Development in early childhood

Question 1

What are the key brain changes between 1-3 years?

Answer 1

12-24months - myelinisation continues especially in cortex, responsible for brain’s increasing size and weight
20 months - cortex at maximum thickness
24 months - axons at adult length and density, and distribution/relative size of brain structures are adult-like i.e. lateralised
Beyond 24 months - brain development slows down, more a case of synaptic pruning and refining of abilities (can continue up to 20 years old)

Question 2

What are the 2 main motor developments during toddlerhood?

Answer 2

Learning to walk and fine motor skills
6-12 months - crawling/shuffling on bum
12 months - pull self upright and take first steps
18 months - walk independently

Walking is not simply maturational - needs to be practised! Dennis and Iranian orphanages - opportunity for movement and stimulating environments promotes development of walking

Question 3

What are key advances in fine motor skills and why is this so important?

Answer 3

~3months - voluntary reaching begins (smooth and effortless by 11 months)
12 months - able to use pincer grasp (major step-change advance)
24 months - able to feed self
30 months - able to dress/undress self

Aids in expansion of associated developmental abilities through opportunities for new interactions with world

Question 4

What is language learning at this stage like?

Answer 4

Highly complex - phonological development, auditory processing, grammatical skills, ability to vocalise, semantics etc
Also needs to be an awareness of the pragmatic side of language e.g. how to be polite

Question 5

What are the key stages to language learning in early childhood?

Answer 5

From 12 months - producing first words (holophrases), words aren’t necessarily real but if used consistently in given scenarios the associated meaning becomes clear
From 18 months - Telegraphic speech e.g. “mummy sit”, rapid increase in vocab (20 to 200 words at 21 months)
24-27 months - produce 3-4 word utterances, errors reveal attempts at using grammatical rules (esp overregularisation of the “-ed” rule; adults don’t make these mistakes so children creating rather than imitating their speech
3 years - Rapid increase in use of grammatical rules and great improvements in pronunciation

Question 6

What is the behaviourist theory for how language develops during early childhood?

Answer 6

Language acquired through operant conditioning - children imitate adult utterances which will be selectively reinforced; sounds become reinforced into words, and then reinforced in correct context

So we learn to use whole sentences through imitation and reinforcement

Question 7

What is Chomsky’s nativist theory for language development?

Answer 7

We have an innate language-learning system - grammar too complex to be learned by a cognitively immature child so humans must have an INNATE knowledge of grammar
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE - contains universal rules of grammar found in all languages e.g. tenses
This innate knowledge is what allows a child to interpret the specific grammar of their native language

Question 8

What was Bruner’s sociocultural theory of language development?

Answer 8

Social interaction theory suggests that preverbal social interactions form basis of language learning - such interactions include joint focus of attention, gesturing, interpretation of gurgles as meaningful etc

Question 9

Evaluate the behaviourist theory

Answer 9

IN FAVOUR - adults do reinforce children’s speech, and this is able to explain why children learn their local language and dialect
LIMITATIONS - overregularisation of grammatical rules cannot be explained

Question 10

Evaluate the nativist theories of language development

Answer 10

IN FAVOUR - Universal properties of language (same stages of development for example) suggest innate mechanism, and this theory better explains things like over-regularisation
LIMITATIONS - focuses on grammar and ignores influence of social interactions i.e. the impact of the way in which an adult talks to a child

Question 11

Evaluate the sociocultural theories of language development

Answer 11

IN FAVOUR - Children raised with limited social interaction do show deficits, and adult-child speech does facilitate learning
LIMITATIONS - Not clear how this theory could account for over-regularisation errors etc

Question 12

What features of speech are preferred by children as young as 2 days old?

Answer 12

Shorter, simpler, repetitive utterances
Slower, longer pauses, more stresses
Higher and more varied pitch

Question 13

What are the key stages of cognitive development and categorisation?

