PSYC336 Ch. 7-9
A longitudinal study of personality types revealed that undercontrolled children were rated by teachers as having more __________ problems than the other two groups and lower scores in reading and math. Overcontrolled children had more __________ problems in relation to resilient children.
externalizing; internalizing
example of child neglect
failure to provide adequate supervision of a child, such as leaving a young child home alone.
sympathy
feeling of concern or sorrow for another person - capable at 2 years old
A common complication of respiratory infections, particularly in preschools and child care centers, is __________.
otis media
To study developmental changes in the bases of prosocial actions, researchers staged games in which a child or the experimenter "accidentally" damaged a block tower painstakingly built by another experimenter. The researchers concluded that 2-year-olds responded more on the basis of __________ and 3-year-olds on the basis of __________.
sympathy; guilt
by age 2 the brain grows to about ______ it's volume
80%
what are the two main types of rules?
1) moral rules 2) social conventional rules
two measures of language complexity obtained from a convo with an adult were used:
1. # of diff words used by the child 2. mean length of child's sentences
Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics (PING) study results
- cortical surface area generally expands between 3-5 yrs of age - greater amount of increase in prefrontal cortex which governs executive functions and temporal association areas which underlie speech/lang/memory - primary sensory areas and sensorimotor cortex also showed increases - decrease in prefrontal areas that govern executive functions as well as parietal and occipital areas that process spatial and visual info
DeLoache
- proposed that younger children did not yet have dual representation
nightmares
a dream that disturbs or scares a child
level 1 perspective taking
understand that other people may no see the same things they see
physical abuse
(17.2%)—inflicting physical harm on a child by non-accidental means, such as hitting, pushing, throwing an object, beating, kicking, burning, or shaking
what are the more complex types of play
1) cooperative pretend play: ages 2.5-3 2) sociodramatic play: ages 3.5-4
play made up _____ percent or more of the children's waking activities across cultures
55% or more
Martin et al study results
Averaging across the answers, and across grades, researchers identified four groups of children: 1) children that endorse their birth gender primarily (47.8 percent) 2) children that endorse both genders about equally (29.8 percent) 3) children that identify as the opposite of their birth gender (5.8 percent) 4) children that did not identify strongly with either gender (16.7 percent)
Callaghan et al 2005 study
Cross-cultural studies of theory of mind conducted in Canada, India, Peru, Samoa, and Thailand have shown that changes in accuracy on false-belief tests with age are similar across cultures, with the most rapid transition occurring at ages 4 to 5 (see Figure 8.6)
example of medical neglect
Failure to provide a child with medical care for a chronic physical condition, such as diabetes.
study of Head Start preschools
For example, in a study of Head Start preschools, researchers found that resilient children made more gains in literacy and language skills than undercontrolled children in preschool classrooms rated as having average or low emotional support, but undercontrolled children matched the gains of the resilient children in high emotional support classrooms (Vitiello, Henderson, Greenfield, & Munis, 2012).
example of focus on appearances
Katie broke her cookie up into pieces and said, "Look, my cookie is bigger than yours!"
example of mental operations
Vinnie can look at his jigsaw puzzle pieces and imagine how they would look reassembled in the puzzle.
Which of the following U.S. ethnic groups has the lowest rate of childhood injuries and fatalities?
Which of the following U.S. ethnic groups has the lowest rate of childhood injuries and fatalities?
asthma
a respiratory condition that causes difficulty in breathing
Physically abused children are able to discriminate among facial expressions but show unusual attentiveness to __________ faces.
angry
facial proportions change as ________
bones mature and jaw widest o accommodate permanent teeth
resilience
capacity of children to bounce back or cope adaptively with maltreatment
simultaneous bilingualism
children are exposed to two languages from an early age
A cultural difference in moral socialization goals was found in which Taiwanese parents emphasized __________ with their young children, whereas European American parents emphasized __________ days or weeks after the original misbehavior.
children's misdeeds and their consequences; the children's autonomy and self-esteem
According to Rhoda Kellogg's research, children progress through six universal stages of drawing at different rates, and their drawings are influenced by __________.
culture
Parents promote gender typing not only by modeling gender stereotyped roles around the house, but also by praising gender-typical play and ignoring (or failing to reward) gender-atypical play, a process known as __________.
differential reinforcement
moral rules
emphasize issues of harm, personal welfare, and individual rights, and cover actions such as hitting, stealing, cheating, and lying.
example of psychological maltreatment
engaging in verbal abuse, threatening or damaging a child's self-esteem
sleep terrors
episodes of intense fear, screaming, and falling about that occur while children are asleep
A young child who has not yet learned to write will have an easier time learning to write with a pencil if she has previously __________.
experienced stringing beads
empathy
experiencing the emotions of others - capable by 24 months
According to dynamic systems theory, motor development depends on a variety of factors working together. Each of the following is a factor that affects motor development for a task such as kicking a ball, except __________.
fine motor control of wrists and hands
In the preschool years, many complex movements, such as tracking a ball and kicking it during a soccer game, are built up from combinations of simpler movements known as __________.
fundamental movement skills
the role of older siblings
help young children clarify their messages
All of the following characteristics can combine to place caregivers at greater risk for committing physical or psychological abuse and neglect except __________.
higher education level
example of physical abuse
hitting a child or grabbing and shaking a child
changes in every usage by the brain may be due to:
initial overproduction of synapses in preschool period followed by the pruning down to a more efficient network in late childhood/adolesence
verbal aggression
insulting, threatening, name calling * more common for girls - more common as children grow language skills
Girls exposed to male sex hormones prenatally may tend to show __________.
masculine play preferences
Experimental interventions leading to more secure mother-child attachment relationships also affected children's cortisol levels. This implies that improving security of attachment might lead to __________.
nearly normal cortisol levels and better adaptation to the stress in the social environment
two aspects of sleep that have interested developmental scientists are
nightmares and sleep terrors
indirect messages
parents promoting gender-types behavior sends indirect messages - selecting kid's tv programs or books to promote stereotype (princesses for girls, superhero for boys)
physical aggression
pushing, hitting, biting, or grabbing another child's toy *more common in boys from 2 years and onward - overall common at 18 months - peaks at 24-42 months - declines after age 4
When a child seeks to harm another child's social reputation or social relationships, this type of aggression is called __________ aggression.
relational aggression
Extensive experience in child care (an average of 20 hours per week or more) over the first four years is linked at age 5 to __________.
slightly higher externalizing of problems and lack of compliance with teachers *results from studies don't always last many years later
In contrast to older children, who regard friends as having a long-term relationship based on trust, preschool-age children regard friends as __________.
someone to share toys and have fun with, possibly over several days or weeks
one of the fastest growing brain areas is
the prefrontal crotex
pragmatics
use of language to achieve communicative and social goals
food insecurity
when children don't get nutritious food often enough to provide for normal activity and health
corpus collosum
white matter tract that connects many regions of left and right hemisphere - the growth of it in early childhood allows kids to coordinate actions fo L and R sides of the body more effectively
how do kids describe themselves?
with physical traits or actions * psychological traits are rarely used
medical neglect
(2.2%)—failure to provide for a child's medical needs due to factors such as illness, disability, or disease
psychological maltreatment
(6.2%)—acts or failure to act that undermine a child's basic emotional and psychological needs, such as verbal abuse, terrorizing, isolating, rejecting, damaging self-esteem, or damaging the ability to engage in social interaction
child neglect
(75.3%)— *most common - to provide for a child's basic physical, educational, or emotional needs, such as inadequate supervision; failure to provide proper nutrition; failure to enroll the child in school; and failure to provide affection
sexual abuse
(8.4%)—involvement of a child in sexual activity, including sexual touching, committing or attempting to commit intercourse or other sexual acts with a child, exposing a child to indecent acts, or involving a child in pornography or prostitution - associated with a diff combo of risk factors than physical or emotional abuse and neglect
theory theory - elaborated
*children are born with the capacity to create intuitive theories to explain phenomena in their world, *children categorize the world from infancy into different kinds of things, such as distinguishing between objects and living things, as you read in Chapter 5. Children come to believe that each type of thing has different sorts of causal influences. In the physical domain, a moving object causes another to move when it collides with it. In contrast, for human beings and animals, desires, intentions, and goals cause us to move. Over time, children test and modify their theories, like little scientists, and the theories become more sophisticated. Development is gradual and continuous, rather than stage-like, as in Piaget's theory (Bjorklund & Causey, 2018; Miller, 2016).
