Developmental psych Unit 2

Two most important contributors to height differences:

* Ethnic origin and Nutrition

Myelination

* Nerve cells are covered and insulated with a layer of fat cells
* This increases the speed and efficiency at which information travels through the nervous system

Gross motor skills:

The preschool child no longer has to make an effort simply to stay upright and move around.

•At age 3 they enjoy simple movements like hopping, jumping, and running.

•At age 4 they begin to come down stairs as they go up, one foot on each step.

•By age 5, they are even more adventurous, often performing hair-raising stunts.

Advances allow increasing interaction with objects, their environment, and people.

Fine motor skills:

* Still somewhat clumsy at 3 years.
* Improved fine motor coordination at 4 years.

By age 5, hand, arm, and body all move together under better command of the eye

Good sleep is linked to:

* Better-quality interactions with parents (preschoolers)
* 10-13 hours recommended for preschool aged kids
* Consistent sleep and wake times

Sleep problems:

* narcolepsy, insomnia, and nightmares
* linked with negative outcomes, including being overweight or obese and attention hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Eating behavior and overweight young children:

* Strongly influenced by caregivers behavior
* Becoming overweight has become a serious health problem in early age

Body Mass Index (BMI)

* How categories for obesity, overweight, and at risk for being overweight are determined
* Computed by a formula that takes into account  height and weight
* In a comparison of 34 countries, the United States has the  second-highest rate of childhood obesity

Obesity prevention guidelines, daily, for young children:

* Five or more servings of fruits and vegetables.
* Two hours or less of screen time.
* Minimum of 1 hour of physical activity.
* Zero sugar-sweetened beverages.

Malnutrition and its effect on many low income families:

* Many do not obtain enough iron, vitamins, or protein.
* WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) is a program designed to address this problem.

Leading cause of death for young children in US

* accidents
* Drowning is the most common cause, followed by motor vehicle accidents
* Children in poverty have higher rates of accidents, death, and asthma than do children from higher-income families.
* Children exposed to tobacco smoke in the home are more likely to develop asthma and hyperactivity and conduct problem symptoms.

Characteristics that enhance young children’s safety:

%%Individual characteristics:%%

•Social skills and emotion regulation

•Impulse control

•Use of personal protection.

%%Family/home characteristics:%%

•Child management and parenting skills

•Parent protective behaviors

•Home safety equipment

%%School/peer characteristics:%%

•Home/school partnerships;

•Absence of playground hazards;

•Injury prevention and safety promotion policies/programs.

%%Community characteristics:%%

•Positive activities for families;

•Active surveillance of hazards;

•Effective prevention policies.

Young children’s death around the world:

* Many deaths of young children could be prevented by a reduction in poverty and improvements in nutrition, sanitation, education, and health services.
* Devastating effects on the health of young children occur in countries with high poverty rates.
* A dramatic increase in deaths has resulted from HIV/AIDS, especially in poor countries.

Piaget’s preoperational stage:

* Piaget’s second stage, from about 2 to 7 years of age.
* Children represent the world with words, images, and drawings.
* They form stable concepts and begin to reason.

In this stage, children do not yet perform %%**operations**%%**:** reversible mental actions that allow them to do mentally what they formerly did physically.

Piaget:

Symbolic function substage:

* The child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present.
* Between about 2 and 4 years of age.


* Children’s thought is still limited by egocentrism and animism.

Piaget:

Egocentrism:

* The inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s.

Piaget:

Animism:

* The belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action.

Piaget:

Intuitive thought substage:

* Children use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to many questions.
* Between 4 and 7 years of age.

Piaget:

Centration:

* A centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others.

Piaget:

Conservation:

* The awareness that altering an object or substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties.

Vygotsky’s theory:

Social constructivist approach:

* An emphasis on the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction.


* According to Vygotsky, children think and understand primarily through social interaction.

Vygotsky’s theory:

Zone of proximal development (ZPD):

* The range of tasks too difficult for the child alone but that can be learned with guidance.
* Closely linked to the idea of the ZPD is *scaffolding*—that is, changing the level of support and instruction provided.
* As competence increases, less guidance is given.

