Child Development Exam 3 Study Guide
Play's Functions:
-Freud and Erikson believed that play helps children to master anxieties and conflicts -play therapy allows children to work off frustrations and allows therapists to analyze conflicts and ways of coping -Piaget maintained that play advances cognitive development and Vygotsky considered play to be an excellent setting cognitive development
Moral Reasoning:
-In Piaget's account of how children between the ages of 4 and 12 think about moral issues, he concluded that children go through two stages in how they think about morality
Zone of Proximal Development:
-Vygotsky used this term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children
The Context of abuse:
-a combination of factors, including culture, family, and development likely contribute to child maltreatment
Egocentrism:
-a feature of preoperational thought in which a child is unable to distinguish between his or her own perspective and that of others
Centration:
-a focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others
Fast Mapping:
-a process that helps to explain how young children learn the connection between a word and its referent after only limited exposure to the world
Young Children's Literacy:
-a supportive environment for children to develop literacy skills allows them to be active participants and be immersed in a wide range of interesting listening, talking, writing and reading experiences
Initiative versus Guilt:
-according to Erikson, in early childhood children must discover what kind of person they will become -on their own initiative, children at this stage explore their social world and use their own skills to make things happen -guilt is the governor of initiative, and guilt may lower self-esteem
Self-understanding:
-according to Erikson, the young child has begun to develop this which includes a representation of self and the substance of self-conceptions -although young children mainly describe themselves in terms of concrete, observable features and action tendencies, they begin to include psychological and emotional traits in self-descriptions by around 4 or 5 years
Evolutionary Psychology View:
-according to evolutionary psychology, adaptation during human evolution produced psychological sex differences -critics of this view argue that its claims are backed by speculations rather than evidence
Changes in Syntax and Semantics:
-after advancing beyond two-word utterances, the child shows a growing mastery of complex rules for how words should be ordered -gains in semantics also characterize early childhood; some experts believe that children learn about one new word per hour between 18 months and 6 years of age
Sleep Talking:
-also occurs while children are sound asleep -occasionally they make fairly coherent statements for a brief period of time
Animism:
-another limitation of preoperational thought in which a child has the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action
Night Terrors:
-are characterized by a sudden arousal from sleep with an intense fear, loud screams, rapid heart rate and breathing, and perspiration -in most instances, children have no or little memory of what happened during the night terror
Nightmares:
-are frightening dreams that awaken the sleeper, often toward morning -if children have nightmares persistently, it may indicate high levels of stress
Advances in Pragmatics:
-as children get older, they learn culturally specific rules of conversation and politeness, and develop a sensitivity to the needs of others in conversation -at around 4 to 5 years of age, children learn to change their speech style to suit the situation in accordance with social situations, such as speaking differently to a 2-year-old than to a peer or an adult
Peer Relations:
-as children grow older, they spend and increasing amount of time with their peers -children of about the same age or maturity level -peers provide a source of information and comparison about the world outside the family -peers also evaluate and provide feedback to one another -good peer relations can be necessary for normal socioemotional development
Developmental Changes:
-at 18 months to 3 years of age, children begin to understand perceptions, emotions and desires. -at 3 to 5 years of age, children come to understand that people can have false beliefs and that the mind can represent objects and events accurately or inaccurately. -understanding of thinking has some limitations at these ages -by beyond age 5, children see the mind as an active constructor of knowledge or processing center
Intuitive Thought Substage:
-at 4 to 7 years of age, children begin to use primitive reasoning and have many questions -young children seem sure about their knowledge and understanding yet are unaware of how they know what they know
What are the three views of the cognitive changes that occur in early childhood?
