steps:

• Encoding

• Storage

• Retrieval

Encoding

putting information in the memory

Storage

putting away in the filing cabinet where it is kept

Retrieval

searching for the information and take it out of the memory system

Three types of Memory Storage:

• Sensory Memory

• Working Memory

• Long Term Memory

Sensory Memory

temporary storage for incoming sensory information

Working Memory

• short-term storehouse for information a person is actively working on, trying to understand, remember, or think about

• Located partly in the prefrontal cortex

Long-Term Memory

storehouse of virtually unlimited capacity that holds information for long period of time

Phonological Loop

aids in the processing of verbal information

Visuospatial Sketchpad

maintains and manipulates visual information

Executive Function

• the conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or to solve problems

• Enables children to plan and carry out goal-directed mental activity

Recognition

ability to identify something encountered before

Recall

ability to reproduce knowledge from memory

Generic Memory

begins at 2 years old, produces a script of a familiar, repeated event

Episodic Memory

refers to awareness of having experienced a particular event at a specific time and place (if repeated, it becomes generic memory)

Autobiographical memory

• refers to memories of distinctive experiences that form a person’s life history

  • Generally emerges between ages 3 to 4

  • The more unique an event is, the more children remember it better

Attention

defined as the focusing of mental resources on select information

Executive Attention

involves action planning, allocating attention to goals, error detection and compensation, monitoring progress on tasks, etc.

Sustained Attention

focused and extended engagement with an object, tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult circumstances

Haphazard Comparison Strategy

Preschool children tend to use ___________, not examining all of the details before making a judgement

3-5 yr old

______ children are more proficient with language than younger children

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

• used for ages 2 and up, taking 45 to 60 mins

  • Child is ask to define words, string beads, build blocks, etc.

  • Measure fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, etc.

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence

• individual test taking 30 to 60 mins

  • Yields verbal, performance, and combined scores

  • Includes subtests designed to measure both verbal and nonverbal fluid reasoning, etc.

Vygotsky

According to _______, children learn by internalizing the results of interactions with adults

Zone of Proximal Development

• the imaginary psychological space between what children can do or know by themselves and what they could do or know with help

• Can be assessed by Dynamic Tests

• Takes a social constructivist approach (social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction)

Scaffolding

supportive assistance that a more sophisticated interaction partner provides, and ideally it should be aimed at ZPD

Fast Mapping

• allows a child to pick up approximate meaning of a new word after hearing it only once or twice in conversation

  • Nouns are easier to fast map than verbs

Syntax

a concept and involves the rules for putting together sentences in a particular language

Pragmatics

practical knowledge of how to use language to communicate

Social Speech

speech intended to be understood by a listener

Private Speech

• talking aloud to oneself with no intent to communicate with others (Egocentric Speech)

  • Immature (Piaget)

  • Learning Process (Vygotsky)

Emergent Literacy

• development of fundamental skills that eventually lead to being able to read

  • Social interaction promotes emergent literacy

Child-centered Kindergarten

emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for his or her physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development

Montessori Method

• based on the beliefs that children’s natural intelligence involves rational, spiritual, and empirical aspects

• Children have given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities

Reggio Emilia Approach

less formal than Montessori; teachers follow children’s interest and support them in exploration

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

based on knowledge of the typical development of children within an age span as well as the uniqueness of the child

Self-Concept

• our total picture of our abilities and traits

• Children’s self-definition typically change between ages 5 and 7

• At about 7, children will be able to describe themselves in terms of generalized traits

Self-Esteem

• self-evaluative part of the self-concept, the judgement children make about their overall worth

  • Children’s self-esteem tends to be unidimensional (either good or bad)

  • Children whose self-esteem is contingent on success tend to become demoralized when they fail

  • Children with noncontingent self-esteem tend to attribute failure or disappointment to factors outside themselves or to the need to try harder

Emotional self-regulation

helps children guide their behavior and adjust their responses to meet societal expectations

Emotion-Coaching Parents

monitor their children’s emotions, view negative emotions as opportunities for teaching, assist them in labelling emotions, and coach them in how to deal effectively with emotions

Emotion-Dismissing Parents

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

Social Emotions

• involve a comparison of one’s self or one’s actions to social standards

  • Guilt, shame and pride

  • Developed after they gain self-awareness and accept the standards of behavior their parents have set

Play Age`

• 3-5 yrs

• Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt

• Virtue Developed: Purpose

Purpose

the courage to envision and pursue goals without being unduly inhibited by guilt or fear of punishment

Maladaptive Tendency: Ruthlessness

don’t care who they step in just to achieve their goals

Malignant Tendency: Inhibition

too much guilt to do anything so nothing would happen

Gender Identity

awareness of one’s femaleness or maleness and all it implies in one’s society of origin

Gender Differences

psychological or behavioral differences between males and females

Gender Roles

behaviors, interests, attitudes, skills, and personality traits that a culture considers appropriate for males or females

Gender-typing

the acquisition of gender role

Gender Stereotypes

preconceived generalizations about male or female behavior

Theory of Sexual Selection

the selection of sexual partners is a response to differing reproductive pressures early men and women confronted in the study for survival

Identification

adoption of characteristics, beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors of the parent of the same sex

Cues

According to Kohlberg, Children actively search for ____ about gender in their social world

Gender Constancy

a child’s realization that his or her gender will always be the same

Gender Identity

awareness of one’s own gender and that of others, which typically occurs ages 2 and 3

Gender Stability

awareness that gender does not change

Gender Consistency

the realization that a girl remains a girl even if she has a short haircut and plays with trucks, typically occurs between ages 3 and 7

Gender-Schema Theory

• it views children as actively extracting knowledge about gender from their environment before engaging in gender-typed behavior

• Place more emphasis on the influence of culture

• Children match their behavior to their culture’s view of what boys and girls are supposed to be and do

Walter Mischel

According to __________, children acquire gender roles by imitating models and being rewarded for gender-appropriate behavior

Social Cognitive Theory

observation enables children to learn much about gender-typed behaviors before performing them

Play

• vitally important to development and has significant current and long-term functions

• enables children to engage with the world around them, use imagination, to discover flexible ways to use objects and solve problems, and to prepare for adult roles

Cognitive Levels of Play

• Functional Play (Locomotor Play or Sensorimotor Play)

• Constructive Play (Object Play or Practice Play)

• Dramatic Play (Pretend Play, Fantasy Play, Imaginative Play)

Functional Play (Locomotor Play or Sensorimotor Play)

simplest level; begins during infancy, consisting of repeated practice in large muscular movements

Constructive Play (Object Play or Practice Play)

use of objects or materials to make something

Dramatic Play (Pretend Play, Fantasy Play, Imaginative Play

involves imaginary objects, actions, or roles

6 Types of Play by Parten (1932)

• Unoccupied Behavior

• Onlooker Behavior

• Solitary Independent Play

• Parallel Play

• Associative Play

• Cooperative or Organized Supplementary Play

Unoccupied Behavior

child does not seem to be playing but watches anything of momentary interest

Onlooker Behavior

child spends most time watching others play

Solitary Independent Play

child plays alone

Parallel Play

plays beside the other children independently

Associative Play

children talk, borrow, and lend toys, follow each other around and play similarly

Cooperative or Organized Supplementary Play

child plays in a group organized for some goal – to make something, play formal game, or dramatize a situation

Reticent Play

combination of Unoccupied and Onlooker categories is often a manifestation of shyness

Social Play

involves interaction with peers

Constructive play

combines sensorimotor/practice play with symbolic representation