replication of Kellog's study - Machon
- A study of children's drawings conducted over a 40-year period agrees with Kellogg in finding that age 3 to 4 is a pivotal age for the development of the use of a vocabulary of symbols (such as circle, square, triangle, diagonal line) - the drawings in the pictorial stage in Figure 7.8 have an overall happy emotional tone, which reflects the high self-esteem and positive mood that most children experience in early childhood (see Chapter 9). However, children can also express negative moods and emotions in their drawings
injuries: sociodemographic factors
- Injury and fatality rates are highest among American Indian/Alaska Native and African American children and lowest among Asian/Pacific Islanders, with white and Hispanic children falling in between (Safe Kids, 2008). - One reason for the discrepancy is that American Indians and African Americans have a higher rate of poverty, resulting in greater exposure to unsafe housing or unsafe neighborhood environments. - also culturally based differences
consequences of maltreatment: brain development
- Malfunctioning of the HPA axis over long periods can have harmful effects on the brain - MRI scans of children who were maltreated provide evidence of reduced cerebral volume, larger ventricles, and a smaller corpus callosum (Debellis, 2001; Juster et al., 2011; Teicher et al., 2004).
Cichetti et al 2006 study results
- The researchers found that most infants and mothers had insecure or disorganized attachment relationships at the beginning of treatment - One year later, they found that both the attachment-building and psychoeducational interventions led to an increase in the security of attachments, but the community standard did not - The results show that a variety of support services for maltreating mothers can help lessen some of the ill effects of maltreatment.
Cichetti et al 2006 study
- assigned maltreating mothers and their 13 month old children randomly one of the three interventions 1) an intervention that sought to build a secure mother-child attachment relationship by helping mothers notice and respond to bids for attention or signs of distress in their infants (for example, by playing with the child or comforting the child) 2) a psychoeducational home intervention that focused on improving parenting skills, reducing maternal stress, and enhancing maternal knowledge of child development 3) the community standard (short visits and counseling for families made by community providers) 4) fourth group of non-maltreated children matched on background variables.
risk factors in injuries
- being a boy - lack of development in cognitive capacities - lack of parental instruction - sociodemographic factors
where does children's knowledge of living things come from?
- can gradually construct theories about what makes living and non living things different - those that own pets show a more sophisticated understanding of biological processes - 4 year olds understand that baby animal will keep same identity as its parent
consequences of food insecurity
- children may eat fast food meals or nutritionally unbalanced meals as a result - Not getting a reliable supply of healthy food is linked to a variety of negative consequences in young children, such as poorer health and school achievement, in some cases stemming from iron deficiency anemia (Olson and Frongillo) - risk of obesity because poor families tend to purchase fewer fresh fruits and vegetables and more low priced convenience foods that are high in fat/sugar which can become engrained in children's food preferences
consequences of maltreatment: cognitive development
- children who have a history of physical abuse have deficits in language, IQ, and academic achievement (Wekerle & Wolfe, 2003; Wekerle et al., 2014). - children who were physically neglected or physically abused (or both) had language and cognitive deficits at every age from infancy to adolescence and a higher rate of academic failure and school dropout in adolescence when compared with children from the sample who were not maltreated (Egeland, 1997; Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Erickson, Egeland, & Pianta, 1989).
Rhonda Kellog
- collected more than 1 million drawings and paintings by children from many countries over a 20-year period and classified them into six universal stages - stages progress from scribbling straight and curved lines and dots to placing scribbles in distinct locations on the page. - At about age 3 years, children begin to draw basic shapes such as circle, square, X, and cross. - By age 3 to 4, they put basic shapes together to form an overall picture or design, such as using four circles to draw a simple face. - By age 4 to 5, they produce simple drawings of things such as houses and trees, and the ubiquitous tadpole people, with large heads and spindly limbs.
why do children sometimes claim that plants are not alive?
- confusion might occur because the movement of plants is slow and non-obvious, and young children place great emphasis on purposeful motion as af feature of living things
consequences of maltreatment: physical health
- cortisol produces heightened alertness and prepares the brain and body to respond to the threat or danger --> floods brain with cortisol --> hyperactivityhypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which in turn can lead to either abnormally high or abnormally low levels of cortisol (Cicchetti, Rogosch, Gunnar, & Toth, 2010; Gunnar, Doom, & Esposito, 2015).
cognitive benefits of bilingualism
- denser gray metter - perform better on tasks regarding executive function - advantages for distinguishing appearance from reality
what accounts fo discrepancy in skill
- diff type of language based on SES - related to parents' educational levels
how do gender differences in behaviors and attitudes originate: sociocultural influences
- direct messages & differential reinforcement - indirect messages - gender segregation
consequences of maltreatment: social relationships
- disorganized/insecure attachments - poor emotion regulation
causes of food insecurity
- food deserts aka they literally can't get access to affordable and nutritious food - fluctuation of income - parents working a lot of jobs and don't have time to shop for or prep meals
Cichetti et al 2011 results
- found that cortisol levels began to drop in the groups that received the community standard treatment, but the cortisol levels in the two intervention groups (collapsed into one line) did not differ from those of the non-maltreated comparison group after completion of the treatment
what are some influences on height?
- gender - hormones - nutrition
how do gender differences in behaviors and attitudes originate: cognitive influences
- gender schema
impact of lead exposure
- harm the developing brain in a permanent way nervous system damage; deficits in IQ, memory, and problem-solving tests; and attentional and behavioral difficulties that can persist into adulthood (Canfield, Gendle, & Cory-Slechta, 2004; Hubbs-Tait et al., 2005; Lidsky & Schneider, 2003).
how do gender differences in behaviors and attitudes originate: biological influences
- hormonal effects on the brain (girls with C-CAH)
PING study: Brown et al, Stiles et al
- identified growth pattern of white matter tracts in 1,000+ ppl - found that overall growth was steady throughout early and middle childhood and then tapped off or continued to grow at a slower rate from adolescence to early adulthood
results of Anderson and Reidy; Best and Miller study
- improvements in the ability to carry out the executive functions of working memory, inhibition, and shifting between mental states are related to brain development and they are important in performing well in school
to what extent do parents influence children's self concept?
- insecure attachments and abuse/neglect--> describe themselves negatively - contributes to self-esteem - parents tell kids stories about themselves and evaluations of their efforts (you were so gentle with the animals) - lack of ^ and negative evals --> children's sense of themself suffers
WIC prevention study: results
- intervention produced greater maternal involvement with the child and reduced children's oppositional behavior at age 4 years, after two years of the program (Dishion et al., 2008). - Based on teacher ratings of children's conduct in school, reductions in conduct problems persisted through age 9½, despite the fact that treatments ended at age 5. - The intervention was most effective among families who continued the annual meetings, and among children who lived in moderate neighborhood deprivation, as opposed to extreme neighborhood deprivation. - However, some benefits were seen among children living in extreme deprivation if their mothers had improved their parenting skills at the child's age of 2 to 3 years (Shaw, Sitnick, Brennan, & Choe, 2016). **The implication from these studies is that early childhood provides a window of opportunity in which changes in parenting behavior and child behavior among high-risk families can reduce future conduct problems that are very costly to the child and to society.
what are the major risk factors for abuse?
