Chapter 6: Early childhood

Mead's Classifications of Childhood Social Stages:

0-2 LAP CHILD: Needs constant care; denoted by others. 3-4 KNEE CHILD: Still cared for mainly by mothers, but spends more time with other children. 5-6 YARD CHILD: More time spent with same-sex peers; sometimes unsupervised.

Familismo

A cultural belief among Latinos that emphasizes the love, closeness, and mutual obligations among family members.

Grammar

A language's distinctive system of rules.

Reticular formation: Controls attention

A part of the brain involved in attention, myelination is completed by age 5, which helps explain the increase in attention span that takes place in the course of early childhood. *For example, by age 4 or 5 most children could easily sit for 10-15 minutes in preschool while a story is read aloud, whereas most toddlers would be unable to sit still and pay attention for so long.

Child maltreatment

Abuse or neglect of children, including physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.

Corpus callosum: Connects left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Band of neural fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. *Myelination peaks during early childhood. The corpus callosum allows for coordination of activity between the two hemispheres, so increased myelination of this area of the brain enhances the speed of functioning throughout the cerebral cortex.

Nutrition and malnutrition:

Calcium is the most common nutritional deficiency in the United States. In developing countries, the two most common types of nutritional deficiencies involve protein and iron.

Only child

Child who has no siblings.

Preoperational stage

Cognitive stage from age 2 to 7 during which the child becomes capable of representing the world symbolically for example, through the use of language but is still very limited in ability to use mental operations that is, cognitive procedures that follow certain logical rules. *Piaget specified a number of area of preoperational cognitive mistakes that are characteristic of early childhood, including conservation, egocentrism, and classification.

Gender roles

Cultural expectations for appearance and behavior specific to males or females.

Anemia

Dietary deficiency of iron that causes problems such as fatigue, irritability, and attention difficulties.

Time out

Disciplinary strategy in which the child is required to sit still in a designated place for a brief period.

One sociomoral emotion that is especially important to moral development in early childhood is:

EMPATHY

Foster care

For maltreated children, approach in which adults approved by a state agency take over the care of the child.

Gender schema

Gender-based cognitive structure for organizing and processing information, comprising expectations for males' and females' appearance and behavior. For example, blue is a "boys color" and pink is a "girls color."

Gross and Fine Motor Skills:

Gross motor development in early childhood extends abilities that first appeared in toddlerhood. For example, more hops in a row and to hop on one foot, learn to jump farther from a standing position and to make a running jump, learn to climb stairs without support, alternating their feet, throw a ball farther and more accurately, and *they increase their running speed and their ability to stop suddenly or change direction. Fine motor development in early childhood also involves the extension of skills that arose in toddlerhood, along with some new skills. For example, pick up a small object more quickly and precisely, learn to draw something that is recognizable to others, such as a person, animal or building. By age 6 they can even draw shapes such as a circle or triangle. *New fine motor skills learned in early childhood include putting on and removing their clothes, using scissors, and using a knife to cut soft food, and brushing their teeth.

Initiative vs. guilt

In Erikson's lifespan theory, the early childhood stage in which the alternatives are learning to plan activities in a purposeful way, or being afflicted with excess guilt that undermines initiative.

Authoritative parents

In classifications of parenting styles, parents who are high in demandingness and high is responsiveness.

Authoritarian parents

In classifications of parenting styles, parents who are high in demandingness but low in responsiveness.

Disengaged parents

In classifications of parenting styles, parents who are low in both demandingness and responsiveness.

Permissive parents

In classifications of parenting styles, parents who are low in demandingness and high is responsiveness.

Illness/Disease/Injuries

In developing counties, the causes of death in early childhood are usually illnesses and diseases. High rates of accidental injury among young children in developing countries are more common than developed countries. Accidental injuries are the leading cause of death (MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS) for young children in developed countries. Other common causes of injury and death in early childhood are drowning, falls, fire, and choking.

Reciprocal or Bidirectional effects

In relations between two persons, the principle that each of them affects the other.

Sensitive period

In the course of development, a period when the capacity for learning in a specific area is especially pronounced. For example, early childhood is a sensitive period for language development, when the capacity for learning new words is especially pronounced.

