Unit 5 Development in Early Childhood (2-6y)

Question 1

2yrs old until puberty infants

Answer 1

grow at a stead rate
-> grow 5 - 8cm and gain 2.5 - 3kg every year
(from to 2 to 6 children grow 30cm and gain 8kg)
-> muscle maturation = fat to muscle (BMI is low at 5-6yrs)
-> developed countries= 6yr olds are >110cm ave. and 13-23kg

Question 2

Proportion of children

Answer 2

infancy and childhood = legs+arms grow FASTER than trunk
-> 60% of height
-> lower centre of gravity provides greater stability + allows development of more complex movements

Question 3

Factor’s influencing growth and maturation

Answer 3

-> genetic inheritance
-> exercise + daily activity = (elite athletes = less growth)
-> social class = (nutrition + health care (acess+medicine)
-> Physical deficiencies/illnesses = hormonal (thyroid) problems, disorders, infections, diseases (liver, heart, bone)
-> Trauma or abuse = these children grow less
-> nutrition = eating disorders, obesity

Question 4

Left and right coordination and vision

Answer 4

coordination of movements need maturation of brain structures
Left (CEREBRAL HEMISPHERE) receives sense from and control movements of right (vice versa)
Left processes visual info from right visual field, vice versa

-> both involved in corpus callous = nerve fibres (communication between hspheres)

Question 5

What is increased efficiency of the corpus callous important for?

Answer 5

To develop COMMUNICATION between brain hemispheres, COORDINATION between two sides of the body (through myelinisation)
-> 3-6yrs high MYE., slows down in adolescence

Question 6

Lateralisation of functions

Answer 6

when sides of cerebral hemisphere become specialised for certain functions
-> EXAMPLE left hemi. responsible for speech production (right handed ppl), right hemisphere responsible for perceiving emotions

(NOT TRUE FOR ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES)

handedness: preference for using one hand or side of body
90% adults =right hand +body (right: motor function. Left = emotional recognition function)
–> established 2-3yrs and continues to strengthen (Lateralise C before writing)

Question 7

Double lateralisation hypothesis

Answer 7

innate laterality that is part of genetic inheritance + Manifested in spontaneous gestures, and LEARNED laterality related to use of objects everyday

Question 8

3yrs - 4yrs - 5yrs - 6yrs (gross and fine motor skills)

Answer 8

3 - Gross: jump w. both feet, walk downstairs, kick or throw - Fine: Copy simple shapes
4 - Gross: hop on either, catch - Fine: Copy most letters, brush teeth, use scissors, dress self
5 - Gross: skip, gallop in rhythm, climb tree jump over stuff - Fine: cut stuff, copy difficult shapes + letters
6 - Fine: Draw and paint, Catch small balls, write, tie shoelace

Question 9

Preoperational thought (2-7yr)

Answer 9

-> think preoperationally, they are not able to use logical operations
CAN: think in symbols, not via sense and motor skills;

SYMBOLIC FUNCTION: ability to make one thing stand for, or represent

Question 10

Manifestations of mental representation

Answer 10

-> delayed imitation, drawing, symbolic play, mental images, language
Develop: Cataloguing/categorization and class logic-> specific symbols becomes generalised in meaning
-> animism: pre-operational children may believe inanimate objects are alive, or that non-human animals have human characteristics (grow out of it)

Question 11

Egocentric

Answer 11

C are egocentric at preoperational thought - understand the world from their own perspective, not others

-> three mountain study
they do not have the ability of theory of mind - only being able to see their own pov
-> C think and behave intuitively even though they can use symbols and describe

Question 12

How do Preoperational children interpret environment and conservation

Answer 12

based on appearance. AND they only contemplate one aspect of situation
-> experiment: covering cats face with a dog or rabbit mask then asking relevant question to the animal
3yr: responded with inconsistent or accurate answers
6yr: responded consistently

they also lack understanding of conservation
-> beeker experiment, pouring liquid from one jar to different shaped jar. is there still the same amount? 6-7yr think taller containers have more

Question 13

What did Piaget argue the preop. C lacks?

