Exam 4 Child Development

Overregularizations

A language error where a child treats irregular forms as if they were regular. Ex. The mouses are eating the cheese

Chomsky

Was considered a nativist and believed grammatical knowledge is innate and we are born with a language acquisition device (LAD)

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

The unconscious process that’s used to learn language. Exposure to language triggers this innate process

Tomasello

Was considered a constructivist and believed that as children use language and produce and recognize more structures, it keeps giving him the material he needs to construct the grammar of the language

Deaf children born to hearing parents

Not exposed to grammatically rich sign language, so they add grammatical structure to their impoverished input and their language becomes more consistent and structured than their parents

Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL)

Nicaraguan children invented their own home sign language before the school opened, and when the School of the Deaf opened, the children began stringing the signs together to follow a primitive grammar.

Number conservation task & pre-operational children (2-7)

Child doesn’t realize there’s the same amount of pennies even though they’re stretched out because they’re focused on length. Focused on appearance

Conservation of liquids task & pre-operational children (2-7)

Child thinks that the taller skinny cup has more liquid, even though it has the same amount as the shorter wider cup. Focused on appearance

Conservation tasks & concrete operational children (7-11)

Child is able to solve conservation problems because they are able to think logically about concrete events and understand that certain properties remain the same even when their outward appearance changes

Stick Series Task pre-operational vs concrete operational child

A concrete operational child would start with the shortest or longest stick and systematically add the others. A pre-operational child would sort by trial and error

Class inclusion flower problem & pre-operational children

Child doesn’t realize the blue flower is a subcategory of flower.

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning (concrete operational 7-11)

The use of deductive reasoning to systematically manipulate variables, test hypothesis, and reach correct conclusions (ex: the pendulum problem: child uses this reasoning to figure out how fast a pendulum with manipulated variables could swing)

Centration

the tendency to focus on one feature of an object or situation to the exclusions of all other features, in effect, being “captured” by one aspect of the situation

Decentration

 the ability to mentally pull away from one aspect of the situation to consider multiple aspects simultaneously

Appearance-reality task

Children are presented with a white bunny behind a red filter. 3 year olds centrate and focus on either appearance or reality and cannot switch back and forth between the two. 5 year olds decentrate and passed these tasks

Egocentricism

The tendency to center on oneself and to focus entirely on one’s own point of view (ex. three mountain problem: pre-operational children do not realize the mountain scene looks different to the person on the other side of the table

Donaldson’s Scooby Doo Task

A 3.5 year old can add Scooby Doo into the display where Freddy and Velma wouldn’t be able to see him, recognizing that if something blocks one’s line of sight it cannot be seen by another person

Evidence of young children understanding that older people have intentions and desires

18 month olds imitate the intended action even if the model never did it correctly and if they watch a person react positively to one food and negatively to a food will infer the person wants what they like, even when it differs from what they like. 2 year olds talk about people liking different things

Theory of mind

The ability to attribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions) to oneself and others, which makes it possible to explain and predict behavior

Change of contents false belief task

Requires a child to reason about what a person would do if their beliefs differ from what is true in the world. Ex. Looking in smarties box and finding out its actually filled with pencils and deciding if someone who hasn’t looked in it would also think its smarties or pencils inside.

Change of contents false belief task results

A 3 year old incorrectly thinks their friend would know that its pencils in the Smarties box. A 5 year old distinguishes between what they know and what their friend would think, knowing their friend would have a false belief

Mothers reading book about character with mistaken belief

Mothers that add cognitive clarification while they read the story and explained how the story ends with a false belief ending have children with more advanced theory of mind scores

Language & theory of mind

Differences in a child’s language skills are related to theory of mind differences

Core domain

A domain of knowledge and thought that is thought to have a privileged role in development, emerging early in infancy and maintaining and strong influence throughout much of development (numbers, objects, agency)

Neonativists & core domains

Believe infants are born with core knowledge systems that support basic intuitions about the world

Wynn (1992)

Showed that 4-month old infants look longer at impossible event of screen going up with one object on stage and falling down again with two objects on stage. Showed that infants have early understanding that adding increases amount

Theory-theory view

A model of cognitive development that combines neonativism and constructivism, proposing that cognitive development occurs as children generate, test, and change theories about the physical and social world

