DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY LEC 4 - EARLY CHILDHOOD Flashcards

1
Q

What’s the psychical developments in brain development for early childhood?

A

Between 12-24 months - myelinisiation continutes, especially in cortex and between cortex and brain stem
Myelination is responsible for increase in brain size and weight

At 20 months : cortex reaches its maximum up thickness

At 24 months : axons reach adult length and density distrubtion and relative size of brain structures are adult like 70% of adult weight

Beyond 24 months - brain development slows

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2
Q

Hats the physical development in early childhood?

A

Physical development
• 6-12 mo: Crawling & shuffling on buttocks.
• By 12 mo: Can pull self upright; take first steps
• By 18 mo: Most children can walk independently

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3
Q

What did Dennis do?

A

Dennis (1950s-60s)
Studied children raised in cribs in Iranian orphanage
• Children <2yrs did not move. 2yr olds shuffled on their backs
• Only 15% could walk at ages 3 &4

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4
Q

What did Dennis conclude?

A

Oppurtinut for movement and stimulating environment promote development of walking

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5
Q

Explain motor development for early childhood?

A

Major advancements in control of fine motor skills are made in
early childhood
• Voluntary reaching starts ~3 mo but is smooth and effortless
by ~11 months
• ~12 mo: able to use pincer grasp; major step-change advance
• ~24 mo: Child able to feed self
• ~30 mo: Child able to dress/undress self

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6
Q

What’s the language development of early childhood?

A

From ~12 mo
Child produces first words (incl. ‘holophrases’ e.g. ‘milk’).
Not necessarily real words, e.g. ‘oof’=animal (in Smith et al, 2005)

From ~18 mo
‘Telegraphic speech’ appears, e.g. ‘Mommy sit’
Rapid increase in vocabulary: 20 word vocabulary increases to
200 words at 21 months

Between ~24-27 mo
Child produces 3 & 4 word utterances. Errors reveal use of
grammatical rules. e.g. ‘I runned fast’: overregularisation of ‘-ed’

Around 3 yrs
Rapid increase in use of grammatical rules (e.g. negative)
Pronunciation improves greatly

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7
Q

Who did the behaviourist theory?

A

Skinner

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8
Q

Who did the nativist therory?

A

Chomsky

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9
Q

Who did the sociocultural theory?

A

Bruner

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10
Q

Describe the behaviourist theory?

A

Skinner proposed language is learnt through operant conditioning
Children imitate adult utterances and adults selectively reinforce them
Like smililimg them the child says doggie when dog is present
We learn whole sentences through imitations and reinforcement

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11
Q

What’s the arguments for behaviourist theory?

A

For
Adults do reinforce children speech by saying please and I’ll give u a cookie
Explains why children learn local language and dialect

Limitations
- overreguarisation of grammatical rules like my teacher hooded the baby rabbits
- adults don’t use such words so suggest children develop grammatical rules

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12
Q

Explain the nativist theory?

A

Chomsky proposed human haves innate language learning system
Argued grammar is too complex to be learnt by cognitively immature
child, so perhaps humans have innate knowledge of grammar
•Suggests humans have a “Language Acquisition Device” (LAD)
•LAD contains universal rules of grammar found in all languages (e.g.
tenses)
•Innate knowledge enables child to interpret the specific grammar of
native language

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13
Q

Arguments for and against the nativist theory?

A

Arguments in favour:
- Universal properties of language learning suggest innate mechanism:
Language occurs in all cultures
Children in all cultures go through the same stages of language
development
Languages share universal properties (e.g. nouns , verbs)
Limitations:
- Focuses on grammar – ignores social interaction

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14
Q

Explain the social interaction theory

A

Bruner (1983) argues that preverbal social interactions form the basis
for learning language
E.g. joint focus of attention, gesturing, interpretation of gurgles as
meaningful; pre-verbal form of simple conversation

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15
Q

What’s the arguments for and against social interaction theory?

