Early childhood Flashcards
brain development
Frontal lobe grows fastest during this time: advances in emotional regulation, foresight and planned behaviour during preschool years
Number of neurons continues to decline via synaptic pruning
Increase in brain size due to increase in dendrite connections and myelination
myelination
especially high in corpus callosum, cerebellum, reticular formation and hippocampus
Myelination peaks during early childhood and continues at slower pace in adolescence
myelination in these brain parts
corpus callosum
cerebellum
reticular formation
hippocampus
myelination in corpus callosum
enhances speed of functioning throughout the cerebral cortex
myelination in cerebellum
enhances connections between the cerebellum and cerebral cortex
myelination in reticular formation
myelination complete by 5, increase in attention span
myelination in hippocampus
complete by 5, autobiographical memory limited prior to this age
infantile amnesia
Inability to remember anything prior to age 2 is known as infantile amnesia
May be because awareness of self becomes stable at about 2
Maybe because encoding of memory is promoted by language development so it is only encoded after language development accelerates at 2
May also be partly cultural: white Americans remembered more events before 5 than Chinese adults
gross motor skills
Learn to hop on one leg, jump farther, climb stairs without support, alternating feet
Increase running speed and sudden direction changed, catch a ball better and throw it
Gender differences appear: boys better at strength or size skills and girls better at coordination skills
fine motor skills
just extends from toddlerhood
Scribbling becomes recognisable drawing
At 6 they can draw shapes and first letter
New fine motor skills include putting on and removing clothes, using scissors, and using a knife to cut soft food
handedness
Fetuses show preference when sucking thumb, and usually continue this to childhood (90% right)
Adopted children most likely to resemble biological parents handedness
Identical twins more likely than original siblings to differ in handedness (lie in opposite ways in the womb)
Many cultures see left handed as dangerous
Left handed more likely to have prenatal and post natal problems like learning disabilities
1/4 left handers process language in both hemispheres instead of primarily in left hemisphere
More likely to have lower life expectancy (not v convincing, just cultural prejudice)
Piaget’s stage
preoperational
Thinking becomes representational
Once we can represent the world through language, we are freed from sensorimotor experience
2-7 years old
Not yet able to perform mental operations (cognitive procedures that follow certain logical rules)
Preoperational: conservation
conservation limited
ability to understand that the quantity of a substance or material remains the same even if its appearance changes (pouring same amount of water into thinner but taller glass)
mistakes on conservation caused by
Centration: thinking is centres on one noticeable aspect of a cognitive problem to the exclusion of other important aspects (notice height changes but not width change of glass)
Reversibility is lacking: ability to reverse an action mentally
preoperational- egocentrism
egocentrism limited
inability to distinguish between own perspective and another’s (three mountain task: children pick photo with own point of view not doll’s)
preoperational animism
tendency to attribute human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects and forces
preoperational classification
classification limited
have difficulty understanding that objects can be simultaneously part of more than one ‘class’ or group (are there more yellow flowers or more flowers? Yellow flowers), caused by lack in centration and reversibility
preoperational stage criticism
Underestimated children’s cognitive capacity
Development is more continuous and less stage like
Studies show that these kids are less egocentric than thought, and better at 3 mountain task
By 4, show perspective of others when trying to figure how to annoy a sibling
development of ‘theory of mind’
Ability to understand thinking processes in one’s self and others
Appears very early, in infancy
Through joint attention and use of prelanguage vocalisation, show that they understand that others have mental states such as intentionality
Age 2, use language and show recognition that others have thoughts and emotions that can be different to own
Age 2, begin to use words that refer to mental processes like think, remember and pretend
Age 3, children know it is possible for them and others to imagine something that is not physically present
Perspective taking ability advances from age 3 to 6
advances in vocab
2500 words by 6
Early childhood is a sensitive period for language development
Fast mapping: as young children learn new words they begin to form a mental map of interconnected sets of word categories
When they hear a word the first time they instantly connect it to one of these categories to help discern its meaning
