Lecture 6: early childhood Flashcards
Early childhood
Ages 2-6
Height weight: more important to follow curve then be quote on quote normal
Physical growth happends during this time
CHildhood obesity
COmmon in western countries
1 standard deviation above age group: overweight
2 standarf deviations above age group: obesity
SHort-term risks arising from childhood obesity
Blount’s disease (boweld legs, sore joints)
Asthma
Sleep disturbance (apnea)
Increased intracranial pressure (fat in brain)
Gallstones
Hepatitis
Diabetes/insulun resistance
Menstrual abnormalities (start very early or will not start, hormonal effects)
Lon-term risks arising from childhood obesity
Increased risk of:
- Premature death
- Noncommunicable diseases
- Heart diseases
- Stroke
- Osteoarthritis
- Cancer
Lots of physical risk in childhood obesity
Social risks arising from childhood obesity
- Teasing, discrimination
- Stereotyped as lazy, clumsy, awkward, ugly
- Unpopular
- Major problems with body image, especially in girls
- Long-term: poorer academics, less likely to get post-secondary education, lower salaries
Fear of fatness
- 5 yr olds feat gaining weight
- Almost 50% of US children in grades 1-3 would like to be thinner
- 50% of 3rd grade girls tried a diet
- 70% of adolescent girls have atempted to lose weight
(gieters have a 8x increased chance of eating disorder)
Influences that cause childhood obesity
Food advertisement in children
Less nutritious food cheaper
Over consumption
Decline in physical activity
Community environment inhibits active living
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
Sensorimotor intelligence (birth-2yrs)
Pre-operational thought (2-7 yrs old)
Concrete Operations (7-11)
Formal operational (11/12 yrs on)
Pre-operational period
Thinking
Can form representation, but limited
+ Centration
+Fooled
+ Egocentric
Symbolic activity
+ Language
+ Deferred imitation
+ Make-believe play
++Becomes detached from real-life conditions over time
++Becomes less self-centred over time (pretending they drink milkshake, eventually pretenddoll drink milkshake)
++Becomes more complex
Evidence of representation
Dual representation: viewing an object as an object and a symbol
- Snoopy test: Demonstrated by 3-yr olds but not 2 1/2 - yr old: little room object is hidden, find in big room.
- Note that we see this age-related change reflected in make-believe
Animistic thinking
The sun was angry so it chased the clouds away (lets turn the tv off its tired)
Egocentrism
3 mountains problem
After walking around the display, child is seated opposite a doll
Task: which picture shows what the doll would see?
Unable to take on other ppls perspectives
Piagets experiment with the mountains was to complex
Conservation
Piaget: conservation most important development of this period
Problems with conservation:
- Innability to understand reversibility
- Centration, appearance
- States vs. transformations (static)
- Even though something has changed in appearence its still the same - Number, volume, mass, lengh: all differnet types of conservation - Dont understand reversibility idea - Fosuses on one aspect (its taller) - centration - Focuses on state: in the moment, dont think about how they got to that state
Preoperational Stage
For summary of different types of conservation
Was Piaget right?
Evidence for different outcomes if problems are simplified
- His tasks tend to confusing, unfamiliar elements and many pieces of information
Many naturally-occuring instances of effective reasoning in preschoolers
For egocentrisms proved wrong: toddlers talk to babies wih a baby voice and adults in a normal voice
Egocentrism
Inclusion of familiar objects, using methods other than picture selection show that 3- and 4-year-olds understand other perspectives
- updated experiment
Everyday situation: preschoolers adapt speech to suit audience
We can simplify design of egocentrism
Little police man and little girl hide from police
Mature out of egocentrism quicker then wa<hat piaget thought
Animastic thinking
More common for items that move and have headlights (e.g train)
Less common for familar objects they interact directly with ( e.g crayon) than less interaective objects (e.g. moon)
Kids try to figure out if different things r living
Conservation
Number:
6 items - no conservation
3 items - conservation
Familiarity:
- Can conserve checkers
- Can conserve playdough
If familiar with task they can conserve it more easily
Effect of language
Show kids a rock painted like an egg and a real egg
- Verbal test: is it rly truly an egg? (until 6 or 7 they say yes)
- Physical test: choose the object that is rly truly an egg (by age 3 most kids choose the egg, not the rock)
Physical test: take away language complexity
So…was piaget right
partly
CHildren do have some logical reasoning skills, but they r limited and fragile
A heavy focus on language could lead to underestimates of what children understand
Vygotsky’s theory
Social learning: other people influence what a child understands and can do!