Infantile amnesia

Inability to remember anything that happened prior to age 2. *Most people experience infantile amnesia and have limited memory for personal events that happened before age 5, due mainly to the immaturity of the hippocampus.

Conservation

Mental ability to understand that the quantity of a substance or material remains the same even if its appearance changes. For example, if you have two identical glasses holding equal amounts of water and asked the child if the amounts were equal. The child answered "yes" and then if you pour one of the contents from one of the glasses into a taller, thinner glass, and asked the child if the amounts were equal. The child answered "no: failing to understand that the amount of water remained the same even though the appearance of the water changed.

Hippocampus: Involved in transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory.

Myelination in the hippocampus is also completed by age 5. The hippocampus is involved in the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory. *So the completion of myelination by age 5 may explain why autobiographical memory (memory for personal events and experiences) is limited prior to this age.

Psychological control

Parenting strategy that uses shame and withdrawal of love to influence children's behavior.

Peers

Persons who share some aspect of their status in common, such as age. *Two of the most researched topics concerning peers and friends in early childhood is play and aggression.

Corporal punishment

Physical punishment of children.

Centration

Piaget's term for young children's thinking as being centered, or focused, on one noticeable aspect of a cognitive problem to the exclusion of other important aspects. For example, in the conservation-of-liquid task, they notice the change in height as the water is poured into the taller glass but neglect to observe the change in width that takes place simultaneously.

Parenting styles

Practices that parents exhibit in relation to their children and their beliefs about those practices.

Handedness

Preference for using either the right or left hand in gross and fine motor activities. *Even prenatally, fetuses show a definite preference of left or right hand.

Internalizing problems

Problems that entail turning distress inward, toward the self, such as depression and anxiety.

Externalizing problems

Problems that involve others, such as aggression.

Self-socialization

Process by which people seek to maintain consistency between their gender schemas and their behavior.

Early intervention program

Program directed at young children who are at risk for later problems, intended to prevent problems from developing.

Pragmatics

Social and cultural context of language that guides people as to what is appropriate to say and not to say in a given social situation.

Cerebellum: Controls balance and motor movements.

Structure at the base of the brain involved in balance and motor movements. Increased myelination enhances connections between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex. *This change underlies the child's increasing abilities to jump, run, climb, and throw a ball.

Emotional self-regulation

The ability to exercise control over one's emotions.

Reversibility

The ability to reverse an action mentally. For example, when the water is poured from the original glass to the taller glass in the conservation task, anyone who can reverse that action mentally can see that the amount of water would be the same. Young children cannot perform the mental operation of reversibility, so they mistakenly believe the amount of water has changed.

Classification

The ability to understand that objects can be part of more than one cognitive group, for example, an object can be classified with red objects as well as with round objects.

Theory of mind

The ability to understand thinking processes in one's self and others.

Filial piety

The belief that children should respect, obey, and revere their parents throughout life; common in Asian cultures.

Responsiveness

The degree to which parents are sensitive to their children's needs and express love, warmth, and concern for them. Also known as "warmth."

Demandingness

The degree to which parents set down rules and expectations for behavior and require their children to comply with them. Also known as "control."

Egocentrism

The inability to distinguish between your own perspective and another person's perspective. For example, the three mountain task where children choose the picture that matches their own perspective, not the doll's location.

Brain development

The increase in brain size and weight during early childhood is due to an increase in dendritic connections between neurons and to myelination. Four parts of the brain are especially notable for their myelination during early childhood. *Corpus callosum, cerebellum, reticular formation, and hippocampus.

Animism

The tendency to attribute human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects and forces. For example, children's play with stuffed animals and dolls is a good example of animistic thinking. When they play with these toys, children frequently attribute human thoughts and feelings to them, often the thoughts and feelings they might have themselves.

Overcontrol

The trait of having excessive emotional self-regulation.

Undercontrol

The trait of having inadequate emotional self-regulation.

Hostile agression

Type of aggression that entails signs of anger and intent to inflict pain or harm on others.

Relational aggression

Type of aggression that involves damaging another person's reputation among peers through social exclusion and malicious gossip.

Instrumental aggression

Type of aggression when a child wants something and uses aggressive behavior or words to get it.

Gender constancy

Understanding that maleness and femaleness are biological and cannot change.

Effortful control

When children focus their attention on managing their emotions.