-at approximately 2 to 7 years of age, children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings, form stable concepts, and begin to reason -egocentrism and magical beliefs dominate thinking
Sensorimotor Play:
-behavior by infants to derive pleasure from exercising their sensorimotor schemas -from the early months through the second year, they enjoy playing with objects in varying ways
Design Stage:
-by 3 to 4 years of age, children mix two basic shapes in a more complex design
Perceptual Development:
-changes in children's perceptual development continue in childhood -children become increasingly efficient at detecting boundaries between colors at 3 to 4 years of age -when children are about 4 or 5 years old, their eye muscles usually are developed enough that they Canmore their eyes efficiently across a series of letters -many preschool children are farsighted, unable to see close up as well as they can see far away.
Placement Stage:
-characteristic of 2-to-3-year-olds drawings are drawn on a page in placement patterns
Shape Stage:
-characteristics of 3-year-olds, children draw diagrams in different shapes
Understanding Others:
-children also make advances in their understanding of others in early childhood -individual differences characterize young children's social understanding -these differences can be explained, to some degree, by conversations with caregivers
Montessori Approach:
-children are given considerable freedom to choose activities and are allowed to move from one to another -a criticized feature of the program is that it discourages verbal interaction between teacher and child, and peer interaction
Environmental Tobacco Smoke:
-children exposed to tobacco smoke in the home are more likely to develop wheezing symptoms and asthma than children from nonsmoking homes
Language and Thought:
-children use speech not only for social communication, but also to help them solve problems -the use of language for self-regulation is called private speech -language and thought initially develop independently of each other and then merge
Structural Changes:
-children's brains undergo dramatic anatomical changes between the ages of 3 and 15 -from 3 to 6 years, the most rapid growth takes place in the frontal lobe, areas involved in planning and organizing new actions, and in maintaining attention to tasks. -from age 6 through puberty, the most growth takes place in the temporal lobe and parietal lobe, areas that play a major role in language and spatial realations
Fine Motor Skills:
-children's fine motor coordination improves substantially and becomes more precise between the ages 3 and 5 -children become more dexterous in the use of the thumbs and fingers
Rhonda Kellogg:
-collected several million drawings made by children from around the world between 1948 and 1981 -her thesis presented the finding that there is a pattern to children's art and that children throughout the world make the same kinds of drawings
Constructive Play:
-combines sensorimotor/practice play with symbolic representation and occurs when children engage in the self-regulated creation of a product or solution
Understanding Phonology and Morphology:
-during the preschool years, most children gradually become sensitive to the sounds of spoken words -as they move beyond two-word utterances, there is clear evidence that children know morphological rules, as in their use of plurals and possessives
Neuronal Changes:
-early childhood is a time of great neuronal activity. -the brain increases the number of nerve endings and receptors during childhood. -some of the brain's increase in size is due to the increase in myelination
Developmentally Appropriate and Inappoprirate Practices:
-educators refer to developmentally appropriate practices as those based on age appropriateness, individual appropriateness, and sociocultural contests -developmentally inappropriate practices for young children rely on abstract paper-and-pencil activities presented to large groups
Regulating Emotions:
-emotion regulation is fundamental to the development of social competence
Emotion-coaching versus emotion-dismissing parents:
-emotion-coaching parents monitor children's emotions and view negative emotions as opportunities for teaching -emotion-dismissing parents view their role as to deny, ignore, or change, negative emotions -emotion-coaching parents are less rejecting and more nurturing than emotion-dismissing parents
Vygotsky's Social Constructivist Approach:
-emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction
Authoritative Parenting:
-encourages independence but with limits established by parents with children through verbal interchange -children whose parents are authoritative are often cheerful, self-controlled, self-reliant, and achievement-oriented
Individual Differences:
-factors that influence children's development of a theory of mind are advances in prefrontal cortex functioning, engaging in make-believe play, and various aspects of social interaction
Ethnicity:
-families within different ethnic groups in the United States differ in size, structure, composition, reliance on kinship networks and levels of income and education
Children Energy Needs:
-feeding and eating habits are important aspects of development during early childhood -the average preschooler needs up to 1,800 calories per day
Sustained Attention:
-focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
Information-Processing Theory:
-focuses on limitations and advances in attention, memory, strategies, problem-solving, and meta-cognition over the course of development
Heteronomous Morality:
-from ages 4 to 7, children think of justice and rules of unchangeable properties of the world -the rightness of behavior is judged by considering its consequences, not the intentions of the actor
"Fussy Eaters", Sweets, and Snacks:
-fussy eaters are trying to exercise the same rights to personal taste and appetite that adults take for granted -caregivers should allow for developing tastes in food, but need to be firm in limiting sweet so as not to spoil appetite for more nutritious foods at mealtime
Gay and Lesbian Parents:
-gay and lesbian parents vary greatly -researchers have found few differences between children growing up with lesbian mothers or gay fathers and children growing up with heterosexual parents
Exercise in early childhood:
-guidelines recommend that preschool children engages in two hours of physical activity per day, divided into one hour of structured activity and one hour of unstructured free play -a child's life should be centered around activities, not meals
Claire Golomb:
-her research interests include representational development in the domains of the visual arts, imagination, and symbolic play including artistic development in normal and atypical population -observed that blind children and children w/o access to materials to practice scribbling drew representations of humans.