Answer 13

he thought they lacked two cognitive abilities necessary for CONSERVATION: Decentration -> ability to concentrate on more than one aspect of a problem at a time (Height and width)
Reversibility: Ability to mentally reverse an action (cannot imagine doing it)

Question 14

Flavell found that younger C (than 6-7yr) cannot…

Answer 14

understand properties such as MASS and NUMBER
m: play dough turning into different shapes
n: beads spread out subjects through more beads

Question 15

Flavell(1963) containers and clayballs

Answer 15

two beakers with water and clay balls or diff shape in them. C is asked : if the different shaped clay was put into the beaker how would the water level change?
9 - 12 yr C can understand this type of conservation

Question 16

Symbolic Thought; function, Piaget, signifiers, age

Answer 16

Symbolic function = ability to use symbols and signs with differentiates signifiers + meanings

Piaget = SF is manifested in 5 beh, Delayed imitation, mental imagery, language, drawing and play

Signifiers:
Signals or indexes -> direct links
Symbols -> more distance from actual link
Signs -> arbitrary, no direct relation

1,5yrs ability to use differentiated signifier develop -> End of sensorimotor period (6th stage, 15-18m)

Question 17

Delayed imitation and Mental imagery

Answer 17

DI - Ability to communicate with others = through intentional gestures as well as words
-> begins to imitate in deferred, situations or models that are no longer present, but were percieved
-> not a direct imitation (signifier differentiated from signified)

MI - TYPE of internal rep. that had no external correlation -> imagining without the evoking situations (visuals, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile)
-> guide activities, anticipate outcomes, (involves perception + knowledge of subject)

NOT ALL mi come from perception; they can come from imitation
—> MI can only be accessed indirectly though drawing or verbal descriptions

Question 18

Play

Answer 18

-> Productive and enjoyable, promo muscles, planning, self-control (LTR on interactions)
-> Rough-and-tumble play (common) C+C or C+P, has (playface =non-aggressive)
-> Vertical relationships = C+P relationship (easier), Horizontal relationships = peer-peer (req. social and cog. skills)
-> Peer play gets harder w/ age (early helpful with social skills n understanding others); subdue their own agenda and be aware of peer’s
-> INFANCY: 6m, lil attention to peers (preoccupied with objects), until 2yrs where they can parallel play

Question 19

Categorised play behavior UOSPAC

Answer 19

2-5y
-> Unoccupied p, Onlooker p, Solitary p, parallel p, Associative p, Cooperative p.
-> Parten’s play beh; index of C’s S&C abilities but too symplistic
-> Functionals play(0-2y): simple, physical activities w/ or w/out toys (sensorimotor play)
Symbolic play (2-6y): C symbolically rep smt absent of setting
-> Make-believe (sociodramatic) (2-6y) (smilansky)acting out various roles= allows exploration, social roles, learns how to explain (start with toys)
-> Constructive Play (3-6y): creating or building tangible object or rep. of one
Games w/ rules (6y<): structured games w/ publicly accepted rules

Question 20

Drawing

Answer 20

C’s drawing rends to have realistic intentions, not only copy but involves internal images + info.
-> drawing emerges as a motor activity, they leave a mark (Will take on a more expressive character)
- has connections to play and language
–> components
- Motor: fine psychomotricity
- Cognitive: C reflects their understanding of reality
- Affective: rep. interests, worried, desires

Question 22

Naming insights

Answer 22

18-24m realise that names do not apply to only objs in immediate environment but everything (what’s that?)

Question 23

Fast-mapping

Answer 23

2ys= place words into categories
->The process of quickly acquiring a word after hearing it applied to its referent one a small number of occasions (jointly attending: Adult and C are naming things)

Question 24

Overextension + Underextension

Answer 24

-> Children use one word to refer to a wide variety of object or events - four legged animal and furry = doggy
-> Tendency to use a general term to refer to smaller range of objects = only their dog as doggy

errors show the nature of type of questions C ask early on. (limited specificity)
-> Overlap errors = mixture of both error

Question 25

How many words do the ages retain

Answer 25

3y vocab = 1000-5000 (sentences up to 8 words)
–> conjunctions (bcs) and adverbs (heavily) (q: why?)
4y vocab = 10,000 w, 20 w in a sentence
–> dependent clauses + tags at sentence end (q: why, how, when?)
6y vocab= 30,000 w, unlimited w in a sentence
—> passive voice, and subjunctive(if I were..) (q: complex and formulated qs)

Question 26

Memory

Answer 26

does not influence beh until late infancy (2y)
Adults possess sophisticated memory systems to store diff types of knowledge

-> (non-declarative) implicit (unconciously retrieves memories, automatic)