- living in conditions of poverty - single parenthood - a lack of social support from a relative or other adult - social isolation from family, friends, or neighbors - a history of being abused or living in family situations characterized by conflict - a history of mental illness or substance abuse
consequences of maltreatment: emotion of regulation and perception
- maltreated children develop atypical responses to emotional distress in other people --> This puts them at risk for a wide range of mental health problems in childhood and beyond (Jaffee, 2017).
how is it that children's language and social skills are a bidrectional influence with engaging in play with peers
- more play --> develop more play skills This is a bidirectional influence—children who have more opportunities to play, and who play in more complex and coordinated ways with other children, are able to develop more and more effective play skills over time (Göncü, Patt, & Kouba, 2002; Howe & Leach, 2018).
inhibition of responses or thoughts example
- necessary to keep child from getting up and leaving or turning the page of the story too soon or interrupting the parent's reading of the story to blurt out something irrelevant
How do parents and preschool teachers help children learn to like healthy foods?
- offering children the same food repeatedly because children develop a preference for food they eat most often - associating nutritionally sound foods with pleasant environmental consequences (Adults and peers who model preference and enjoyment of particular healthy foods like fruits and vegetables provide a source of social learning -Brich)
what are the consequences of maltreatment
- physical health and brain development - cognitive development - emotion regulation and perception
Vygotsky's theory
- proposed that a zone of proximal development is created during collaboration and that teams of children produce cognitively more mature results than a child working alone
card sorting task study - Zelazo et al
- researchers had children perform a card sorting task on the basis of color - they shifted the rule results - most three year olds found it hard to make the switch and continued using the old rule - by age 4 kids could switch to new rule most of the time - improvements were coupled with a rise in brain activity during the post-switch phase of the task in inferior frontal areas but not in other brain areas - stronger inferior prefrontal activation is associated with developmental improvements in ability to switch rules (Moriguchi and Hiraki)
Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics (PING) study
- sheds new light on brain development in early childhood - collected magnetic resonance imaging data on large # of individuals between 3-20 yrs old - researchers created maps of both brain surface area and cortical thickness and calculated changes over one year
examples of animism
- the sun is shining brightly because it was happy - the leaves are blowing toward the houses to get inside
how do gender differences in behaviors and attitudes originate?
- through biological influences - through sociocultural influences - through cognitive influences
why do we forget early memories?
- we lack ability to form long term memories until age 3 - infants encode info non-verbally and these types of memories may not be easily accessible to children and adults until lang skills blossom - children store generalized versions of events that happen to them
shifting between mental states example
- would occur when the parent asks the child if she wants to tell the story herself, meaning the child has to make a tradition between listening mode and storytelling mode
the effects of abuse are likely to follow a developmental cascade meaning that:
-The experience of stress due to maltreatment leads to physiological or psychological effects at one age that in turn lead to negative behavior at a subsequent age - The child's worsening behavior, in combination with other factors in the environment, can lead to progressively more severe behavior and emotional problems, even to outright psychological disorders. - These effects can move from one aspect of development to another (for example, brain to cognition to behavior) - The term cascade is used because developmental changes are analogous to a series of small waterfalls in a stream; the drop at each fall may be small, but the cumulative effect may drop the stream considerably in height.
direct messages
-praising daughters for dress up and playing with dolls - encouraging boys to play with toy vehicles and ignore them when they choose feminine toys ^ ex of differential reinforcement
Cichetti et al 2011 study
-tested cortisol levels in the children by means of saliva samples obtained at 13 months (pre-intervention), 19 months (mid-intervention), 26 months (post-intervention), and 38 months (1-year post-intervention).t
gender schemes help children ...
... attend to and remember information that is relevant to their gender schemas, and ignore or forget information inconsistent with the schema. *This explains why young children tend to view all police officers as male and all nurses as female, even though they have seen counterexamples.
what are the two errors in preschoolers thinking according to Piaget
1) centration 2) focus on appearances - centration and a tendency to focus on appearances also underlie children's confusions between appearance and reality, according to Piaget. For example, Julia focused on one salient feature, the apparent movement of the moon, and therefore assumed that it followed her.
what are the three aspects of emotional competence
1) emotional expressivity 2) emotional understanding 3) emotion regulation
the most common reasons for emergency room visits are:
1) falls (both ages 1-4 and 5-14) 2) being struck by an object or a person (either intentionally or accidentally, as in sports)
what are the origins in aggression?
1) genetics - children genetically predisoposed to be aggressive may alter their enviro by evoking frustration, punishment, etc (gene-environment correlation) 2) environment - enviro factors affecting brain development might be invovled like birth complications, exposure to nicotine, and alcoholi in utereo - insecure attachments are more likely to have externalizing behaviors
three identifiable personality types
1) resilient 2) overcontrolled 3) under controlled
three processes that fall under the umbrella of executive function:
1) working memory 2) inhibition of responses or thoughts 3) shifting between mental states, rules of tasks
what are the sources of information children use to create and gradually modify a mental representation in long term memory of a word's meaning?
1. associative learning 2. social cues 3. mutual exclusivity assumption 4. syntactic context
factors that influence the development of executive function
1. biological - disorders/diseases --> abnormalities in frontal lobe 2. environment - SES, culture 3. culture - differences in parenting practices
types of pretend play
1. cooperative pretend play 2. sociodramtic play
what are the key aspects of numeracy?
1. counting 2. number knowledge 3. number transformation 4. simulation 5. number patterns
print related skills
1. phonological awareness 2. letter knowledge
types of aggression
1. physical 2. verbal 3. relational 4. reactive/hostile 5. instrumental
what are the three types of attention?
1. sustained 2. selective 3. executive - examples on page 234
what are the three important principles of counting?
1. the one to one principle - which is to assign one and only one number to each object 2. the stable order principle - which is always to say the number words in the same order, even if the order is initially wrong for a given child (for example, "One, two, four, three, six") 3. cardinality - which is that the last number counted represents the quantity of the set (kids understand this one first)
every year kids add ____ to their height and ____ to their weight
2-3 inches; 5 lbs
what age do english speaking kids add function words
2-5
what age do fine motor skills develop
2.5-5
by what age do infants show a preference for one hand?
3 years old
DeLoache study
A classic series of studies revealed that an important transition in understanding the symbolic nature of these objects occurs between the ages of 2½ and 3. DeLoache (1987) showed children between 2½ and 3 years of age a scale model of a laboratory room, as indicated in Figure 8.1. An experimenter hid a tiny figure of Snoopy the dog behind or under one of the miniature pieces of furniture in the model room, and then told the child she was going to hide "Big Snoopy" in the same place in the big room. Less than 20 percent of the 2½-year-olds found Big Snoopy, but over 75 percent of the 3-year-olds found him. Subsequent studies replicated this result and confirmed that the failure of the 2½-year-olds was not due to memory or motivational problems. They knew where little Snoopy was hidden in the scale model, and they remembered that Big Snoopy was hidden "in the same place" in the big room, but could not relate these two pieces of information. DeLoache (1995) proposed that the younger children did not yet have dual representation, which is an understanding that the symbol has two meanings—it is both a concrete object (a miniature room) and a representation of a different concrete object (a full-size room).
