Social World Flashcards
1
Q
What is the learning view?
A
- The view that children learn from the environment
- Children learn a great deal from the environment through trial and error and statistical learning
- Caregivers play an important role in children’s cognitive development via teaching and the quality of environment provided
2
Q
How do children learn from the environment?
A
- children actively learn from the environment on their own: trial and error and statistical learning
- caregivers play an important role in children’s learning: teach children skills via scaffolding and determine the quality of children’s environment
3
Q
What is statistical learning?
A
- the ability to track patterns in the environment
- example of observational learning
4
Q
Can infants use statistical learning?
A
- by 2 months there is evidence that infants are sensitive to statistical regularities in their environment
- they can see patterns
5
Q
What are the implications of statistical learning in infants?
A
- babies are actively interpreting the world around them and drawing conclusions
- statistical learning is innate and domain general
- it is a mechanism through which infants learn in various domains
6
Q
What is scaffolding?
A
- a process in which a caregiver provides a temporary framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own
7
Q
What are examples of scaffolding?
A
- physically assisting a child
- demonstrating a skill
- providing explicit instructions
- breaking down a task
8
Q
What is the zone of proximal development?
A
- the different between what a child can do without help and what they can achieve with scaffolding from a caregiver
9
Q
What is private speech?
A
- children regulate their own behaviour with private speech
- tell themselves out loud what to do the same way their parents do
- more likely on more difficult tasks
- thinking out loud
10
Q
When do children use private speech?
A
- start around 3 years
- most frequent in 4-6 year olds
- stops around age 7, when private speech decreases and goes underground, becoming thought
11
Q
How is the home environment measured?
A
- through Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME)
- it is the gold standard
- researchers visit a child’s home and observe the environment and interview the caregiver
- checklist of characteristics that reflect 2 factors: emotional support and cognitive stimulation
- higher scores indicate higher quality home environment
12
Q
What is the emotional support factor?
A
- parents’ degree of responsiveness to their child and expression of positive emotions
13
Q
What is the cognitive stimulation factor?
A
- degree to which the parent engages and involves the child, provides them with stimulating toys, and variety in daily life
14
Q
What do higher scores on the HOME indicate?
A
- higher scores positively predict children’s cognitive skills and development
- higher IQ
- better math and reading comprehension
- better language ability
15
Q
How many kids use childcare outside the home?
A
- 60% of Canadian children under the age of 5 attend childcare outside home
- 52% of these children attend daycare centres
16
Q
What are the effects of a daycare environment?
A
- high quality child care, especially daycare centres, linked with better cognitive and language skills in the first 3 years of life
- low quality child associated with lower cognitive and language skills
- language stimulation was a particularly important factor
- children in daycare centres performed better than children in at home child care centres
- no difference between kids in the exclusive care of mom vs. out of home child care
17
Q
How does SES play a role in home quality and cognitive development?
A
- low SES associated with lower quality home environment
- plays an important role in why children from poorer families tend to score lower on tests of cognitive skill before starting school
18
Q
What are the results of daycare programs for lower SES children?
A
- day care interventions to foster cognitive development of children from low SES families by focusing on cognitive stimulation
- children who participate in these programs have better cognitive skills than the children who don’t
- but the cognitive effects don’t last once the program is over
- participants tend to be more likely to finish high school and enroll in university, less likely to be held back a grade, and are less likely to engage in criminal activity
19
Q
What’s in a mind?
A
- intentions
- desires
- knowledge
- all of these have to be inferred, cannot be observed
- children come to understand each of these at different ages
20
Q
When do children start understanding others’ intentions?
A
- 6 months
- understand goal directed movement
- understand that only humans can have intentions (not robots)
21
Q
When do children understand the difference between intentions and accidents?
A
- 9 months
- can distinguish between intentional and accidental actions
- more frustrated when adult purposely doesn’t give them a toy vs. when an adult tries but accidentally drops it
