Chapter 7 - Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Question 1

What is the corpus callosum and why is it important?

Answer 1

• the connection between the two halves/hemispheres of the brain.
• quicker, smoother, actions, and the shared information/ learning.

Question 2

Why is brain lateralization important?

Answer 2

• the localization of a function to one of the hemispheres of the brain.
• helps organization with specific areas of the brain dedicated to certain functions

Question 3

What are the important developments in gross and fine motor skills?

Answer 3

gross - large movements
- kicking ball, jumping, climbing, skipping.
fine - small movements
- building blocks, cutting with scissors, dressing, tying shoes.

Question 4

What is the relationship of BMI and early child development

Answer 4

BMI shows whether child’s weight is appropriate for height.

Obesity in childhood particularly troubling.

Question 5

What is preoperational thought?

Answer 5

the second stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, from 2-7, where children acquire a mental store-house of images and symbols, especially spoken and written words.

Question 6

What is centration?

Answer 6

being or placed in the center

Question 7

Define egocentrism?

Answer 7

child’s inability to see other people’s viewpoints.

Question 8

What is the theory of mind?

Answer 8

the ability to attribute mental states - beliefs, intents, desires, knowledge - to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one’s own.

Question 9

Know what the three-mountain and the false belief tasks are and what they tell us about early childhood cognition.

Answer 9

• 3-mountain task: child needs to determine what the other people see from where they are sitting (3 mountains).
• false belief task: crayon movie, the child needs to tell you what someone else thinks/believes, entirely on the other persons view point.
• by 3-4 they should be able to do both task well, otherwise they only consider their own opinions.

Question 10

Understand conservation and why it is important?

Answer 10

conservation - understanding that some characteristics of objects do not change despite changes int he form or appearance when nothing is added or taken away.
- helps build logical skills

Question 11

What is meant by a scaffold?

Answer 11

providing learning opportunities, materials, hints, and clues when a child has difficulty with a task.
- using prompts

Question 12

What are the primary differences between Vygotsky and Piaget during this period of cognitive development.

Answer 12

Piaget saw the child as a solitary scientist and focused on what the child could do working alone, whereas Vygotsky saw the child as embedded in a social context and focused on what she could do with the assistance of adults or older, more skilled children.

Question 13

Describe the shift from token language to grammatical usage.

Answer 13

• around 2, a child vocabulary expands rapidly (fast mapping) - easily picking up words only hearing the word a few times.
• 18-36 months: telegraphic speech; children began putting 2 words together in simple utterance.
• semantics - meaning of words and sentences, pr the content of speech.

Question 14

What is private speech?

Answer 14

when someone talks to themselves out loud.

Question 15

What is emergent literacy?

Answer 15

• Foundations for literacy emerge in early childhood.
• Changing expectations for literacy milestones
• Exposure to books and language, and parent-child communication, is crucial.
• read to/with child early.

Question 16

Be familiar with the benefits of pre-school

Answer 16

better scores in pre-reading, math, and spelling