Fivush et al 2004 study - hurricane andrew
A good example of the importance of narrative was provided when researchers interviewed children who had been 3 to 4 years old at the time of Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992. Their reports within a few months of the storm contained several accurate statements (as verified by their parents), but when interviewed 6 years later, they provided more than twice as many accurate statements (see Figure 8.9). The additional information at the second recall was not due to increases in general knowledge about hurricanes, as the information consisted mainly of details about what happened to them and their families. Children had advanced in the ability to retrieve information about their experiences and weave it into a narrative. It is also possible that they had discussed events related to the hurricane with their families, adding to the strength of their recall. The amount of stress the children experienced during the storm was rated by the experimenters based on parental report. You can see in Figure 8.9 that children who experienced high stress reported less information at Time 1 than children with low or moderate stress but at Time 2, stress level didn't affect recall very much (Fivush, Sales, Goldberg, Bahrick, & Parker, 2004).
Ding et all study 2015
A group of researchers worked with Chinese 3-year-olds who initially did not lie despite being prompted to in a hide-and-seek deception task. Half of them were trained on standard theory of mind tests and listened to stories that were rich in mental-state words (such as think, believe, know), and half were trained on Piagetian conservation tasks (control group). A month later, children in the theory of mind training condition were not only better on theory of mind tests than the control group, but they were more likely to lie on the hide-and-seek task, indicating that theory of mind is causally related to lying (Ding, Wellman, Wang, Fu, & Lee, 2015). On the plus side, children who are more advanced in developing a theory of mind are better able to interpret their own and others' emotions, understand the motives of characters in stories or films, and understand the complexities of social interaction
Medland study on handedness
A large meta-analysis including 25,000 twin pairs found that 24 percent of the variability in handedness in adults was due to genes (that is, heritability), and the remaining 76 percent was due to non-shared environmental influences. The shared environmental influence was zero (Medland et al., 2009).
Lonigan et al study 2013
A longitudinal study contrasting low-SES native Spanish-speaking and English-speaking children showed that between ages 3 and 5 years, growth in phonological awareness and print-related skills was similar, but the Spanish-speaking children lagged behind in oral language skills (Lonigan, Farver, Nakamoto, & Eppe, 2013). RESULT: Intervention programs that supply books and give low-income parents lessons on how to interact with children as they read a book together (dialogic reading) have been shown to boost children's oral language skills, but this continues to be a much-needed area of improvement (Lonigan, Purpura, Wilson, Walker, & Clancy-Menchetti, 2013; Neuman, 2006; Zevenbergen, Whitehurst, & Zevenbergen, 2003).
Moll et al study
A more recent study by Moll, Meltzoff, Merzsch, and Tomasello (2013) demonstrated that children as young as 3 years old are capable of level 2 visual perspective taking. Piaget's three-mountain problem also involves a third and higher level of skill that Moll and colleagues call perspective confronting, which requires the child to judge how an object looks to another person when the child is presented a conflicting view of the object. Because the three-mountain task is complex, Moll and colleagues set out to distinguish between level 2 visual perspective taking and visual perspective confronting by conducting the experiment detailed in Figure 8.4.
WIC prevention study: what is it
A prevention study recruited a large, low-income multiethnic sample of 2-year-olds from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (widely known as WIC) centers in three urban communities (Dishion et al., 2008). Basis: To identify children at risk for aggression problems, researchers screened for conduct problems or conflict with parents, family problems such as maternal depression, family conflict, or parental substance-abuse, and low SES. Half of the at-risk children were randomly assigned to a program called the Family Check-Up, which entailed three brief meetings in the parents' homes designed to assess the child and the parent and to motivate changes in problematic parenting practices, to support existing parenting strengths, and to identify services appropriate to the family's situation. Parents were offered follow-up sessions focusing on parenting practices, marital relationships, and other concerns such as child care and housing. Annual check-up meetings through age 5 were offered to go over developmentally appropriate parenting management strategies that included positive behavior support, limit setting and monitoring, and relationship building with the child. The other half of the at-risk families were assigned to a control group that received only WIC services.
Penuel et al 2012 - educational tv study
A research team wove clips from three shows, Sesame Street, Between the Lions, and SuperWhy! into a literacy intervention delivered by 80 preschool teachers in their classrooms. The intervention lasted 25 hours over 10 weeks. Compared with a control condition in which children were given science lessons with a similar amount of video content, children in the experimental group showed improvements in four key preliteracy skills, letter naming, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness, and children's concepts of story and print (Penuel et al., 2012).
Michel, Babik, Sheu, Campbell study
As you would expect, by about 6 months, most infants show a distinct right-hand preference when grasping an object, such as a bottle, toy, or piece of food. However, investigators have been puzzled for decades by observations that preferences can shift between hands over the next several months. To address this issue, researchers conducted a longitudinal study that measured hand preference in reaching at nine time points between 6 and 14 months. They found three distinct developmental patterns among infants. About 32 percent showed a stable right-hand preference over the time period and 14 percent a stable left-hand preference. Another group of 26 percent began with no preference and developed a right-hand preference by 14 months. The remaining 30 percent did not show a hand preference over the 9-month period of study
how is age 3-4 important transition in cognitive development?
By the age of 4 to 4½ years, typically developing children appear to be able to hold two contradictory or opposing mental representations in mind and reconcile them. This mental procedure is very similar to Piaget's notion of mental operations, which suggests that it is actually in place a few years earlier than Piaget thought (Moll et al., 2013; Perner, Brandl, & Garnham, 2003).
permissive parenting leads to -->
Children of permissive parents tended more than the other groups to be low in self-control and cooperativeness with peers and teachers, and the boys in particular were impulsive and aggressive. 9.4.1 Explain how parenting styles influence children's development.
syntactic context
Children use the syntax of a sentence to figure out the meaning of a word - In the father's sentence, the word Brachiosaurus must be a noun, because nouns are preceded by articles such as the, a, an, etc., and in the basic sentence structure "X is a Y," both X and Y are almost always nouns. Syntactic context is a useful way to learn verbs and adjectives.
impact of second hand smoke
Children who are exposed to secondhand smoke have an increased incidence of infections of the lower respiratory tract, bronchitis, pneumonia, middle-ear disease, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and respiratory symptoms. Secondhand smoke can also exacerbate asthma and respiratory symptoms (Johannsson, Ludvigsson, & Hermansson, 2008; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006) and expose children to toxic industrial by-products, which are absorbed into tobacco plants from contaminated soil (Hubbs-Tait, Nation, Krebs, & Bellinger, 2005).
why are children's schemas susceptible to a parent's experience
Children whose parents have a higher educational level or who exhibit less gender-typical behavior tend to have children with less gender-typical behavior (Hines, 2015; Liben & Bigler, 2002).
example of children confusing appearance and reality
Children younger than 6 sometimes confuse appearance and reality, as indicated by their behavior with conservation tasks, magician's tricks, and Halloween masks. For example, young children often become terrified at Halloween when someone puts on a mask, as if the person had actually changed into a monster. Many 3- and 4-year-olds believe in the magical powers of such individuals as fairies, magicians, and, in Western cultures, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy (Woolley, 1997).
Chouinard 2007 study
Children's questions and the answers provided by adults are an important source of information about living things (Ronford & Lane, 2018). In an ingenious study, one researcher used wireless microphones to record the conversations 2- to 4-year-olds had with their parents as they walked through a children's zoo. Most of the children's questions were about the name and appearance of the animals, but older children asked questions about biological processes, such as "Why is he sleeping?" "Is he dead?" "Why did he die?" "How do bees grow their babies?" "What do bats like to eat?" "Do snakes grow a new skin?" Parents' answers were mostly informative, and if not, children often persisted in a line of questioning until they were apparently satisfied. These naturalistic observations show that children actively seek information relevant to a theory of biology (Chouinard, 2007)
example of centration
Clarence pointed to a tall, thin flower vase and said it had more water than a shorter, but wider vase.
