Week 4 - Physical and cognitive development in early childhood

Question 1

What age group is early childhood

Answer 1

2 -6 years

Question 2

what piaget stage is early childhood (2-6/7)

Answer 2

preoperational stage

Question 3

describe the preoperational stage

Answer 3

• more dramatic changes than in previous sensory motor stage: significant cognitive advances, particularly in language
• however still limited in thinking as they are not yet able to perform mental manipulation operations

Question 4

What are the cognitive abilities at 2-6 years

Answer 4

• symbolic thinking and representations - understands that the word car represent family car, other people’s car, picture in a book

Question 5

What are the cognitive limitations for 2-6 year old

Answer 5

• unable to understand conservation
  the understanding that 2 things that are equal remain so even if their appearance is altered
  e.g. water in a cup and then in a thinner cup
• doesn’t have all 3 of the fundamental number concepts (one to one correspondence, cardinality (total), ordinality)
• classification - grouping things according to a specific standards or criterion - can do basic categories only
• Animism and magical thinking - apply attributes on living things to inanimate objects. Magical thinking = santa claus and easter bunny

Question 6

What is egocentrism

Answer 6

confusing one’s own perspective with that of another’s

piaget believed that children under 8 years can lack theory of mind

Question 7

what is theory of mind

Answer 7

understanding that others have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires and intentions that may differ from one’s own.

Question 8

What are factors determining motor skills

Answer 8

Physical changes
- proportions (lowering of center of gravity)
- size and strength
- activity levels

Neural Advances
- myelination of neurons in cerebellum leads to better balance and improved coordination

Opportunity to practice new skills

Question 9

what type of drawing does 2.5-4 years make

Answer 9

non representational
scribble and shapes

Question 10

what type of drawing do 4 YO make

Answer 10

representational
recognizable objects
focus on people - tadpole people

Question 11

what type of drawing do 5-6 YO make

Answer 11

• representational
• people with detail and 2 dimensional parts

Question 12

are gross motors kills volitional or nonvolitional

Answer 12

nonvolitional e.g. postural control

Question 13

are fine motor skills fully volitional or nonvolitional

Answer 13

volitional

Question 14

Describe language development at 2-6 years

Answer 14

• rapid expansion of vocab
• acquires 5-6 new words a day
• nouns generally emerge before verbs
• overextension
• mispronunciation due to lack of phonemic mastery - typically mastered by 6 years
• fast mapping - growth in receptive language

Question 15

describe grammatical development in 2-6 year olds

Answer 15

• syntactic development: ordinal relationships between words/parts of words
• two word utterances often called “telegraphic speech” - combine essential words, typically in order
• can use intonation to help clarify message
• questions - what, where, who, why from age 2
• over regulation errors: apply the principle of grammar but to all situations (e.g. gotted, foots, hitted)

Question 16

what are the 2 main grasps

Answer 16

• power grasp - full strength of hand
• precision grasp - continue to be refined into adolescence - uses pinching fingers

Question 17

what is over extension of word meaning

Answer 17

Overextension occurs when a child applies a word too broadly to objects or situations that share common characteristics.

Example: A child might call all four-legged animals “dog,” not just the family pet. Or they might use the word “ball” for any round object, like an orange or a moon.

Question 18

What is syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 18

This is a theory that suggests children use the structure (syntax) of sentences to infer the meanings of new words.

Example: If a child hears the sentence “The rabbit is gorping the cat,” they might not know what “gorping” means, but from the sentence structure, they can infer that “gorping” is likely an action the rabbit is doing to the cat (a verb).