PSYC 125 Lecture 4 Early Childhood - Napa Valley College · • Cognitive changes – Piaget’s theory of cognitive development – Vygotsky’s theory – Modern accounts of child

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PSYC 125 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2/19/2013 LECTURE 4: Early Childhood:

(~2 – ~6 )

Physical and Cognitive Development

Dr. Bart Moore [email protected]

Office hours Tuesdays 11:00-1:00

Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive development •  Physical changes

–  Body growth –  motor development –  sleep –  nutrition & exercise –  illness and death

•  Cognitive changes –  Piaget’s theory of cognitive development –  Vygotsky’s theory –  Modern accounts of child cognition –  Language development

•  Education in early childhood –  Styles and curricula

6/24/2013 Outline: Infancy •  PHYSICAL development

•  COGNITIVE development

•  SOCIOEMOTIONAL development

–  Emotional and personality development

–  Attachment

Temperament

•  Individual differences in behavior and emotions

• Easy child: Generally in a positive mood

• Quickly establishes regular routines in infancy

• Adapts easily to new experiences

• Difficult child: Reacts negatively and cries frequently

• Engages in irregular daily routines

• Slow to accept change

• Slow-to-warm-up child: Low activity level

• Somewhat negative

• Displays a low intensity of mood

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Emotional Development

–  Crying

• Basic cry: Rhythmic pattern usually consisting of :

• A cry

• Briefer silence

• Shorter inspiratory whistle that is higher pitched than the main cry

• Brief rest before the next cry

• Anger cry: Variation of the basic cry, with more excess air forced through the vocal cords

• Pain cry: Sudden long, initial loud cry followed by breath holding

Attachment and its Development

–  John Bowlby - Four phases of attachment

• Attachment to human figures

• Focus on one figure

• Specific attachments develop

• Become aware of others’ feelings

Individual Differences in Attachment

•  Strange situation: Observational measure of infant attachment

•  Requires the infant to move through a series of:

–  Introductions

–  Separations

–  Reunions with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed order

Bowlby: 4 categories of babies

•  Securely attached babies: Use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment

•  Insecure avoidant babies: Avoid and resist the caregiver

•  Insecure resistant babies: Cling to the caregiver, then resist the caregiver

•  Insecure disorganized babies: unpredictable

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–  Socioemotional development in early childhood

Body Growth and Change •  Height and weight

–  Average growth is 2.5 inches and 5 to 7 pounds per year during early childhood

–  Growth patterns vary individually

• Two major contributors to differences:

• Ethnic origin

• Access to proper nutrition

–  Growth hormone (hGH) deficiency: Produced by the pituitary gland to stimulate the body to grow

Body Growth and Change

•  The brain

–  Brain growth slows during early childhood

• Brain reaches 95% of adult volume by 6 YoA

•  Changes in child’s brain structure

–  Rapid, distinct spurts of growth especially in the frontal lobes

–  Myelination: (“my-linn-A-shun”) Nerve cells are covered and insulated with a layer of fat cell

Changes in the brain: increase in neural myelination

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Motor Development

•  Gross motor skills –  Balancing, Running, skipping

•  Fine motor skills –  Still clumsy at 3 years

–  Improved fine motor coordination at 4 - 5 years

• Writing, drawing, etc

Sleep

•  Sharp reduction sleep:

–  11-13 hours /night

•  Down from 16-18

–  Many fewer interruptions than infants

•  Sleep problems:

•  narcolepsy, insomnia, and nightmares

Nutrition and Exercise

•  Body mass index (BMI):

–  BMI takes into account height and weight

–  12% of U.S. children (2-5 YoA) are obese (2008-2009)

–  Obesity linked to:

• Type II diabetes mellitus (acquired diabetes)

• Cardiovascular problems

•  Eating behavior and diet are largely influenced by caregivers’ behavior

Nutrition and Exercise

•  Malnutrition in young children

–  11 million U.S. preschool children are experiencing malnutrition

–  ‘Junk foods’ are inexpensive but unbalanced

–  Balanced meals with fresh ingredients tend to be more expensive and difficult to use