NICHD study and parallel Canadian study
Consider the findings of two large-scale longitudinal studies: the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) early child care study discussed in Chapter 8 and a similar study in Canada (Belsky et al., 2007; Côté et al., 2007; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). These studies found that children who had spent 20 hours or more per week (on average) in non-parental care between birth and 4½ years of age were more likely than children raised exclusively at home to show externalizing problems such as aggression and non-compliance with adults at ages 4 to 5, and in grades 1 to 3, controlling statistically for a range of family, demographic, and child variables, including prior levels of externalizing problems. In the NICHD study and a parallel study conducted in Canada, the externalizing problems were not extreme, they occurred for only a minority of children experiencing child care, and by grade 3 the group differences were largely gone (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003; Pingault et al., 2015). In the past decade, more stringently controlled data analysis techniques have been used to take into account additional biasing variables, and new research designs that more fully isolate the influences of child care experiences from confounding variables have been utilized. Several of these studies have failed to find any relationship between child care experience and externalizing problems (Crosby, Dowsett, Gennetian, & Huston, 2010; Dearing, Zachrisson, & Naerde, 2015; McCartney et al., 2010). Hence, at present, the issue is still open (Dearing & Zachrisson, 2017).
Vaish et al study
Direct evidence of this developmental progression was found in a study where two developmental researchers played marble-rolling games with 2- and 3-year-olds in the lab. The games were designed so that either the child or an experimenter accidentally rolled a marble that caused damage to a block tower. The tower was either ostensibly built by and valued by a second experimenter or the second experimenter said she did not know who built it and didn't care whether it was damaged or not. Three-year-olds showed the most reparative behavior (for example, trying to repair the tower or making suggestions about repairing it) when they had caused the damage and it had caused harm to the experimenter. In contrast, 2-year-olds responded prosocially whenever the valued block tower was damaged, regardless of whether they had caused the damage or not. The findings showed that 2-year-olds responded on the basis of sympathy alone, whereas 3-year-olds responded on the basis of guilt (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2016). However, individual differences in prosocial behavior already exist by ages 2 to 3 years, and throughout childhood there remain some children who help others frequently and some who do not (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo-Noam, 2015).
what happens during an asthma attack?
During an asthma attack, the muscles around the bronchial tubes spasm and bronchiole cells secrete mucus, constricting the airways. Children with asthma sometimes have to be taken to the emergency room for treatment. Medications are available that can quickly open up the bronchioles, and other medications can reduce future symptom occurrence (Eder et al., 2006; Zuidgeest et al., 2009).
cultural differences in socialization
European and North American cultures follow a folk theory of child rearing that emphasizes autonomy and self-esteem, whereas many non-European cultures emphasize obedience to parents, duty to family, and social harmony over individual needs (Cho, Miller, Sandel, & Wang, 2005; Harwood, Schoelmerich, Schulze, & Gonzalez, 1999; Miller, Wang, Sandel, & Cho, 2002, 2012; Stevenson et al., 1990; Tamis-LeMonda, Wang, Koutsouvanou, & Albright, 2002).
Sapp et al study
For example, in one clever study, children who were shown a sponge that looked like a rock initially thought it was a rock. However, after handling it and noticing that it had the weight and properties of a sponge, they were exposed to a situation where the experimenter spilled water and asked for help in cleaning it up. Even 3-year-olds picked up the sponge rock and offered it to the experimenter (Sapp, Lee, & Muir, 2000).
Kyratzis and Guo 2001 study
For example, researchers videorecorded children speaking with one another in preschools in the United States and mainland China. American boys were more direct and assertive, and girls were more indirect, as we would expect. However, the opposite pattern was found in China. Boys used a mixture of direct and indirect statements to influence one another, whereas girls used direct commands both with other girls and boys (Kyratzis & Guo, 2001).
mutual exclusivity assumption
From toddlerhood, children assume that objects have a single label - If the girl already knows the names of the other dinosaurs (because the father named them already, or she knows them from previous encounters), she will map the new word, Brachiosaurus, onto the item for which she doesn't have a name.
Nucci and Smetana study
How do children begin to learn about moral and social conventional rules? Observational studies of 2- to 3-year-olds reveal that adults and children communicate quite a bit about violations of moral and social conventional rules, and that adults treat moral rules more seriously. In addition, adults refer to issues of harm and individual rights in talking about moral rules, whereas they focus on maintaining social harmony and adult authority in talking about social conventional rules. Adults are less likely to impose authority in situations of personal choice, such as what toys to play with (Nucci & Nucci, 1982; Smetana, 1989)
code mixing
However, just as is the case for adult bilinguals, the two languages of a bilingual child are interdependent. This is most clear in expressive language, where bilingual individuals of all ages tend to mix together sounds, words, and morphological rules (such as past tense or plural) from the two languages into their sentences (Gildersleeve-Neumann, Kester, Davis, & Peña, 2008; Paradis & Genesee, 1996). - This process is called code-mixing.
Liu et al study results
However, these 4- to 5-year-olds were not able to make the two-step inference: a girl who doesn't share her lunch, bubble blower, and toy at school is also unlikely to share her toys with her sibling at home (Liu, Gelman, & Wellman, 2007)
Carey and Bartlett 1978 study
In a classic study with 3- to 4-year-olds, a teacher was instructed to tell each child, "Bring me the chromium tray, not the blue one, the chromium one." Researchers had previously established that none of the children knew the word chromium or the word olive, and they had cleverly located an olive-colored tray in the classroom next to a blue one. As children already knew the word blue, the experimenters hoped that they would assume that chromium referred to the color olive. Indeed, all of the 14 children participating in this experiment fetched the olive tray. What was interesting was that one week after this single experience of the word, children remembered something about the pronunciation and meaning of chromium (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). More recent studies reveal that although children 30 months to 3 years of age can remember the novel word after a short delay, without additional repetitions of the word, after a week or a month, most children have forgotten it (Bion, Borovsky, & Fernald, 2013; Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012). This implies that additional word learning processes are at work during repeated encounters with words children have in their conversations with adults.
Marshmallow test - a classic test of emotion regulation
In a classic test of emotion regulation and self-control that has become known as the "marshmallow test," researchers promised 4-year-olds larger food treats (one of which was a marshmallow) if they could resist the urge to consume a treat placed before them during a five-minute waiting period. Children used various (and sometimes amusing) strategies to distract themselves from their desire to eat the treat, such as drumming on the table, pretending to go to sleep, and making faces at the mirrored surface of a table. There were variations across children in how long they waited before they gave up and consumed the treat, and many were able to wait the entire period (Mischel & Ebbesen, 1970). Amazingly, when the children were followed up at 17 years of age, those who were better at holding out for the larger treat had, on average, higher scores on the SAT, better grades in school, and better coping skills (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989; Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). Similar results were obtained in a longitudinal study that found an association between effortful control (a closely related concept to emotion regulation) at age 3 years and school achievement more than a decade later (Dindo et al., 2017). However, the relationship between delay of gratification in the marshmallow test and academic achievement was smaller in a third study that controlled for background and cognitive ability variables at age 4½ (such as mother's education level, home environment stimulation, and early literacy skills) (Watts, Duncan, & Quan, 2018). These studies showed that the ability to regulate one's emotions and behavior in early childhood may contribute to later academic achievement along with other variables.
differential reinforcement example
In an attempt to reduce Adolfo's aggression, his father encourages him to calmly build with blocks when his aggressive play begins to get out of hand.
Gopnik and Astington study
In another test of children's understanding of false beliefs, children are shown a candy box and, when prompted, tell the experimenter that it contains candy. When the box is opened, they are surprised to see that it holds erasers. When asked what someone else who has not seen inside will think the box contains, candy or erasers, most 3-year-olds say erasers, and most 4- to 5-year-olds say candy, again showing an age transition in understanding false beliefs. In fact, many 3-year-olds claim that they always thought the box contained erasers, indicating that they don't have full access to their own mental processes (Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Perner, Leekham, & Wimmer, 1987). Watch the following video demonstration of a version of this procedure. While watching, notice how the first child's response indicates that she understands how someone just coming into the room could hold a false belief about the contents of the crayon box. In comparison, the second younger child appears to assume his mother would know what he knows, that the box contains "sticks" (his word for straws) rather than crayons. This suggests that he hasn't yet developed this aspect of a theory of mind.
how do cultural customs impact prosocial behavior?