-> (declarative) explicit (conscious recollection of info; memorised or learned)
–> episodic (retrospective + prospective) (memo of event OR more recent event)
–> semantic (General knowledge and facts that aren’t unique to subjects)

Question 27

MEMORY SYSTEM COMPONENTS

Answer 27

Encoding -> Storage -> Retrieval

E - transforms sense info into representation that can be stored
S - Maintains encoded info in mind overtime, potentially converting it into long-term memory
R - Recovers or uses info stored in memory

Question 28

Visual paired comparison

Answer 28

infants are presented pairs of stimuli = they generally look less at familiar stimuli in comparison to unfamiliar
-> suggests some degree of memory

VPC: (3-6m) C shown visual stimulus, after a delay they are presented two stimuli at the same time: familiar and unfamiliar
–> index of recognition memory= time the subject spends looking at familiar in comparison to unfamiliar

Question 29

VPC for encoding

Answer 29

1 - 4y were compared on VPC task
encoding duration: familiar 5, 10, or 30s

RESULTS: 4y showed recognition of the familiar stimulus after j 5s encoding duration
1y showed recognition only after 10s of encoding duration

After a week
4y where only able to recognise/remember a stimulus if shown for at least 10s
1y could only recognise if shown for 30s, and only up to 24hr LTR, no more.

RETRIEVING INFORMATION DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH TIME WE SPEND ENCODING
-> encoding develops significantly 1-4y of age

Question 30

VPC earlier than 12m

Answer 30

shows that 6m old can recognise after 20s and 9m can recognise with a delay of 2-3minutes
–> BOWLBY suggested that 2m begin to recognise caregiver, suggesting that memory systems work at a possibly a very young age

Question 31

infantile amnesia

Answer 31

very few adults can remember younger that 3.5 years old

one prominent explanation = importance of language for recall - rudimentary until 3yrs, before that there are no verbal tags, and may make memories inaccessible

Question 32

Emotional Development

Answer 32

C gradually learn when + how to express emotions -> life long thing

birth - basic emotions: intreset, distress, disgust, contentment
-> end of 2m bbs show social smiles as response
-> 2-7m little variation of cultures (anger sadness, joy, surprise, and fear)
-> 18-24m (complex) damage or enhancement of our sense of self-conscious emotions (embarrassment, shame, guilt, envy, pride)
CAN ONLY RECOGNISE OTHERS EMOTIONS @ 7-10m (social referencing for regulation and understanding) -> ability to empathise

Question 33

THEORY OF MIND

Answer 33

def: ability to predict what another person believes in a given situation, and based on that information, predict how that person might behave

core cognitive abilities
- to understand what the other wants
- understand what the other believes is true

BARON-COHEN: initial phase
8m: Gaze following
12m: porto-declarative pointing allows C to confirm to to other person that they’re aware

Question 34

ToM - what does the child develop at 2y

Answer 34

-> Private self = how we feel inside
-> public self = how we show how we feel to others

• child understand if someone appears a certain way they feel that way aswell =empathy
  -> understand internal emotions correspond w/ desires + beh is motivated to satisfy their desires = Belief-desire reasoning

Question 35

When does child develop Belief-Desire Reasoning

Answer 35

3yrs
-> although children might not have developed the ability to understand the a BELIEF may be FALSE

seeing leads to knowing = develops 3/4y
–> also develops meta-representation in pretend play
-> separate what is true about situation, from what someone is pretending to do

Question 36

False belief, and tasks

Answer 36

Sally-Anne task (sally put her marbles in a basket, Anne moves them when she wasn’t looking)
–> belief q: where will sally look for her marble?
–> reality q: where is the marble?
–> memory q: where was the marble in the beginning?

result: 3.5 to 5.9yrs correctly answers reality and memory but subjects under 4 yrs cannot answer belief q
conclusion C younger than 4 may not understand false-belief

Question 37

Smarties task (1987)

Answer 37

research as kids what is inside a smarties box, smarties, without showing them. The kids were then shown there was pencil inside, then asked if other kids were asked the same question what would they answer.
4y said smarties
3y said pencils

Question 38

Second-order states

Answer 38

-> people say and do things to evoke a response in others

first order false belief question: where will Kevin look for the chocolate?

Second order false belief question: where does Marieke think that Kevin will loo for the chocolate?
(being that she moved it from drawer to the toy box, and their mother w/out them seeing put it into the tv armario)