1
Q
Piaget’s preoperational stage basics
A
- ages 2-7
- gains in mental representation: make-believe play, symbolic thinking
- limitations in thinking: egocentrism, lack of conservation, lack of hierarchical classification
2
Q
Early childhood development of make-believe
A
- with age, make-believe gradually: detaches from real life conditions, becomes less self-centered, becomes more complex
- sociodramatic play develops
3
Q
Benefits of make-believe play
A
- contributes to cognitive and social skills
- strengthens mental abilities:
- sustained attention
- memory
- language and literacy
- creativity
- regulation of emotion
- perspective taking
4
Q
Representational play
A
- children substitute one object for another or imagine the object
- separation of meaning from object provides foundation for using symbols
- benefits for later learning: symbols help children learn vocabulary, learn to read and write, understand maps, use numerals and learn number conservation
5
Q
Self-regulation in dramatic play
A
- child follows chosen role and rules of that role, inhibiting impulses and emotional reactions in order to take part in the play
- benefits for later learning: self-regulation promotes children’s ability to think autonomously, consider and control behaviour, control impulses, apply slef-discipline, follow directions and rules, plan and stay on task, collaborate with peers, enhance decision-making skills
6
Q
Dual representation
A
- viewing a symbolic object as both an object and a symbol
- strengthens around age 3
- adults can help: experience w maps, photos, drawings, make-believe play; pointing out similarities of symbols to real world
- snoopy experiment (children see experimenter hide snoopy in model room and are asked to find him same place in real room; kids under 3 can’t do it)
7
Q
Egocentrism
A
- preoperational stage
- failure to distinguish others’ viewpoints from one’s own
- three mountains task (child has to describe what someone else can see from opposite side of a model, can’t if they’re still in preoperational stage)
8
Q
Animistic thinking
A
belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities
9
Q
Conservation
A
- understanding that physical characteristics remain the same when appearance changes
- children in preoperational stage fail to understand this bc of centration (focusing on one aspect to neglect of others) and irreversibility (inability to mentally reverse a series of steps)
10
Q
3 important characteristics of preoperational thought
A
- egocentrism
- centration (narrowly focused thought)
- appearance as reality
11
Q
4 year-olds’ naive theories of biology
A
- Movement: animals can move themselves but inanimate objects can’t
- Growth: animals and people grow and objects do not
- Internal parts: different in animals and inanimate objects
- Inheritance: animals inherit traits from parents, objects do not
- Healing: animals heal themselves, people have to fix objects
12
Q
Theory of mind
A
- a person’s understanding of the relations between mind and behaviour
- early awareness: infancy through age 3
- mastery of false-belief tasks: around age 4
- contributing factors: language, executive function, social experiences - some think kids w autism don’t have theory of mind, other research says this is not true!
13
Q
Executive functioning basic definition
A
set of cognitive abilities that enable intentional, self-regulated behaviour
14
Q
Deficits in theory of mind
A
- deficits in pretend play for children diagnosed with autism may be linked to deficits in theory of mind (Rutherford and Rogers)
- theory of mind deficits may be due to difficulties in executive functioning present early in life (Pellicano)
15
Q
False-belief task
A
- child has information but someone else does not (eg Sally and basket vs box)
- 4 year-olds know Sally will look in basket, 3 year-olds think she will look in box (bc that is the information that they have so they assume Sally has it too)
- 4 year-olds realize that people not only have thoughts and beliefs, but also that thoughts and beliefs are crucial to explaining why people do things
16
Q
Counterfactual thinking
A
- understanding that a situation or fact is counter or opposite to reality
- first demonstrated through engagement in pretend play
17
Q
Evaluation of Piaget
A
- many experts think development of logical operations is gradual, not in stages
- some support flexible stage notion: a related set of competencies develops over an extended period
18
Q
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
A
- development as a social relationship through which children collaborate with others who are more experienced
- private speech is essential in cognitive development
- scaffolding helps children in zone of proximal development
19
Q
Private speech
A
- Piaget called this ‘egocentric speech’
- foundation for all higher cognitive processes
- serves self-guiding function; increases during challenging tasks
- gradually internalized as silent, inner speech (but adults still use this sometimes!)