Evaluating Vygotsky's Theory:
-his view of the importance of sociocultural influence on children's development fits with the current belief that it is important to evaluate the contextual factors in learning -criticisms include that he was not specific enough about age-related changes; that he did not adequately describe how changes in socioemotional capabilities contribute to cognitive development -that he overemphasized the role of language in thinking; and that his emphasis on collaboration and guidance is problematic
Friends:
-in early childhood, children distinguish between friends and non-friends -young preschool children are more likely than older children to have friends who are of a different gender and ethnicity
Understanding Emotions:
-in early childhood, children show an increased ability to talk about emotions and increased understanding of emotions
Symbolic Function Stage:
-in the first substage of preoperational thought, at 4 years of age, the child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present
Health, Safety, Illness:
-in the past 50 years, vaccination against infectious diseases have vastly improved children's health -in recent decades, there has also been increased focus on prevention of childhood injuries
Moral Feelings:
-in the psychoanalytic view of moral development, the conscience punishes the child for behaviors disapproved by parents, making the child feel guilty
Sibling Relationships:
-include conflict, but siblings also act as emotional support, rivals, and communication partners -improvement in sibling relationship quality or an individual child's behavior should have positive developmental outcomes on sibling relationships
Short-term Memory:
-individuals retain information 30 seconds if there is no rehearsal of information -research with memory span tasks suggests that short term memory increases during early childhood, which may be partially due to learning and using memory strategies such as rehearsal -speed and efficiency of processing information also influence short-term memory
Social Play:
-involves interaction with peers
Autobiographical Memory:
-involves memory of significant events and experiences in one's life -increases during preschool years
Executive Attention:
-involves planning actions, allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress on tasks, and dealing with novel or difficult tasks
Moral Development:
-involves the development of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other people
Practice Play:
-involves the repetition of behavior when new skills are being learned or when physical or mental mastery and coordination are required
Project Head Start:
-is a federal program designed to provide children from low-income families the opportunity to acquire skills and experiences important for success in school -not all are of equal quality, but evaluations support the positive influence of quality early childhood programs on the cognitive and social worlds of disadvantaged young children
Authoritarian Parenting:
-is a restrictive, punitive style in which parents impose strict limits and consequences to children's behavior -children of authoritarian parents are often unhappy, fearful, and anxious about comparing themselves with others, fail to initiate activity, and have weak communication skills
Gender Role:
-is a set of expectations that prescribe how females or male should think, act, and feel
Sympathy:
-is an emotional response to another person in which the observer feels sad and or concerned about the other persons well-being
Executive Function:
-is an umbrella-like concept that consists of a number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the brain's prefrontal cortex -it involves managing one's thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior and exercise self-control
Growth Hormone Deficiency:
-is the absence or deficiency of growth hormone produced by the pituitary gland -without treatment, most children with this deficiency will not reach an average height of five feet
Moral Behavior:
-is the focus of behavioral and social cognitive theory -holds that the processes of reinforcement, punishment, and imitation explain the development of moral behavior
Gender Identity:
-is the sense of one's own gender, including knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of being male or female
Somnambulism:
-known as sleep walking -occurs in the deepest stage of sleep -15 percent of children sleepwalk at least once, but most grow out of it
Exposure to Lead:
-lead can get into a child's bloodstream through contaminated food and water -putting lead-contaminated fingers in mouths -inhaling dust from lead-based paint -lead poisoning has been associated with lower intelligence, lower achievement, ADHD, elevated blood pressure, and poor memory and problem-solving skills
Poverty and Ethnicity:
-low income is linked with poor health in young children; many health problems begin before birth, when mothers do not receive adequate health care. -children living in poverty are more likely to live in crowded housing, inadequately supervised, be exposed to environmental toxins such as lead poisoning, and have inadequate insurance
Socioeconomic Status:
-lower-SES parents tend to be more concerned that children conform to society's expectations, while higher-SES parents are more concerned with developing children's initative
Chromosomes and Hormones:
-males start to differ from females when genes on the Y chromosome in the male embryo trigger the development of testes rather than ovaries
Developmental Consequences of Abuse:
-maltreated children demonstrate poor emotion regulation, attachment problems, problems in peer relations, difficulty in school, and other psychological problems -they are more likely to experience physical, emotional, and sexual problems as adults
Safety at Home and Child Care:
-many factors encountered in the home can negatively affect development -caregivers need to communicate clearly in simple terms -parents should invest in finding a competent health-care provider for their children
Parental Influences:
-many parents encourage boys and girls to engage in different types of play and activities -fathers are more likely than mothers to act differently toward sons and daughters
Fat and Sugar Consumption:
-many parents include or allow too much fat in children's diets -early exposure to fast food, which is often high in protein and fat, may ingrain unhealthy eating habits -the average American child consumes about 2 pounds of sugar per week -sugar consumption is associated with health problems such as dental cavities and obesity
Social Influences:
-many social scientists argue that psychological gender differences originate in differences in social experiences for females and males
Cross-cultural studies:
-many studies show that cultural change changes the resource available to children
Young Children's Artistic Drawings:
-many young children show an interest in drawing, and the unintended irregularities of their drawings suggest spontaneity, freedom, and directness -art can be an important vehicle for expressing creativity and conveying feelings and ideas for young children
Brain and Cognitive Development:
-maturation of the brain in terms of cell loss, synaptic growth, and myelination, combined with opportunities to experience a widening world, contribute to substantial increases in cognitive abilities -the prefrontal cortex and the neurotransmitter dopamine may be key components of information transmission.
Implicit Memory:
-memory without conscious recollection
Regulation of Emotion and Peer Relations:
-moody and emotionally negative children experience greater rejection by peers, whereas emotionally positive children are more popular
Myelination:
-nerve cells are insulated with fat cells, which increases the speed of transmission of information
The Child-Centered Kindergarten:
-nurturing is a key focus -emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development -it honors three principals -each child follows a unique developmental pattern -young learn best through firsthand experience -play is extremely important to the child's total development
Height and Weight:
-on average children grow 2 1/2 inches and gain 5 to 7 pounds per year. -from 2 to 6 years the baby has grown 7 1/2 to 26 pounds from 21 to 35 inches in height -the dynamic systems theory states that a child's maturation is tied to the development of gross and fine motor skills in that these physical movements are thoroughly integrated with the environment
Scaffolding:
-over the course of a teaching session, a more skilled person adjusts the amount of guidance to match the child's current performance level
Parenting young children's moral development:
-parents and peers contribute to children's moral maturity -warmth, responsibility, and secure attachment in parent-child relationships are important foundations for moral growth -the use of proactive strategies, such as diversion or taking with children about values, may help avert potential misbehavior by children before it takes place, and conversations related to moral development, can contribute to children's moral development
Indulgent Parents:
-parents are highly involved in the child's life but place few demands or controls on them -these children often have behavior problems and difficulties in peer relations
Neglectful Parenting:
-parents are uninvolved in the child's life -these children tend to be socially incompetent, don't handle independence well, and have poor self-control and low self-esteem
Connected Worlds of Parent-child and peer relations:
-parents may influence their children's peer relations in many ways (direct and indirect) -basic lifestyle decisions made by parents determine the pool from which their children select possible friends -attachment security and parents' marital quality affect children's peer relations
Peer Influences:
-peers extensively reward and punish gender behavior -there is greater pressure for boys to conform to a traditional male role than for girls to conform to a traditional female role -gender influences the composition of children's groups, size of groups, and interactions within a group
Types of Child Maltreatment:
-physical abuse, child neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse
Play:
-pleasurable activity that is engaged in for its own sake -children use play to develop mental images or reproductions of their particular place in the surrounding world -children use play to help solve their psychosocial conflicts
Malnutrition in Young Children from low-income families:
-poor nutrition is special concern in the lives of young children from low-income families -many of these children do not get essential amounts of iron, vitamins, or protein -young children from low-income families are most likely to develop iron deficiency anemia, which can result in chronic fatigue -malnutrition may also be linked to cognitive deficits and aggressive or hyperactive behavior
Salient versus Relevant Dimensions:
-preschool children are more likely to pay attention to stimuli that stand out, or are salient, even when those stimuli are not relevant to solving a problem -after the age of 6 or 7, children attend to relevant characteristics more efficiently -researchers believe this change reflects and increase in cognitive control of attention
Planfulness:
-preschool-aged children are more likely to use haphazard strategies in problem-solving than are older children (because of their limited ability to plan)
Conscience:
-refers to an internal regulation of standards of rights and wrong that involves moral thought, feeling, and behavior -research indicates that even young children show the presence of a conscience
What is Theory of Mind?
-refers to awareness of one's own mental processes and the mental processes of others -researchers in this area view children as using theories about how the mind works to explain, predict, and understand people's thoughts, feelings, and utterances
Gender Typing:
-refers to the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role -during the preschool years, most children increasingly act in ways that match their culture's gender roles
Gender:
-refers to the characteristics of people as male or female
Co-parenting:
-refers to the support that parents provide one another in jointly raising a child -parental coordination and warmth are linked with children's prosocial behavior and competence in peer relations
Working Parents:
-research indicates that the nature of parent's work has stronger influence on children's development than whether the parent works outside the home
Empathy:
-results when the person can understand how another feels and possibly anticipate a feeling as result of an action
Operations:
-reversible mental actions that are highly organized and conform to principals of logic
Denver Developmental Screening Test II:
-simple, inexpensive, fast method of diagnosing developmental delay in motor skills in children form birth through 6 years of age
Perspective Taking:
-social cognitive process involved in assuming the perspective of others and understanding their thoughts and feelings
What should the curriculum emphasize in early childhood?