Answer 13

12 months - group objects based on perceptual similarity
2 years - group perceptually different objects into hierarchical categories e.g. kitchen utensils as a category even though members don’t look alike
After 2 years - rapidly learn new “basic-level” categories e.g. dog if we have animal and pug on either extreme
Categories become subdivided with increasing age e.g. furniture –> chair –> dining chair

This organisation helps think about the world more meaningfully, we can learn features of a category and develop more sophisticated understanding of surroundings and what we should expect from them

Question 14

What is a self-concept and how does it develop?

Answer 14

Provides reference point for interpretation of social world
Red smudge study:
<15 months - touch red nose on mirror, not associating image with themselves
>15 months - touched own nose more, indicating increasing awareness of self-concept
2 years - prefer to look at pictures of self i.e. self-concept well formed at this stage

Question 15

What is the formation of a gender-concept like?

Answer 15

Complicated multi-step process - gender identity is first achievement i.e. identifying and labelling own gender and that of others
18 months - aware of differences between hair and clothing, but not yet forming concept of gender
2 years - 75% correctly identify own gender
3 years - 90% correctly identify own gender

There is this understanding of own gender first, and others assessed after via comparison

Question 16

What are the stages involved in emotional development?

Answer 16

<1 year - display basic emotions (inferred through facial expressions) e.g. happiness, sadness etc
1.5-2 years - display more complex emotions such as pride and shame i.e. self-conscious emotions involving enhancement/harm to sense of self (requires self awareness which occurs 18 months-2 years)
3 years - better able to use “emotional masks” i.e. displaying emotions they don’t actually feel, ability to deceive; become good at concealing negative emotions, largely a product of social pressure (positive emotional displays are encouraged to promote good relationships)

Question 17

How does prosocial behaviour develop?

Answer 17

before 1-2 years - seek comfort for self when someone else is distressed
after 1-2 years -change to behaviour more oriented towards relieving the other person’s suffering; zahn-waxler and radke-yarrow found a 21-month old boy offered comfort to his mum when she pretended to be sad, offering comforting words, a hug, and distraction with a puppet

Question 18

What does prosocial behaviour require?

Answer 18

Empathy, which in turn relies on self awareness and ability to see oneself in another’s place

Question 19

How does aggression develop, and what did Hartup identify?

Answer 19

Between 6-12 months cognitive and motor skills developed which enable physical aggression
2 types of aggression: HOSTILE (harm as main motivation) and INSTRUMENTAL (aggressive form of behaviour motivated by goal other than harm e.g. want a particular toy, decreases after 4 years at which point aggression becomes more verbal)
Amount and type of aggression changes over early childhood - Holmberg found that 50% of actions by 1yr olds were hostile, but only 17% of 3.5 year olds

Question 20

What are the stages in development of social skills through play?

Answer 20

Before 1 year - playing with objects, banging them together; play becomes more sophisticated as motor skills start to develop but remains very physical
1-2 years - Symbolic play emerges around 12 months i.e. pretend
2 years - Child becomes more detached in symbolic play e.g. makes a doll feed itself; Watson and Fischer found a 14 month old child can pretend to sleep by putting head on pillow, while 2 year old could use a doll to carry out such actions

Question 21

How does symbolic play develop?

Answer 21

Around 12 months the child becomes able to temporarily substitute different properties for an object, developing gradually - initial dependence on actual objects e.g. pretending to drink tea out of a cup, but slowly able to use less realistic substitutes e.g. banana phones
Autistic children seem to lack this ability for pretend play
Initially symbolic play is directed at self e.g. pretending to eat, but later directed at other objects e.g. pretending to feed doll –> LESS EGOCENTRIC, MORE UNDERSTANDING OF OTHERS

Question 22

What did Burns and Brainerd find regarding the importance of play to development?

Answer 22

Children who spend more time in sociodramatic play show better cognitive development, are better able to understand feelings of others, and are seen as more socially competent by their teachers

Be aware of course that this is a correlational relationship, but it does suggest that making behaviour patterns more efficient through repeated usage i.e. in play can be helpful for future development