20
Q
Zone of proximal development
A
- Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory
- Scaffolding: adults aid learning by adjusting support to child’s level of performance
- effectiveness of scaffolding varies culturally
21
Q
Evaluation of Vygotsky’s Theory
A
- helps us understand cultural variation in cognition
- focuses on language, deemphasizes other routes to cognitive development
- says little ab how basic elementary capacities (motor, perceptual, attention, memory, and problem-solving skills) contribute to higher cognitive processes
22
Q
Gains in information processing in preoperational stage
A
- attention: inhibition, planning
- memory: recognition, recall, episodic memory
- theory of mind: false-belief
- emergent literacy
- mathematical reasoning
23
Q
Recognition
A
noticing that a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced
24
Q
Recall
A
- generating a mental representation of an absent stimulus
- more difficult than recognition
25
Semantic memory
- facts about the world
| - do not require a memory of the encoding context
26
Episodic memory
- Scripts (memory for familiar everyday events)
| - Autobiographical memory (memory for one-time events)
27
Autobiographical memory
- subcategory of episodic memory
- improves during preschool years w cognitive skills and conversational skills
- influence of adult interaction:
- elaborative style (open-ended questions, fosters organized and detailed personal stories)
- repetitive style (close-ended questions, weak at promoting autobiographical recall)
28
Early memories
- early memories kids retain influences:
- sense of identity
- how they form relationships
- whether they make sound choices later in life
- first memory adults can recall normally from 18mo to 8y (avg 3 1/2y)
29
Early childhood mathematical reasoning
- Ordinality: order relationships between quantities (14-16 months)
- one-to-one principle: there must be one and only one number name for each object that is counted
- stable-order principle: number names must be counted in the same order
- Cardinality: when counting, last number is the total (3 1/2-4 years)
30
Language development in early childhood
- language intimately related to other cognitive changes
- word explosion between ages 2-6
- children use active, rule-oriented approach
31
Fast mapping
- vocabulary development
- connecting new words w underlying concepts after only a brief encounter
- use object names, verbs, modifiers (blue, round, big)
32
Mutual exclusivity bias
- strategy for word learning
| - assumption that words refer to entirely separate objects
33
Shape bias
- strategy for word learning
- process of learning nouns based on perceptual property of shape heightens young children's attention to distinctive shapes of other objects
- helps preschoolers master additional names of objects, vocab accelerates
34
Cues in sentence structure
- strategy for word learning
| - observing how words are used in the structure of sentences
35
Rich social information
- strategy for word learning
- adults inform children directly ab which of 2 or more words to use
- adults filling in for words they have not yet learned
36
Metaphors
- strategy for word learning
| - clouds are pillows, leaves are dancers
37
Grammatical development
- basic rules: subject-word-object structure between ages 2-3; small additions to sentences to express meaning ('-s', variations of 'to be')
- overregularization: applying rules to words that are exceptions to the rule (ex. 'my toy car breaked')
- complex structures: question-asking, passive voice problems (the car is pushed by the truck)
38
Pragmatics
- practical, social side of language
- 2y/o can engage in effective conversation
- by age 4, adjusts speech to fit listener's age, sex, social status
- challenging situations like telephone conversations
39
Supporting Early Childhood Language
- conversations with adults
- recasts: restructuring inaccurate speech to correct form
- expansions: elaborating on children's speech
40
Typical vocabulary of a 2 year old
- few hundred words
| - sentences are 2-3 words long
41
Typical vocabulary of a 5 year old
- several thousand words
| - sentences are 5 or more words long
42
Telegraphic speech
- talk consisting only of words directly relevant to meaning, such as important verbs and nouns
- two-word sentences, starts around 1 1/2 years
8 RULES:
- agent + action (truck go)
- possessor + possession (my truck)
- action + object (gimme cookie)
- agent + object (girl car - means girl is pushing car)
- action + location (put chair - means put object on chair)
- entity + location (truck chair - means truck is on the chair)
- attribute + entity (big drum)
- demonstrative + entity (that cup)
43
Grammatical morphemes
- words or endings of words that make a sentence grammatical
| - ex. -ing, -ed, -s
44
Support for theory that inborn mechanisms help children learn grammar
- we only have indirect evidence
- Specific regions of the brain are known to be involved in language processing (ex left hemisphere-understanding language, Broca's area-combining words into meaningful sentences)
- Only humans learn grammar readily. (If grammar was learned solely through imitation and reinforcement, non-humans could learn it too)
- There is a critical period for learning language (birth-12 years)
45
Critical period in language learning
- birth-12years
- some research suggests it extends to 17-18years
- but to speak with native-like proficiency you need to start learning the language before age 10
46
Semantic Bootstrapping Hypothesis
children rely upon their knowledge of word meanings to discover grammatical rules
47
Guidelines for effective oral communication
- People should take turns, alternating as speaker and listener.
- speaker’s remarks should relate to the topic and be understandable to the listener.
- listener should pay attention and let the speaker know if his or her remarks don’t make sense
PSYC 304
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