Mentors
Scaffolding
- Zone of Proximal Development
(difference between what they can do alone vs. with help)
When in a stage, we can measure what they can do alone and what they can do with help
- Zygotsky
my notes:
If in zone of proximal development children cant figure task out without scafollding
If they dont have help they get frustrated or give up. Scaffolding they get engaged and big growth in understanding
Theory of mind
An individual’s understanding of their own mind and other people’s minds
An understanding that behaviour is driven by mental stages which are influenced by beliefs, desires, and intentions
AN understanding that what one thinks is true and what is actually true might not be the same
An understanding that someone else’s belief will not be necessarily be the same as one’s own
Developing of theory of mind
- Theory of mind can be defined in a variety of ways
- Understanding that the way that we behave
THeory of mind began as a developmental question but now ToM has been incroporated into the study of
autism, alcoholism, schizophrenia, brain injuries, typically developing children and adults, animals,…
Used as an explanation of autism
Measuting ToM
False belief: a belief based on inaccurate info
If child ToM, can realise that without the accurate info, ppl will act according to their false beliefs
Child must be able to differentiate between his own beliefs, and those of others
Unexpected tranfer test: ToM test
Child knows its in the fridge: they have true belied
Maxi has the false belief
If child has theory of mind they will answer in the covert
How to test a true belief and why we decide to test false belief
What would a true belief be: if mom tells maxi
- They will look in the fridge
Hard to test true belief, that is why we test the false belief
Why do children fail
Is it because they havent yet developed strong metacognitive skills?
- metacognitition: the ability to think about your own thinking
- Smarties box task: can they even correctly state one of their true beliefs in the past? (Deceptive box): before u saw what was inside the box what did you think was inside
- By simplifyng the languge: what did you think was inside the box before we opened the lid, 3 yr olds answered correcly
Can children use false beliefs to their advantage?
Yes - if they have ToM
Child told to hide car
No ToM: child drives it over, hides it, and isn’t concerned with the tracks
ToM: wipes away tracks, and some also create misleading tracks to another spot
also children lie when they have false belief
ToM and age
Piaget would have said ToM develops after the preoperational stage, when kids move beyond egocentrism
But the number of children who can solve false belief tasks increases sharply at 4 yrs!
- Some evidence that younger children have preliminary ToM:t it is performance limitations not absence of ToM ( modified false belief task: triangle and square)
- most 3 yrs old and some 2 yrs old will look in direction of person , dont need verbal response
Language and ToM
Development of ToM correlated with language develpment
Meta-analysis: overall language abilities ccounted for 17-18% of the variance in false belief task performance
Experience and ToM: Specific language experiences
Measured how moms interacted with 33 months olds
- With some, narratives included a lot of references to psychological motives
- With others, narratives reffered to behaviour, without reference to underlying motives
Tested 6 months later on false belief task
- Children with motives experience did better than those without it
Ezpereince and ToM: Hearing-imapired children
and
large families
Hearing-impaired chldren with hearing parents are delayed in their development of ToM relative to hearing-impaired children with hearing-impaired parents
Large fams:
Earlier ToM from interactions and arguments with sibilings, understanding their mental states
Implications of ToM for social interactions and status
ToM correlated with more prosocial behaviour
- Cooperating, helping, comforting
Correlation is pretty consistent
- Stronger for girls than boys
- Stronger for kids 6+ that for kids 2-5 yrs old
Longitudinal work shows that ToM correlates with popularity among peers
Self-concept
The set of attributes, abilities, attitudes, values that one sees as defining oneself
Starts to develop in preschool yrs
Influenced by cognitive development
Influences interactions with others
- mine when playing with toys (stronger self-concept leads to more possessive behaviour)
Self-concept
Early: focus on what child enjoys and owns
Later: Focus on personality characteristics
Self-esteem
starts to develop arround age 4
Not very accurate - kids ofen think their rly good at everything (inflated self-esteem arround 4)
Kids who are criticixed or not supported in their attemps stop trying new things (drop of self-esteem)
Play
Important for all kinds of development
- Story-telling, physical, disappointement, compromising, memory, sharing, creativity, emotional regulation and recognition
On ur own
Be familiar with different styles of parenting and their consequences
Be familiar with different types of aggression (table 6.3)
Parenting styles
1) Authoritarian parenting: word is law, kids dont rly communicate with parents
2) Permissive parents: leaninient, listen to kids
3) Authoritative parenting: Set limits but are flexible
4) Neglectful/uninvolved parents: dont care about kids
four forms of aggression
1) Instrumental aggression: Hurtful behavior aimed at gaining smt (apparent ages 2-6 quite normal, more egocentric than antisocial)
2) Reactive aggression: Impulsive retalition for a hurt that can be verbal or physical - lack of emotional regulation - 2yr olds, 5yr olds can control
3) Relational aggression: nonphysical acts, insults, social rejection - diretly antisocial
4) Bullying aggression: unprovoked, repeated physical or verbal attack, especially on victims who are unlikely to defend themselves