A

Arguments for
• Children raised in isolation have linguistic deficits
• Adult-child speech facilitates learning
•Shorter, simpler and repetitive utterances
•Slower speech, longer pauses, more stress
•Higher and more varied pitch
•Same features in many cultures
Preference for this style even at 2 days old (Cooper & Aslin, 1990)
Limitations
 Not clear how it could account for e.g. overregularisation errors
Social interaction theory

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16
Q

Explain categorisation for cognitive development?

A

Categorisation forming is essential to make sense of the world and interact with it effectively

17
Q

State the months for categorisation?

A

At 12 months - children group objects based on perceptual similarity - a is different from 2

At 2 years - can group perceptually different objects into hierarchical categories like group objects inot kitchen utensils even though objects within this category are perceptually different

18
Q

Describe the hierarchy in categories?

A

Rapidly learn new basic level categories like animal leads to dogs and cats and that leads to types of those animals

  • these organisations help thinking about the world in meaningful ways
19
Q

Explain recognition of the self?

A

Self concept provides a reference for interpreting social world

20
Q

What did Lewis and brooks-Gunn find about recognition of the self?

A

9-24 months placed in front of mirror
Mother puts red dye on child nose

Less then 15 months = reach to red nose in mirror as its not related to themselves
Higher then 15 months= most likely to touch own nose

Thi suggests increasing awareness of the self

By age 2 = prefer to look at picture of self not other children

21
Q

Development in emotion in early childhood?

A

Less then 1 year =52.143 weeks ability to display basic emotions like happiness, sadness, anger and fear

At 1.5 - 2 years =-0.5 years ability to display more complex slef conscious emotions

Requires self awareness

22
Q

Explain what happens at 3yrs for emotions development in early childhood?

A

Children become able to use emotional masks = display an emotion they don’t feel

Easier to act happy than sad or angry
Become better at concealing negative emotions
Emotional deception is due to social pressure as they are encouraged to display positive emotions to promote good relationships

23
Q

Explain pro-social behaviour for social development?

A

Behaviour that benefits others without expected benefit in return

Before 1-2 years = seek comfort for self in response to another’s distress
After 1-2 years = more likely to comfort others

24
Q

What did zhan-waxler and radkhe-yarrow state about pro-social behaviour?

A

Mother pretended to be sad
21 month old son offered comforting words, hugs and distractions with puppet

25
Q

What does pro-social behaviour require?

A

Empathy, which requires ability to see oneself in another’s place = self - awareness

26
Q

Explain aggression in social development in early childhood?

A

Between 6-12 months children develop cognitive and motor skills enabling physical aggression

27
Q

What is aggression accrording to hartup?

A

There’s two types of
1. Hostile = aggressive behaviour where harm is main motivation
2. Instrumental = behaviour that is aggressive form but motivated by a goal other then harm

Found that instrumental agression decline after 4 years
Aggression becomes increasingly verbal, less physical as verbal skills increase

28
Q

What did holmberg find about aggression?

A

1 year olds = 50% of all actions directed towards other children were coercive
3.5 years = fails to 17%

29
Q

Describe play in social development?

A

Before 1 years =infants start playing with objects
- playing becomes more sophisticates as motor skills develop but remains physical

Between 1-2 years
- parented play emerges around 12 months = temporality substitutes different properties for the object being played with

  • pretend play developed gradually
  • and depends on real objects and becomes being able to use less realistic substitutes like banaana as a phone
30
Q

Explain the direction of play in social development?

A

Initially symbolic play is directed towards self
Later its directed towards other objects

Around 2 years child becomes detached in symbolic play like makes dolls feed itself

31
Q

Explain play around age 2.5 years onwards for social development?

A

Sociodramatic play emerges = pretends play with other children
Children share the same scheme and act out roles
- doctor, patients, mummy and daddy

Sequences of play development mirrors increasing social, cognitive and verbal sophistication

32
Q

Why is play important for development?

A

Burns and brainerd/ Connolly and Doyle

  • children who spend more time in sociodramatic play, have better cognitive and emotional development than peers and seen as more socially competent by teachers