Vygotsky’s theory:

Language and thought:

* Children use speech to communicate socially and to help them solve tasks.
* Young children also use language to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior.

Vygotsky’s theory:

Private speech:

* *Private speech* refers to this use of language for self-regulation.
* When they gain the skill to act without verbalizing, they have internalized their egocentric speech in the form of *inner speech*.
* Private speech plays a positive role in development.

Vygotsky’s theory:

Teaching strategies:

* Assess the child’s ZPD.
* Use the child’s ZPD in teaching.
* Use more-skilled peers as teachers.
* Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech.
* Place instruction in a meaningful context.
* Tools of the Mind is an early-childhood education curriculum that is grounded in Vygotsky’s theory.

Evaluating Vygotsky’s theory:

* Vygotsky’s view fits with the current belief that it is important to evaluate contextual factors in learning.

Criticisms of Vygotsky’s:

* Not specific enough about age-related changes.
* Overemphasized the role of language in thinking.
* Emphasis on collaboration and guidance has potential pitfalls.

**COMPARISON OF VYGOTSKY’S AND PIAGET’S THEORIES**

Attention:

* The ability to focus mental resources on select information improves significantly in the preschool years.

Executive attention:

a good predictor of self-regulation, involves:

* Action planning
* Allocating attention to goals
* Error detection and compensation
* Monitoring progress on tasks
* Dealing with novel or difficult circumstances.

**Sustained attention:**

* Focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment.
* Also called *vigilance*.

__Attention is still deficient in at least two ways:__

* Salient versus relevant dimensions
* Ex: preschool kids pay attention to stimuli that stand out (salient) but that are not necessarily relevant to problem solving.
* Planfulness
* Children’s ability to control and sustain their attention is related to school readiness.

Short term memory

* Individuals can retain information up to 30 seconds with no rehearsal.
* The memory-span task assesses short-term memory using a short list of stimuli—usually digits—presented at a rapid pace, after which subjects are asked to repeat the list.
* Increases during early childhood

Theory of mind:

* awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others.
* From 18 months to 3 years, children begin to understand three mental states:
* Perceptions
* Emotions
* Desires

From 4 to 5 years, they come to understand *false beliefs*.

Information processing beyond age 5

* children develop a deepening appreciation of the mind itself rather than just mental states.
* They can see the mind as an active constructor of knowledge.
* They realize the same event can be open to multiple interpretations.

Individual differences and factors that influence theory of mind:

* Executive function.
* Prefrontal cortex functioning.
* Language development.
* Socioeconomic status.

%%Children with autism have difficulty developing a theory of mind.%%

Phonology

* The sound system of a language.
* During the preschool years, most children become:
* Sensitive to the sounds of spoken words; and
* Capable of producing all the sounds of their language.

Morphology

* The units of meaning in word formation.
* As children move beyond two-word utterances, they demonstrate a knowledge of morphology rules:
* Plural and possessive forms of nouns;
* Appropriate verb endings; and
* Prepositions, articles, and forms of *to be*.

STIMULI IN BERKO’S STUDY OF YOUNG CHILDREN’S UNDERSTANDING OF MORPHOLOGICAL RULES

* In Jean Berko’s (1958) study, young children were presented cards, such as this one with a “wug” on it. Then the children were asked to supply the missing word; in supplying the missing word, they had to say it correctly, too. “Wugs” is the correct response here.

Syntax:

* The way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences.
* Preschool children show a growing mastery of complex rules for how words should be ordered.

Semantics

* The meaning of words and sentences.
* Vocabulary development is dramatic.

Fast mapping:

* A process in which young children learn the connection between a word and its referent quickly, after only limited exposure.

Six key principles describe young children’s vocabulary development:

1. Children learn the words they hear most often.
2. Children learn words for things and events that interest them.
3. Children learn words best in responsive and interactive contexts rather than passive contexts.
4. Children learn words best in contexts that are meaningful.
5. Children learn words best when they access clear information about word meaning.
6. Children learn words best when grammar and vocabulary are considered.

