Early Childhood Development Review

executive Function & Cognitive Terms

• Attention Systems:

  • Selective Attention: Filtering out irrelevant distractors to focus on target cues.

  • Sustained Attention: Maintaining continuous focus over extended intervals.

  • Divided Attention: Multitasking across distinct stimuli; heavily constrained in preschoolers.

• Executive Functioning:

  • Regulated by prefrontal cortex: Working memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control.

  • Response Inhibition: Actively suppressing an automatic prepotent reaction (tested via Day-Night Stroop Task).

  • Response Initiation: Launching a planned, goal-directed behavior without hesitation.

  • Delayed Gratification: Postponing immediate smaller rewards for larger future outcomes (tested via Marshmallow Test).

• Language & Metacognition:

  • Fast Mapping: Connecting a new word to an underlying concept after a single brief exposure.

  • Overregularization: Over-applying regular grammatical patterns to irregular words (e.g., "mouses", "goed"); proves internalization of rules.

  • Theory-Theory: Idea that children act as intuitive scientists, creating and modifying causal models of reality.

  • Theory of Mind (ToM): Realizing others hold separate beliefs, desires, and false beliefs; develops around age $4$ to $5$ (tested via Sally-Anne Task).

5. Developmental Theories: Piaget & Vygotsky

• Piaget’s Preoperational Stage (Ages $2$ to $7$):

  • Symbolic Function: Mentally representing objects with words, images, and gestures.

  • Egocentrism: Inability to assume another person's spatial or psychological viewpoint (Three Mountains Task).

  • Centration: Focusing on only one superficial aspect of a stimulus, causing conservation failure.

  • Irreversibility: Inability to mentally trace transformations backward to initial states.

  • Animism: Attributing lifelike intentions and emotions to inanimate objects.

  • Transductive Reasoning: Linking two proximate concrete events causally without logic.

• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory:

  • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Space between independent performance and assisted capability with a mentor.

  • Scaffolding: Adaptive support provided by a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO), withdrawn as mastery improves.

  • Private Speech: External self-directed vocalizations used to self-regulate, internalizing into silent thought by age $6$ to $7$.

8. Self-Concept, Emotional Regulation & Psychosocial Stages

• Self Components:

  • Conscience: Internalized self-regulatory moral system generating guilt/remorse for violations.

  • Self-Concept: Cognitive self-representation (preschoolers focus on observable physical attributes and possessions).

  • Self-Esteem: Evaluative self-judgment (preschoolers maintain inflated, unrealistically positive self-esteem).

• Theories of Self:

  • Cooley’s Looking-Glass Self: Self-concept reflects how we imagine others perceive and evaluate us.

  • Mead’s Social Self: Interaction between "I" (impulsive actor) and "Me" (socialized self). Stages: Preparatory $\rightarrow$ Play $\rightarrow$ Game (internalizing the Generalized Other).

• Friendship in Preschool: Concrete and situational; based purely on shared activities and toy access; lacks enduring psychological intimacy.

• Erikson’s Stage (Ages $3$ to $6$): Initiative vs. Guilt:

  • Initiative: Supported when caregivers allow autonomous exploration and planning.

  • Guilt: Develops if attempts at independence are punished, leading to timidity, passivity, and fear of failure.

• Baumrind’s Typology (Demandingness vs. Responsiveness):

• Cultural Contexts: Strict control in collectivist cultures (e.g., Chinese guan, Latino respeto) denotes parental dedication and love rather than rejection, avoiding Western negative consequences.