CH 9: Cognitive Development in Preschool Children Flashcards
Piaget’s Account
• Preschoolers are in Piaget’s preoperational stage (age 2-7)
• Improved biological theories and theory of mind.
- older preschoolers’ theories about biology distinguish properties of animate and inanimate objects
> complex but not complete
- older preschoolers’ theories of psychology gradually include the idea that behaviour is based on people’s beliefs about events and situations
• In early childhood, the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy begins with pretend play and involves counterfactual thinking
Egocentrism
Child believes that all people see the world as they do
- inable to see any other way
i. e. a child gestures during a telephone conversation, not realizing that the listener can’t see the gestures
Centration
In Piagetian theory, child focuses on one aspect of a problem or situation but ignores other relevant aspects
- typically during preoperational stage
i. e. in conservation of quantity, the child pays attention to the height of the liquid in the beaker but ignores the diameter of the beaker
Appearance As Reality
Child assumes that an object really is what it appears to be
i.e. child mistakes a person wearing a Halloween mask for a real monster
Children’s Naive Theory
• Around 4.5/5 they know their thoughts are private - know they can surprise/trick people • Improved theories of biology. - Movement - Growth - Internal parts - Inheritance - Healing • Theory of mind • Executive functioning • Counterfactual thinking
Theory of Mind
a naïve understanding of connections between thoughts, beliefs, and behavior
Executive Functioning
a set of cognitive abilities that enable intentional self-regulated behaviour
Pellicano proposed that theory of mind deficits may be due to difficulties in executive functioning
Counterfactual Thinking
Understanding that a situation or fact is opposite to reality
• First demonstrated through a child’s engagement with pretend play, perhaps as early as age 2, and involves the child making metal comparisons between real life and an imagined alternative situation
Information-Processing Perspectives on Preschool Thinking
• Improvements in reasoning and problem solving abilities
• Better at regulating their attention.
- but lack well-developed strategies for paying attention (compared to older children)
• Memory
• Counting
Key Concepts in Vygotsky’s Theory
- zone of proximal development
- scaffolding
- private speech
Zone of Proximal Development
In Vygotskian theory, the difference between what one can do alone and with assistance
Scaffolding
In Vygotskian theory, a teaching style that matches the amount of assistance to the learner’s needs
- giving help, but not more than needed
• Early in learning, adult provides a lot of direct instruction
• A teaching style that allows children to take on more and more of a task as they master its different components
• Control of cognitive skills is most readily transfered from others to the child through scaffolding
Private Speech
In Vygotskian theory, comments not directed to othes but that help children regulate own behaviour
• Children often talk to themselves using private speech when they are performing a difficult task or after they have made a mistake
Encouraging Word Learning
• Talk more, but with not at children.
• Reading books with them
- when parents carefully describe pictures as they reach, vocabularies of the child increase
• Asking children questions while reading fosters identification of meaning of new words.
- fostering word learning depends on making children think about the meanings of new words
- if they don’t do this, child ignores words they don’t know
• Watching TV
• Bilingual children learn language as rapidly as monolinguals.
From Two Word Speech to Complex Sentences
• As children move beyond two-word speech, they begin to master questions, negation, and other more complex sentence forms.
• Speech is often telegraphic in 1-year-olds.
• Morphemes
• Rule-based so errors of overregularization occur.
• At the same time that preschoolers are mastering grammatical morphemes, they extend their speech beyond the subject-verb-object construction that is basic to English
• Questions during two-word speech are marked by intonation alone
i.e. “my ball” vs “my ball?”
How Children Acquire Grammar
- Language input is important but more than just imitation because children’s speech has its own grammar.
- Neural circuits in the brain allow children to infer grammar of the language they hear.
- Semantic bootstrapping hypothesis: children rely upon word meaning to discover grammatical rules.
How Children Acquire Grammar: Theories
- Pre-wired brain theory
- Other researchers believe that children use general cognitive skills to infer grammatical rules from regularities in the speech that they hear
- Semantic bootstrapping hypothesis
Semantic Bootstrapping Hypothesis
children rely upon word meaning to discover grammatical rules.
Inborn Mechanisms and Grammar
• Specific regions of the brain for language
- Broca’s Area
• Only humans learn grammar readily.
• Critical period for learning language exists
Taking Turns
• Even before children speak, parents model turn-taking.
- model speaker and listener roles
• By age 2, spontaneous turn-taking is common in conversations
• By age 3, children know this is a key rule.
- spontaneously take turns and prompt one another to speak
Speaking Effectively
- Before they can speak, infants use gestures and noises to communicate
- Begin to use speech to communicate and often initiate conversations with adults
- Later, conversations include more abstract ideas (i.e. past and future)
- Toddlers’ first conversations are about themselves.
- Preschoolers adjust their speech based on the age of the listener and the context.
- Understand that when listeners misunderstand, speakers need to do something, such as repeating what they said.
Listening Well
- Preschoolers often don’t detect ambiguities in messages or assume they understand the speaker’s intent.
- Preschoolers are more likely to believe confusing statements or statements that contradict their beliefs when told by a parent instead of a peer.
- Their remarks often don’t relate to the topic
Varieties of Early Childhood Education
• Although early childhood education programs vary in the structure of the curriculum, all anchor teaching in play.
- academically oriented programs embed play in explicit instructional goals
• Preschools and daycare centers may not be the same.
• Goal of child-centered programs is to educate the whole child.
• Academic programs follow an explicit curriculum to achieve academic goals.
• Many programs based on Piagetian ideas and supporting children’s theories.
NAEYC Recommendations for Developmentally Appropriate Practices in Early Childhood Education
• Creating a caring community of learners
• Teach to enhance development and learning
• Assess children’s learning and development
• Establish reciprocal relationships with families
Children who “graduate” from such programs tend to be better prepared for kindergarten and grade 1
Creating a caring community of learners
the early childhood setting functions as a community of learners in which all participants (children, family, teachers) contribute to each other’s well-being and learning
Teach to enhance development and learning
teachers use their knowledge of child development to provide appropriatet learning experiences that allow children to acquire important knowledge and skills
Assess children’s learning and development
Age-appropriate assessment of young children’s progress is used to benefit children - in adapting teaching to meet children’s needs, for communicating with the child’s family, and for evaluating the program’s effectiveness
Establish reciprocal relationships with families
Early childhood teachers work in collaborative partnerships with families. Teachers acknowledge parents’ goals for children and respond with respect to parents’ preferences and concerns without abdicating professional responsibility to children
Head Start programs
• Created in the US in the 1960s
• Children from low-income families benefit from programs, such as Head Start, that foster healthy development.
- children less likely to repeat a grade
- less likely to be in special education
- more likely to graduate from high school
• Aboriginal Head Start programs