Pragmatics

* The appropriate use of language in different contexts.
* Children learn culturally specific rules of conversation and adapt their speech in different settings.
* As they get older, they become increasingly able to talk about things that are not here and not now.
* Around 4 to 5 years of age, they learn to change their speech style to suit the situation.

Early precursors of literacy and academic success include:

* Language skills


* Phonological and syntactic knowledge
* Letter identification
* Enjoyment of books

Strategies for using books:

* Use books to initiate conversation.
* Use *what* and *why* questions.
* Encourage children to ask questions about stories.
* Choose some books that play with language.

Child-centered kindergarten:

* Emphasizes education of the whole child and concern for his or her physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development.
* Experimenting, exploring, discovering, trying out, restructuring, speaking, and listening.

Montessori approach:

* Children are given freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities.
* Fosters independence and cognitive skills.
* Critics suggest it deemphasizes verbal interaction, restricts imaginative play, and may not allow for creativity and for a variety of learning styles.

Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP):

* Focuses on the typical developmental patterns of children and the uniqueness of each child.
* Age-appropriateness and individual-appropriateness.
* The emphasis is on the *process* of learning.
* Generalizing about DAP is challenging because it is an evolving concept, and individual programs vary.
* Recent changes give more attention to sociocultural factors, the teacher’s involvement, and to what degree academic skills should be emphasized.

Project Head Start:

* A compensatory program designed to provide children from low-income families the opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences important for success in school.


* Head Start programs are not all created equal, however.
* Improved parenting engagement and skills are linked to children’s success.
* *Early Head Start* serves children from birth to 3 years of age.
* Michigan’s Perry Preschool is a high-quality childhood education program that includes weekly home visits from program personnel.

Controversy over early childhood education curriculum:

* Many education experts worry that academic approaches:
* Pressure young children to achieve.
* Don’t provide chances to actively construct knowledge; and
* Don’t focus on both cognitive and socioemotional development.
* Universal preschool education:
* Critics of the idea argue it is more important to improve preschool education for disadvantaged children.

Erikson’s psychosocial stage associated with early childhood is initiative versus guilt:

* Children use perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language skills to make things happen.
* Children exuberantly move out into the wider social world on their own initiative.
* The great governor of initiative is conscience.
* Initiative and enthusiasm may bring guilt, which lowers self-esteem.

Self-understanding

* The representation of self, the substance and content of self-conceptions.
* Children often provide self-descriptions that involve bodily attributes, material possessions, and physical activities.

Children’s self-descriptions tend to be unrealistically positive and tend to confuse ability and effort.

Childrens understanding others:

* Children start perceiving others in terms of psychological traits.
* They also gain an understanding that people don’t always give accurate reports of their beliefs.
* They learn extensively through observing others’ behavior.
* Young children are not as egocentric as depicted in Piaget’s theory.

Childrens emotional development:

* The young child’s growing awareness of self is linked to feeling an expanding range of emotions.
* Experience many emotions in the course of a day.
* Emotional development allows them to try to make sense of other people’s emotional reactions and to control their own.

Expressing emotions:

* Pride, shame, embarrassment, and guilt are examples of self-conscious emotions.
* During the early childhood years, pride and guilt become more common.
* These are influenced by parents’ responses to children’s behavior—for example, “You should feel bad about biting your sister.”

Understanding emotions:

* Children begin to understand that the same event can elicit different feelings in different people.
* By age 4 to 5, most children show more ability to reflect on emotions and a growing awareness of the need to manage emotions according to social standards.

Regulating emotions:

* Emotion regulation plays a key role in children’s ability to manage the demands and conflicts they face in interacting with others.
* Parents can be described as taking an *emotion-coaching* or *emotion-dismissing* approach to helping children regulate emotions.

Emotion-coaching and emotion-dismissing parents:

**Emotion-coaching parents monitor their children’s emotions.**

* View negative emotions as opportunities for teaching.
* Assist them in labeling emotions.
* Coach them in how to deal effectively with emotions.