In general, children from non-Western cultures, which generally adopt a collectivist emphasis, engage in more cooperative and prosocial play than children from the United States. - This has been found for children attending Japanese and South Korean preschools, and may be related to the high value based on social skills and group harmony among teachers working with young children in these cultures (Farver, Kim, & Lee, 1995; Lewis, 1995). Researchers have also found that Mexican - American children are generally more cooperative and less competitive than European American children (Eisenberg et al., 2015; Knight & Carlo, 2012). In one interesting study, Mexican American immigrant children were more cooperative and prosocial than Mexican Americans who grew up in the United States (Knight & Kagan, 1977). - The authors attributed the difference to the higher levels of acculturation into American society of the Mexican American group, and thus, greater adoption of American ideals of competition and individuality.
Ball, Smetana, and Struge-Apple 2017 study
In one study, 3½-year-old preschoolers of diverse ethnic backgrounds were told about moral transgressions with the aid of pictures and made judgments as to whether the transgressions were "OK or not OK," and whether the person should "get in trouble a lot or a little." As a group, they viewed events that caused physical harm (hitting, shoving) as more serious moral violations than events involving unfairness (stealing a snack, grabbing another's toy)
Acebo et al study
In one study, children's sleep was measured by means of maternal diaries and activity monitors attached to the children's hands and wrists. Children between 2 and 5 years of age slept less than 10 hours in the course of a 24-hour period, and most did not take regular naps
Wellman, Cross, and Watson 2001; Wimmer and Perner 1983 study
In one task (simulated in Figure 8.5 ) researchers show children a character holding a basket, Sally, and tell a simple story with pictures. Sally enters a room where another girl, Anne, has a box. Sally puts a marble in her basket, and leaves. She does not see that Anne moves the marble to the box. The children are told that Sally returns and wants to play with her marble. They are asked, "Where will Sally look for her marble?" Most children age 3 and under do not answer randomly. They specifically point to the new location, indicating that they confuse what they know with what another person (Sally, in this case) might know. Between the ages of 4 and 5, most children answer correctly that Sally will look in the place she originally put her marble. They are able to attribute false beliefs to another person—that is, they understand that another person may hold a belief that they know not to be true
replications of Hart's personality study --> 3-5 personality types which include variations on the three main types (subcategories)
In other studies, from three to five personality types have been identified in children. The personality types consistently include variations on the three main types—resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled—but sometimes subcategories are found such as high in resilience versus moderate in resilience. Some studies find that in addition to the three main types, there is an "average" or "typical" type that consists of average levels on variables such as positive and negative emotional reactivity, shyness, extraversion, and effortful control. Research indicates that personality type is moderately stable from early to middle childhood (Asendorpf & van Aken, 1999; Donnellan & Robins, 2010; Hart et al., 2003; Janson & Mathiesen, 2008; Klimstra, Hale, Quinten, Branje, & Meeus, 2010).
Elias and Berk study 2002
In support of Vygotsky, researchers found that children who engaged in frequent sociodramatic play in preschool showed more growth over time in the ability to pay attention and control their behavior during clean-up periods or group time, compared with children who engaged in less frequent play (Elias & Berk, 2002). Sociodramatic play may also be important in developing an understanding of other people. Taking on and negotiating different roles in play may help children understand that other people have different viewpoints and emotions. Children who engage in more social pretend play (with peers or siblings) tend to have more advanced levels of theory of mind performance, taking into account age and language ability
Is there evidence that the children are actually more skilled with one hand than the other (apart from simply having a preference)?
It is difficult to tell whether the children simply prefer the dominant hand or whether they are more skilled, because both hands are not formally tested.
how does child care impact cortisol levels?
Levels of cortisol (a key stress hormone) in samples of saliva rise during the day among children in full-time child care, the opposite of the typical daily cortisol profile. A similar rise is not seen in the same children on at-home days (see Figure 9.5). The largest increases in afternoon cortisol are seen in children under the age of 36 months, and in children who are shy, negatively emotional, or low in emotion regulation. In addition, the afternoon rise in cortisol is more common among children attending 8 or more hours of child care per day, children attending lower quality child care centers, and children who have less sensitive caregivers. At present, we do not know whether the altered cortisol response is linked to negative or positive child behavior or outcomes—such studies have yet to be carried out
gender segregation example
Martina is Ronnie's next-door neighbor. Ronnie sometimes plays with Martina on weekends but in kindergarten, he ignores her and plays only with boys.
Martin et al study
More recently, researchers have begun to view gender in terms of dual male and female identities. A child is asked how similar she/he feels to both boys and girls, separately. Researchers working with first through fifth graders from a middle-class suburban school district asked the children how similar they felt themselves to be to males and to females overall, and how much they were like boys or girls in terms of acting like them, liking to do the same things, looking like them, and liking to spend time with them.
NICHD study
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study began following 1,364 families and tracking the amount of child care each child experienced (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005a). The study found that on average, center-based child care provided a modest boost to language and cognitive skills at ages 3 and 4, compared with home-based child care or parental care, controlling for a wide range of selection factors that vary between families choosing child care and home-based care. However, as we will discuss further in Chapter 9, children enrolled in more hours of center-based care tend to have higher levels of disruptive behavior from kindergarten through grade 3, after which the differences tend to fade (Belsky et al., 2007; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003; Pingault et al., 2015).
Eisenberg et al finding
One clear finding is that parents who model prosocial behavior and coach their children in emotion regulation tend to have children with higher rates of prosocial behavior
Sullivan and Birch study
One effective technique involves simply offering children the same food repeatedly. For example, researchers offered tofu in sweet, salty, or plain versions to three groups of young children unfamiliar with this food. The children in each group initially ate very little, but after 10 to 15 exposures began to eat more. Perhaps the most interesting finding was that children actually came to prefer the version they were exposed to. Children who learned to eat salty tofu chose that even when offered sweetened tofu (Sullivan & Birch, 1990). This indicates that children develop a preference for the foods they eat most often.
emotion regulation and perception: developmental cascade example study
One fascinating example helps illustrate the concept of a developmental cascade. Children with a history of neglect have difficulty discriminating among emotional expressions such as anger, fear, and sadness. In contrast, physically abused children are able to discriminate among facial expressions but show unusual attentiveness to angry faces (Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000). - may be adaptive for physically and emotionally abused children to have a low threshold for detection of anger as it allows them to read the caregiver's mood from subtle cues
categories of maltreatment- other
Other (6.9%)—other types of maltreatment, including threatened abuse, parent's drug/alcohol abuse, safe relinquishment of a newborn, abandonment
overimitating
Overimitation occurs when children imitate the actions of more skilled partners that are irrelevant to the task at hand or even inefficient
Hart et al 2003 study
Personality types are related to other aspects of behavior and development. Most studies rely on the three most consistent types (resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled). For example, one longitudinal study found that undercontrolled children were rated by teachers as having more externalizing behavior problems (disobedience, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior) than resilient and overcontrolled children and lower scores in reading and math. Overcontrolled children did as well as the resilient children in reading and math, but had more internalizing problems (clinging to an adult, anxiety/depression, and shyness). When changes in personality type occurred, they were related to changes in the social environment. For example, children who changed over time to the resilient category (from undercontrolled or overcontrolled) tended to have highly effective parents (Hart et al., 2003).
concrete operational thinking
Piaget believed their thinking is fundamentally limited because their thoughts are not connected fully together in this system
Piaget's classic demonstration of egocentrism
Piaget's classic demonstration of egocentrism is the three-mountain problem. He showed children a three-dimensional model containing three mountains with various landmarks, as Figure 8.3 illustrates. In Piaget's version, the child was led around the table so that she saw each side and then was seated in a chair opposite a doll. The child was asked to point to photographs depicting the display as she saw it and as the doll saw it. RESULTS: Younger children typically picked their own point of view when asked how the doll saw the display. It was not until ages 7 to 8 that the majority of children correctly selected the picture depicting the doll's point of view (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956).
social cues
Pointing and eye gaze direct a child's attention to a particular object - When 3- to 5-year-olds hear a new word, they typically either repeat it or acknowledge it in some way within the very next verbal utterance. - This makes it likely their conversation partners will continue the "conversation" and provide further information about how to use the word in a sentence or identify additional features of the word's meaning (Clark, 2007; Pan & Uccelli, 2009). ex: the father in the photo could explain that the Brachiosaurus was taller than most other dinosaurs and ate leaves from tall trees.
