How does Language develop?
We all have a U-shaped grammar curve. We first learn from others and mimic what they say exactly, then we learn some rules for ourselves which lead to errors, and then we refine our knowledge and learn what we can and can’t do. There’s a Universal Grammar Theory which predicts that everyone has a set of switches that get turned on to determine the grammar of that language.
What’s a critical stage in terms of Language Development?
When a kid is 3-5 years old, they learn 2-4 new words everyday to add into their dictionary and they understand 2x as many words. They even recall words they don’t hear that day (we go back to old jokes we saw in our childhood and can now understand it)
What’s the First Stage in Jean Piaget’s Developmental Stages?
It’s the Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2). At this stage, they have simple reflex action which becomes symbolic processing (one thing can be another).
- They adapt and like to explore the environment
- They understand objects and eventually learn abt Object Permanence (an obj continues to exist after it’s hidden)
- They use symbols and gestures
What is the Second Stage in Jean Piaget’s Developmental Stages?
It’s the Preoperational Stage (2-6). They grow to use symbols to represent objects and events.
- Egocentrism = Difficulty is seeing something in another person’s pov.
- Centration = Inability to focus on more than 1 thing at a time
What is the Third Stage in Jean Piaget’s Developmental Stages?
It’s the Concrete Operational Stage (7-11). They are able to do mental operations to solve problems and reason with their ideas (spreading out a row of coins doesn’t make it worth more). They may have issues thinking abstractly and hypothetically (a feather can’t break a glass!)
What is the Fourth Stage in Jean Piaget’s Developmental Stages?
It’s the Formal Operations Stage (11-up). They can apply mental operations to abstract entities. They can think abstractly and hypothetically.
What’s Constructivism?
Children are active participants in their own development. They play to understand the world.
What are some problems w/ Piagetian Theory?
- Underestimates infants and overestimates adolescents. We now know that the prefrontal cortex (brain part that helps hold us back from our primal instincts) doesn’t fully develop until the age of 25.
- Vague on process and change mechanisms (doesn’t answer what, why, or how these developments take place)
- Doesn’t account for variability (some kids learn faster, while others are slower)
- Underestimates the influence of social and cultural differences.
What’s Intersubjectivity?
It’s the shared understanding of what you’re trying to do with someone else (when moving a mattress with someone else you’d guide them)
What’s Guided Participation?
Cognitive growth results from children’s involvement with more skilled person. Zone of Proximal Development is the difference between what a child can do with or without help.
What is Private Speech?
It’s when a child practices talking to themselves for the future.
What’s Inner Speech?
Same as Private Speech but inside the brain.
Why are babies born with the capability to recognize different Lemurs, but adults can’t?
When we’re born, we have a lot of synapses we don’t really need. They specialize and get rid of unless ones so we learn to distinguish what we need and lose what we don’t.
What happened during the Marshmallow Test?
- Kids who passed developed strategies to distract themselves?
- Kids who didn’t pass just tried to resist the temptation
- Poor kids didn’t trust the adult (didn’t trust that the food would remain when the adult returned)
In what ways do children improve?
Their strategies, working memory, abstract thinking, automatic processing, and speed of processing improve.