**Emotion-dismissing parents view their role as to deny, ignore, or change negative emotions.**

* Linked to toddlers’ lower emotional competence.

Regulation of emotion and peer relations:

* Emotions play a role in the success of a child’s peer relationships.
* Moody and emotionally negative children are more likely to experience rejection, whereas emotionally positive children are more popular.
* Higher emotion regulation is linked to greater success with peers, while frequent expression of anger predicts lower social competence.

Moral development:

* Involves thoughts, feelings, and behavior regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other people.

Moral feelings:

* Feelings of anxiety and guilt are central to the account of moral development provided by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
* Children form the *superego*—the moral element of personality—in part to reduce anxiety and avoid punishment.
* Although Freud’s ideas are not backed by research, emotions and guilt can motivate behavior.

Other emotions, aside from guilt, that contribute to moral development:

* *Empathy* often requires the ability to discern another person’s emotional states, or what is called *perspective taking*.
* Connections between emotions can occur.
* In one study, participants’ guilt proneness combined with their empathy predicted an increase in prosocial behavior.

Moral reasoning:

* Piaget suggested two distinct stages in thinking about morality:

Heteronomous morality:

* From approximately 4 to 7 years of age; justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people.

immanent justice:

* The heteronomous thinker also believes in this.
* If a rule is broken, punishment will be meted out immediately.

Autonomous morality:

* Older children become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and that when judging an action, one should consider the actor’s intentions as well as the consequences.

Moral behavior:

* According to the behavioral and social cognitive approaches, the processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation explain the development of moral behavior.
* The *situation* also influences behavior.
* Cognitive factors are important in the child’s development of self-control.

Gender:

* The characteristics of people as males and females

Gender identity:

* The sense of being male or female, which most children acquire by the age of 3.

Gender role:

* A cultural set of expectations that prescribes how females or males should think, act, and feel.

Social role theory:

* Gender differences result from the contrasting roles of women and men.

Psychoanalytic theory of gender:

* The preschool child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent.

Social cognitive theory of gender:

* Children’s gender development occurs through observation and imitation of others’ words and actions.

Mothers’ socialization strategies influence on gender:

* Encourage daughters to be obedient and responsible and restrict daughters’ autonomy.

Fathers’ socialization strategies influence on gender:

* Give more attention to sons and put forth more effort to promote sons’ intellectual development.

Peer influence on gender:

* Peers extensively reward and punish gender behavior.
* Preschoolers prefer socializing with the same gender.
* Boys are likely to associate in larger clusters than girls are.
* Boys tend to play more competitively, while girls tend to engage in “collaborative discourse.”

Gender schema theory:

* Children gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture.
* A *schema* is a cognitive structure, a network of associations that guides perceptions.
* A *gender schema* organizes the world in terms of female and male.
* Children are motivated to act in ways that conform to gender schemas created through their observations of their culture.

As compared to nonparents, parents:

* Are typically more satisfied with their lives.
* Feel relatively better on a daily basis.
* Have more positive feelings toward children and daily activities.

%%Good parenting takes time and effort.%%

Authoritarian parenting:

* A restrictive, punitive style.
* Child is to follow directions and respect parents’ work and effort.
* Allows little verbal exchange.
* Associated with children’s social incompetence and a higher level of aggression.
* With some exceptions, the evidence links authoritative parenting with competence on the part of the child across a wide range of ethnic groups, social strata, cultures, and family structures.
* In some ethnic groups, aspects of the authoritarian style may be associated with more positive child outcomes.

Authoritative parenting:

* Encourages children to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions.
* Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed.
* Associated with children’s social competence and prosocial behaviors.
* Authoritative parenting conveys the most benefits to the child and to the family as a whole.

Neglectful parenting:

* The parent is uninvolved in the child’s life.
* Associated with social incompetence in children, along with poor self-control, low self-esteem, immaturity, and alienation.
* In adolescence, may contribute to truancy and delinquency.