Which of the following is an effective way to get children to eat vegetables or other novel, healthy foods?
Repeatedly offer the same food to the child over time.
Kim and Cicchetti study
Researchers collected longitudinal data on large numbers of maltreated and non-maltreated children (ages 6 to 12 years) from low-income families who were attending a summer camp over successive years. They found that a child's problems with emotion regulation at one age level led to peer rejection at the next age level, which was in turn related to problems with aggressive and disruptive behavior (Kim & Cicchetti, 2010).
Margrett-Jordan, Falcon, Witherington 2017 study
Researchers conducted a longitudinal study with 3- and 4-year-olds over about a year. At each of four testing periods, they showed children brief video clips of four categories of things: animals, plants, mobile objects (such as a mechanized toy), and immobile objects (such as an egg beater). In the clips the animals and mobile objects, but not the plants and immobile objects, were moving. As the videos played, a puppet asked specific biological questions about the four types of things ("Does it need water?" "Does it need food?" "Does it grow?"). As shown in Figure 8.7, children at the first test period distinguished animals and plants from mobile and immobile objects. Their knowledge of biological processes increased over the one-year period of the study. However, in a separate line of questioning, the children were as likely to say that the mobile objects were "alive" like the plants and animals. The study revealed that 3- to 4-year-olds are beginning to learn some of the specific properties of animals and plants, but are still confused about whether moving objects are alive or not (Margett-Jordan, Falcon, & Witherington, 2017).
Lillard et al study 201
Researchers found that children who watched more cumulative hours of television in infancy and early childhood tended to have poorer EF, unless most of the content was PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) content, which was associated with higher EF (Nathanson, Aladé, Sharp, Rasmussen, & Christy, 2014). The data were interesting but correlational. Children with poorer EF skills might have been allowed to watch more TV, or some third variable (such as a lax discipline style) might have been related to both excessive TV watching and poor EF. To explore the causality issue, researchers assigned children to 22 minutes of a typical children's television show versus 22 minutes of listening to a book. Across multiple experiments, they found that certain types of television shows produced lower performance on EF tests in the half-hour following the shows. Fast-paced fantastical cartoon shows, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, produced declines in performance on EF tasks relative to the story-listening condition, but educational programs or slower-paced cartoons did not. The results of these studies suggest that both the amount of TV watching and the kind of television programs may play a role in the development of EF (Lillard et al., 2015).
Simard, Nielsen, Tremblay, Boivan and Montplaisir study
Researchers in Canada who studied nightmares in a large number of young children over a three-year period found that children who had more frequent nightmares tended to show signs of having an anxious or fussy temperament already at 17 months of age, but they also had more conflict with parents during the day. Parental practices associated with fewer nightmares included comforting the child or letting the child sleep in the parents' bedroom after an occasional bad dream
Hart et al 2003 study - three personality types basis
Researchers propose that the term personality, which is used increasingly often from early childhood onward, has an inner "core" of temperament, around which the child builds more complex and individualized sets of thoughts, feelings, and behavioral habits (Caspi et al., 2005; McCrae et al., 2000; Rothbart, 2011). One approach to childhood personality focuses on the whole child. One group of researchers asked mothers to select statements (such as, "She tends to give up easily," "He tends to follow rules") that were most and least characteristic of their 3- to 4-year-olds. They found that personality traits went together non-randomly, resulting in three identifiable personality types (Hart, Atkins, & Fegley, 2003): Resilient children (50 percent of the sample) tended to be socially outgoing, cooperative, compliant, high in emotion regulation, and adaptive in stressful situations. Overcontrolled children (30 percent) were generally shy, anxious, dependent, and compliant. Undercontrolled children (20 percent) tended to be active, aggressive, and non-compliant, and had difficulties with emotion regulation.
Lewis and Ramsay study
Researchers sought to go beyond observations of facial expressions by measuring cortisol levels in the saliva of 4-year-olds. Cortisol rises when people are under stress. The study revealed that both evaluative embarrassment and shame reactions (evoked when the child failed at a rigged task) were associated with spikes in cortisol. In contrast, simple embarrassment (evoked by complimenting the children or otherwise drawing attention to them) did not lead to a rise in cortisol. The researchers concluded that simple embarrassment was less stressful than the other emotions, which involved self-evaluation of failure (Lewis & Ramsay, 2002).
Gelman study
Researchers using simplified tasks that engage children's attention have found that young children make fewer preoperational errors than on Piaget's versions of the tasks. For example, Piaget's original number conservation test (see Figure 8.2) uses rows containing six or more items. Researchers who used rows of only two to three items and drew children's attention to the number of items in the rows rather than the obvious changes in length found that even 3-year-olds understood something about the principle of conservation (Gelman, 1969, 1972).
James and Englehardt 2012; Vinci- Booher et al study
Researchers wanted to find out the best way for children to learn letters. They assigned 4- to 5-year-old children who did not yet know their letters to three conditions: self-generated printing of letters, tracing over letters printed on a page, or typing letters. Printing training provided the best outcomes in terms of letter recognition. In addition, the researchers had the children view letters, geometric shapes and pseudo-letters (composed of the elements of letters) in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) procedure. RESULT: Self-generated letter printing was the only training condition that produced a pattern of activation and connectivity in the brain that resembled that of the adult letter recognition system (James & Englehardt, 2012; Vinci-Booher, James, & James, 2016).
Rholes and Rube study
Rholes and Ruble (1984) showed kindergartners (5- and 6-year-olds) and fourth graders (9- and 10-year-olds) videos of actors engaging in trait-relevant behaviors (such as a boy sharing his lunch). Next, they asked children to predict which of two behaviors the protagonist would perform in a new situation (such as helping or not helping his friend rake leaves). Fourth graders but not kindergartners made trait-consistent predictions about behavior.
gender schema example
Samara's mother is a doctor. She was surprised when 4-year-old Samara told her she wanted to be a nurse because only boys could be doctors.
Bialystok, Luk, Peets, and Yang 2010 study - bilingualism
Some evidence of a difference was provided by a cross-sectional study in Canada showing that the English receptive vocabulary of bilingual children lagged slightly behind that of monolingual children (matched on background variables) at every age between 3 and 10 (see Figure 8.12) (Bialystok, Luk, Peets, & Yang, 2010). The bilingual children did not appear to catch up over time, although the lag was not severe. The disadvantage in lexical organization may persist into adulthood, as adult bilinguals are slightly slower than monolinguals in retrieving words from memory even when they have spoken the two languages fluently for many years
Baron-Cohen 1995 study - autism spectrum and deaf children
Studies of children on the autism spectrum and of deaf children reveal marked delays in passing false-belief tests, which suggests that some combination of typical brain development and typical experience with social and linguistic communication is crucial to the development of a theory of mind (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Peterson, 2004).