-some experts advocate a child-centered, constructivist approach, while others advocate academic, direct instruction approach -many experts argue that competent early childhood programs should also focus on cognitive development and socioemotional development
Punishment:
-some research has concluded that corporal punishment is associated with higher levels of immediate compliance and aggression among children and lower levels of moral internalization and mental health -most child psychologists recommend handling misbehavior by reasoning with the child and explaining the consequences of the child's action for others
Child Art in Context:
-some researchers view children's art as inventive problem solving -in addition to age, developmental changes depend on talent, motivation, familial support, and cultural values -child art flourishes in sociocultural context where tools are made available and where this activity is valued
Autonomous Morality:
-starting around age 10 -children are aware that, since rules and laws are created by people, one must consider the intentions of the actor as well as the consequences in judging an action
Social Role Theory:
-states that gender differences result from the contrasting roles of women and men
Gender Schema Theory:
-states that gender typing emerges as children gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture -children are motivated to perceive and act according to their gender schema
Psychoanalytic Theory of Gender:
-stems from Freud's view that young children are sexually attracted to opposite-sex parents
Dieting, Eating Behavior, and Parental Feeding Styles:
-studies have found that most children's diest are in need of improvement -young children's eating behavior is strongly influenced by their caregivers behavior -many parents do not recognize that their children are overweight
Social Cognitive Theory of Gender:
-suggests that children's gender development occurs through observing and imitating what other people say and do -being rewarded and punished for gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate behavior
Conservation:
-the awareness that altering the appearance of an object or substance does not change its basic appearance
Pretense/Symbolic Play:
-the child transforms the physical environment into a symbol, such as the make-believe play engaged in by young children
Immanent Justice:
-the concept that if a rule is broken, punishment will be immediate
Explicit Memory:
-the conscious recollection of facts and experiences
Changes in Brain Structure:
-the growth of the brain slows in childhood, and by the age of 6, is 95 percent of adult size -the head and brain grow more rapidly than any other part of the body
Overweight Young Children:
-the percentage of obese children in the United States has increased dramatically in recent decades and contributes to a number of health problems -being overweight has been linked with lower self-esteem in children as young as age five -obesity in early childhood is associated with a number of physical and psychological health problems
Attention in Early Childhood:
-the preschool child's control of attention is still deficient
Memory in Early Childhood:
-the retention of information over time is a central process in cognitive development -to understand the infant's capacity to remember, we need to distinguish implicit memory and explicit memory
Should all children be provided preschool education?
-there are increasing calls for instituting preschool education for all U.S. four-year-olds -advocates point to research that quality preschools prepare children for all school readiness and academic success -critics argue that gains attributed to preschool education are often overstated
Gross Motor Skills:
-three-year-olds do much hopping, skipping, and jumping as they master gross motor skills. -they fidget often and have the highest activity level of any age in the entire human life span -a developmentally appropriate movement ciriculum facilitates the development of children's gross motor skills
Expressing Emotions:
-to experience self-conscious emotions, children must be able to refer to themselves and be aware of themselves as distinct from others -self-conscious emotions do not appear to develop until self-awareness appears around 18 months of age -in early childhood, emotions such as pride and guilt become more common
Pictorial Stage:
-typical of 4 to 5 year olds, children's drawings consist of objects that can be recognized.
What is required for school readiness?
-whether children are ready for school is an issue calling for more scrutiny -the following caregiver activities were found to be necessary in the infant and early childhood years to ensure that children will be ready for elementary school -encourage exploration -mentor in basic skills -celebrate developmental advances -research and extend new skills -protect from inappropriate disapproval, teasing, and punishment -guide and limit behavior
Children in Divorced Families:
-while children of divorce show greater adjustment problems -a majority of children in divorced families do not have significant adjustment problems -divorce can be advantageous if the stresses with an unhappy marriage erode the well-being of children -when divorced parent's relationship with each other is harmonious and when they use authoritative parenting, the adjustment of children improves -among the factors involved in the child's risk are prior adjustment, personality, gender, and the custody situation
Birth Order:
-while some evidence exists for birth-order effects, such as that first-born children are more adult-oriented, helpful, conforming, and self-controlled, birth order by itself is not a strong predictor of behavior
How accurate are young children's long-term memories?
-young children can remember a good deal of information if they are given the appropriate cues and prompts -factors that can influence the accuracy of a young child's memory include age, individual differences in susceptibility, and interviewing techniques
Preventing Childhood Injuries:
-young children's activity levels, curiosity, and lack of awareness of danger often puts them in situations in which they are at risk for injuries -influences on children's safety include the acquisition and practice of individual skills and safety behaviors, family and home influences, school and peer influences, and the community's actions -laws calling for restraints in cars, labeling on poisons and toxins, better-designed playgrounds, and reduction of access to firearms all contribute to prevention of childhood injuries