Indulgent parenting:

* Parents are highly involved with their children but place few demands or controls on them.
* Children never learn to control their own behavior and always expect to get their way.
* Children rarely learn respect for others, have difficulty controlling their behavior.
* They may be domineering, egocentric, and noncompliant, and they have difficulties in peer relations.

Overarching thoughts on parenting styles:

* The parenting styles do not capture the themes of reciprocal socialization and synchrony.
* Children socialize parents, just as parents socialize children.
* Many parents use a combination of techniques; and two parents may have different styles.
* Some critics argue the concept of parenting styles is too broad.
* Much of the research has involved mothers, not fathers.
* Especially in traditional cultures, fathers have an authoritarian style and mothers a more permissive, indulgent style.

Punishment:

* Physical punishment is outlawed in 59 countries in 2020.


* Some reasons for avoiding harsh punishments are that they:
* Present an out-of-control model.
* Can instill fear, rage, or avoidance.
* Focus on what not to do, rather than what to do.
* Can be abusive.

%%Most child psychologists recommend handling misbehavior by reasoning with the child and explaining consequences for others.%%

Co-parenting:

* *Co-parenting* refers to the support that parents provide one another in raising a child.
* Co-parenting is more beneficial than either maternal or paternal parenting in helping children to develop self-control.

Conditions that place children at risk for problems include:

* Poor coordination between parents.
* Undermining of the other parent.
* Lack of cooperation and warmth.
* Disconnection by one parent.

Types of child maltreatment:

* Physical abuse.
* Child neglect.


* Sexual abuse.
* Emotional abuse (psychological/verbal abuse/mental injury).

The contexts of child abuse:

* No single factor causes child maltreatment.
* A combination of factors, including culture, family, and developmental characteristics, likely contributes.

Among the family and family-associated characteristics that may contribute are:

* Parenting stress
* Marital problems
* Substance abuse
* Social isolation
* Socioeconomic difficulties
* The interactions among all family members need to be considered

In the adult years, individuals who were maltreated as children are more likely to experience:

* Physical ailments


* Mental problems
* Sexual problems

Two treatments appear effective in reducing child maltreatment:

* •Home visitation that emphasizes improved parenting, coping with stress, and increased support for the mother
* Parent-infant psychotherapy that focuses on improving maternal-infant attachment.
* %%Social support and coping skills are important.%%

Three important aspects of sibling relationships:

* *Emotional quality:* intense positive and negative emotions are often expressed.
* *Familiarity and intimacy.*
* *Considerable variation.*

Sibling relationships and birth order:

* Compared with later-born children, firstborn children have been described as more adult-oriented, helpful, conforming, and self-controlled.
* Actual birth-order differences are often small, however.
* Only children are often achievement oriented.
* Many researchers stress that birth order by itself shows limited accuracy in predicting behavior.

Working parents:

* More than one of every two U.S. mothers with a child under the age of 5 is in the labor force.
* Children of working mothers engage in less gender stereotyping and have more egalitarian views of gender than do children of nonworking mothers.
* The effects of working parents involve the father as well.
* The nature of parents’ work has more influence on development than whether a parent works outside the home.
* Poor working conditions are associated with less effective parenting.

Children in divorced families:

* Forty percent of children born to married parents in the U.S. will experience their parents’ divorce.

*Are children in intact families better adjusted?*

* Children of divorced families do show poorer adjustment; and those who experience multiple divorces are at greater risk.

*Should parents stay together for the children?*

* If family relationships are eroding the well-being of children, divorce can be advantageous.
* If the diminished resources and increased risks of divorce are accompanied by inept parenting and sustained conflict, it may be best to retain the unhappy marriage.

*How much do family processes matter?*

* When divorced parents can agree on child-rearing and maintain a cordial relationship, children benefit.
* Coparenting is associated with positive child outcomes.

*What factors influence an individual child’s vulnerability to the negative consequences of divorce?*

* The parent’s and child’s prior adjustment is important, as well as the child’s personality, temperament, gender, and custody situation.
* Joint custody works best for children when the parents can get along with each other.

*What role does socioeconomic status play?*

* Mothers who have custody experience the loss of about one-fourth to one-half of their predivorce income.