–  Biggest problem is iron deficiency anemia

• Not enough green vegetables & quality meat

• Leads to chronic fatigue

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Illness and Death

•  Leading causes of death in U.S. children are:

• Motor vehicle accidents

• Cancer

• Cardiovascular disease

•  Environmental tobacco smoke >

•  Asthma

•  Sleep disorders




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Piaget’s theory of development Stage 2

•  Sensorimotor stage (infancy)

•  ‘Preoperational’ stage

–  Piaget’s second stage

–  Ages ~2 to ~7 years

–  Children represent the world with words, images, and drawings

• Form stable concepts and begin to reason

• Cognition is dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs

–  Preoperational Substages:

• Symbolic function substage

•  Intuitive thought substage

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Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

•  Symbolic function substage: Child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present

–  Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish one’s own perspective from someone else’s

–  Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action

•  Intuitive thought substage: Children use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to questions

–  Centration: Centering attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others

Piaget’s theory of development Stage 2

•  Video : Piaget stage 2 Egocentrism

Egocentrisim: The Three Mountains Task

Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish one’s own perspective from someone else’s

In the Three Mountains Task, ‘preoperational’ children believe that you will always see what they can see


•  Symbolic function substage: Child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present

–  Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish one’s own perspective from someone else’s

–  Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action

•  Intuitive thought substage: Children use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to questions (Usually “why” questions)

–  Centration: Centering attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others

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VIDEO: PIAGET STAGE 2 CENTRATION

Piaget’s Conservation Task

A child that fails the conservation task (a preoperational child) believes that the taller glass has more.

Lev Vygotsky’s Theory

•  Children think, learn, and understand primarily through social interaction

•  Zone of proximal development (ZPD): Range of tasks that are too difficult for the child alone but that can be learned with scaffolding

–  Scaffolding - guidance or support

1896-1934 Russian

Lev Vygotsky’s Theory

•  VIDEO: PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

1896-1934 Russian

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Vygotsky’s Theory

•  Language and thought

–  Children use speech to communicate socially and to help them solve tasks

–  Private speech - Use of language for self-regulation

–  Inner speech becomes their thoughts

–  More private speech = more social competence

Vygotsky’s Theory

•  Teaching strategies - Vygotsky’s theory can be applied to education

–  Assess child’s ZPD

• Teach at their level

–  Use more-skilled peers as teachers

–  Place instruction in a meaningful context

Vygotsky versus Piaget Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive development •  Physical changes


•  Cognitive changes –  Piaget’s theory of cognitive development –  Vygotsky’s theory –  Modern accounts of cognition: information processing –  Language development


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Information Processing •  Memory gets much better during early childhood

–  Assessing short-term memory - Memory-span task • How many digits can you remember for 30

seconds with no practice or rehearsal

Information Processing

•  How accurate are young children’s long-term memories?

–  There are age differences in children’s susceptibility to suggestion (false memories)

–  Interviewing techniques can produce substantial distortions in children’s reports about highly salient events

Information Processing: Meta-cognition

•  Theory of mind: Awareness of one’s own mental process and the mental processes of others

–  (Mental Privacy)

• Age 18m – 3Y

• Children become aware that they have perceptions, desires, & emotions

• 3 to 5y-

• Others can have ‘false beliefs’

• 7+ years

• Understand the beliefs and thoughts of others

Theory of mind video 1 & 2

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Developmental Changes in False-Belief Performance





Language Development

•  Children in early childhood improve:

–  Semantics: meaning

• Phonology: how words sound

• Morphology: how words are formed

–  Syntax: order

• Proper arrangement of words

Understanding Phonology and Morphology

•  During early childhood, children:

–  Become sensitive to the sounds of spoken words

–  Produce all the sounds of their language

–  Demonstrate a knowledge of morphology rules

• Use plurals, tense, possessives, and verb forms of words

• Foot :: foots vs feet

• Go :: goed vs went

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Changes in Syntax

•  During early childhood, children

–  Learn and apply rules of syntax

–  Proper order of words

• “Daddy where did go?” vs.

• “Where did daddy go?”




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Documents

PSYC 125 Lecture 4 Early Childhood - Napa Valley College · • Cognitive changes – Piaget’s theory of cognitive development – Vygotsky’s theory – Modern accounts of child