Rosengren et al

Found that 3-year olds recognize that living things (bunnies) grow and that objects (tea pots) do not (naive theory of biology)

Inagaki and Hatano’s Model

Children were presented three multiple choice questions about why we eat food every day. 6 year olds picked the option that said we get power from food, showing that they understand our body needs to take in nourishment to function and that they have a naïve theory of biology (vitalism)

Disney memory differences

A 6 year old would recall more information in response to an open ended question. 4 year olds needed more questions, cues, and prompts, but when prompted, children were able to provide a great deal of information

High elaborative parent

Parent uses questions and child’s response as a way to add new information to the memory. They encourage and affirm the child’s contributions and teaches the child about emotions

Low elaborative parenting style

Parent asks fewer questions, tend to repeat the same question to prod their child to respond with a specific detail

Newcombe and Reese

Suggested that for children to have richer autobiographical memories, parents should select one-time events to discuss with the child and draw them into conversations with what, where, who, and when questions. Respond to child through praise, related questions, and rephrasing.

Talking about past with children

Children see that people experience the same event but can have different memories, building theory of mind. They are able to remember different aspects of what happened, disagree about emotions and evaluations, and negotiate disagreements to see they have a unique perspective

Key dimensions of memory development

Increased speed and capacity of memory processing, expanded knowledge base, acquisition of improved memory strategies, and emergence of metamemory

Increased speed and capacity of memory processing

Changes in memory span (5 year olds can remember 4 digits, 10 year olds remember 6). Repetition/expertise leads to automaticity. Retrieval speeds increases with age

Expanded knowledge base

Retention improves when child has more prior information to relate to new information

Acquisition of improved memory strategies

Kindergarteners begin rehearsal, or repeating oneself, to memorize. They group in meaningful clusters by situational or conceptual categories to organize by memory. They can also elaborate to make up connections between 2 or more things to be remembered

Emergence of metamemory

Ability to think about one’s own memory process. 8-year-olds have better understanding of limitations of own memory than most 5 year olds.

Chi

Found that adults could remember a sequence of numbers better than a child chess expert (memory improves with age), but child remembered more pieces on the chess board

Rehearsal

Memory strategy developed during middle childhood

Elias and Berk (2003)

3 and 4 year olds who engage in high levels of sociodramatic play were more likely to be on task during circle time and help with classroom clean ups. This is because the play helps children learn about the different roles people have, what rules we follow, and how the world functions

Vygotsky

Believes sociodramatic play children create can reflect society and how it operates

Compliance

Clear awareness of a caregiver’s wishes and expectations, and the ability to obey simple requests and commands

18-24 months

Age children comply to parent’s requests

Delay of gratification

Waiting for the appropriate time and place to engage in a tempting act. Between 1.5 and 4 children show an increasing capacity to wait before eating a treat, opening a present, or waiting for a toy

Delay of gratification & language development

Children who are more advanced in language development and suppressing negative emotions tend to do better on delay of gratification. Some will use strategies like talking to themselves, singing, or looking away to keep themselves from engaging in the prohibited act

Effortful control

The extent to which children can inhibit impulses, manage negative emotions, and behave in a socially acceptable way

Executive functioning

Paying attention, switching attention from one thing to another, suppressing an impulse or automatic response, keeping multiple rules in mind, making yourself do something boring

Factors contributing to improved elementary reading comprehension

Skilled word recognition to free working memory, increased number of words in working memory, gains in world knowledge, selecting reading strategy to meet goal (leisure reading, skimming, studying)

Rouge test

Red dot is placed on toddlers nose. Children. Under 18 months will touch the mirror, not recognizing the person with the dot is them. By 22 months, the child touches their nose

Shopping cart task

An 18.5 month old infant does not realize if they are standing on a rag tied to a shopping cart that they are preventing it from moving, but within a month, she is able to solve the problem

Scale error

Children’s inappropriate behavior by misidentifying a miniature sized object as normal in size without considering their own body size

Performance doors task

Child will try to go through skinny narrow door to get to their parent. Once they stop making scale errors (about 26 months) they will go through the short wide on

Emotions that depend on sense of self

Embarrassment and empathy

Shame

Accepting a failure in terms of fulfilling standards, rules, and goals. Core self as bad and wishes to hide/disappear

Guilt

Accepting a failure in terms of fulfilling standards, rules, and goals. Action as bad