DeLoache, Miller, and Rosengren (1997)
Support for the dual representation hypothesis came from a creative experiment. DeLoache, Miller, and Rosengren (1997) had one group of 2½-year-olds perform the standard search task just described. Researchers convinced a second group of 2½-year-olds that the experimenters had an "incredible shrinking machine." The researchers persuaded these children to believe it could shrink a troll doll by over 80 percent. Then they put the "shrinking machine" to work on the full-size room and presented the children with the result—the scale model. Next they hid a toy in the scale model and reversed the "shrinking" process to reveal the full-size room behind curtains. They used a special portable room with three curtains to accomplish the trick. The logic of the study was that if children believed the room had shrunk and then resumed its normal size, it would no longer be a symbol, and the problem of thinking about dual representations would not exist for them. Hence, 2½-year-olds would no longer have trouble searching for the toy hidden in the scale model. The prediction was confirmed. The shrinking room condition increased accuracy of searching for the hidden toy from 20 percent in the standard condition to 78 percent in the shrinking room condition. The point of these studies is that it takes months of experience with the use of symbols for children to master the dual representational qualities of symbols such as photos, scale models, pictures, letters, and numbers (DeLoache, 1995).
Carolina Abecedarian study
The Carolina Abecedarian study provided a high-quality, full-day, year-round educational program to 111 low-income African American children from 6 weeks of age to 5 years. In the first two years of the intervention, the program focused on social and language development, but added an increasing emphasis on emerging literacy and math skills between 3 and 5 years of age. The program produced initial gains at age 5 years of about 12 IQ points over controls, which faded to about 5 points by age 12, most likely due to the benefits of standard educational practices for the control group (see Figure 8.13) Campbell, Pungello, Miller-Johnson, Burchinal, & Ramey, 2001). Benefits for the intervention group in reading and math achievement persisted through age 21. In addition, the experimental group had lower rates of repeating a grade and placement in special education and higher attendance at four-year colleges, indicating substantial and enduring cognitive and motivational effects. There were also benefits for social behavior, employment history, and avoidance of delinquency and crime (Campbell & Ramey, 1995; Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002; Ramey et al., 2000). Other experimental intervention studies have replicated the large and persistent effects obtained in the Abecedarian study (Campbell et al., 2008; McCormick et al., 2008). Moreover, a cost-benefit analysis of the Abecedarian study found that the program offered valuable results: participants had a reduced need for special education, grade retention, and welfare; smoked less than the control group, suggesting lower health costs; and had enhanced earning power in early adulthood as well as improved maternal earnings (Barnett & Masse, 2007).
how do guilt and shame differ?
The emotion of guilt is distinct from shame, as it seems to involve a child's realization that she has harmed or disappointed another person. Guilty children often attempt to make reparations. In contrast, shame appears to be felt as a personal or moral failure, and leads to avoidance and social withdrawal
Which of the following statements about lead exposure in young children is true?
The environment of inner-city, low-income children in the United States still contains elevated levels of lead.
Rogan et al longitudinal study on lead - using nutritional and mineral treatments
The harmful impact of lead is compounded by poverty and poor diet in ways that are still being explored. One possibility is that low calcium and iron levels (resulting from a diet low in protein, milk products, and certain vegetables) disrupts the normal process by which these chemicals block the absorption of lead into the brain (Hubbs-Tait et al., 2005).
Which of the actions below appropriately uses more than one of the parenting techniques recommended in the chapter in a situation in which a child has just hit another child hard enough to leave a bruise?
The parent explains to the child how aggression makes others feel and puts the child in time-out to calm down and think about it.
Rholes and Rube study results
The researchers concluded that preschool-age children do not understand psychological traits (such as selfishness) as enduring dispositions.
Fast and Olson 2018 study
The researchers reported that transgender children were similar to gender-typical children of their same gender in terms of preferences for toys and same-gender playmates. Transgender children also dressed in a gender-stereotypic outfit, and believed that they were more similar to children of their expressed gender than their biological gender. However, they were more likely than the comparison group to believe that gender identity was flexible, and that gender identity could change over time (Fast & Olson, 2018).
Montessori Education
The teaching materials are unique to Montessori, and they are designed to provide a progression of skill mastery on the part of the child - Teachers introduce children to particular activities, but allow children to move from one activity to another as they choose. - work on their own pace --> come out well ahead of their grade level - study results: children who spent a year or more in Montessori school show greater gains than children in standard preschools in math, vocabulary, literacy, social problem-solving, social cooperation, false-belief understanding, cognitive flexibility, and executive function
Wang study
There are cultural variations in emotional understanding as well as emotional expression. In predominantly individualistic cultures, such as Europe and the United States, children's emotions are viewed as something that needs to be expressed in order to promote individual well-being. However, in predominantly collectivist cultures such as East Asia, emotions are often viewed as something that should be suppressed, or expressed mainly in the service of group harmony rather than individual well-being (Wang, 2008; Wang & Fivush, 2005). For example, Chinese mothers recalling events with their 3-year-olds mentioned emotions more in social contexts (getting along with peers) and less in personal situations (losing a toy), whereas it was the opposite for American mothers. A longitudinal study found that between ages 3 and 41/2, Chinese and first-generation Chinese American children showed lower levels of emotional knowledge than European American children
Callaghan and Rankin findings
There is evidence that providing correct practice with a pencil beginning at about age 2½ can lead to earlier and more accurate letter writing when children go to school
Supplemental Nutrition Association Program (aka Food Stamp Program)
They found that most of the decline in poverty has occurred due to the provision of government assistance programs to low-income families, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Shapiro and Trisi)
Flavell perspective taking study
This is tested by having one experimenter bring out an object from behind a screen so that the child can see it but another experimenter cannot. Between ages 2 and 3, children demonstrate that they understand that Experimenter 2 cannot see what they and Experimenter 1 can see (level 1 perspective taking) (Flavell, 1978, 1992; Moll & Tomasello, 2006). In everyday life, level 1 perspective taking is demonstrated when children hide objects from others successfully. By age 4 to 5 years, children were thought to develop level 2 perspective taking, which requires that the child understand that two people may see the same things differently, such as a picture on a table that looks right side up to the child, but upside down to an adult standing on the opposite side of the table (Flavell, Everett, Croft, & Flavell, 1981).
what was Vygotsky's view of sociodramatic play?
Vygotsky (1967) viewed sociodramatic play as one of the primary contributors to the development of executive functioning (the ability to control one's attention, to plan, and to inhibit and monitor one's behavior).
Vygotsky on private speech
Vygotsky proposed that private speech becomes inner speech after about age 7 and is used by older children and adults to guide their thinking, particularly when problems become more difficult. Research studies have consistently supported Vygotsky's view. Private speech seems to aid executive functions, such as inhibiting responses that detract from task performance, controlling attention, and shifting between ways of thinking about a problem (Berk, 2001; Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005; Winsler, Manfra, & Diaz, 2007).
example of egocentrism
Xiaolu said in the car, "Look, everyone is going to the doctor's office today."
example of dual representation
Yamira pointed out how her doll house had a bathroom but with a shower instead of a tub like her real bathroom.
classical cogenital adrenal hyperplasia (C-CAH)
a genetic disorder that results in high prenatal levels of male sex hormones (androgens) - Although treated as female by their parents, girls with C-CAH have a tendency toward masculine activities, toys, and (to a lesser extent) playmate preferences - These tendencies are stronger among C-CAH girls than girls with non-classical (NC) CAH. *social pressure from parents to be more feminine seems to have little impact on these girls' toy and activity preferences
otis media
a more serious complication of colds that involves middle ear inflammation or infection - more than half of all children have had middle-ear problems by age 3 and this can create temporary problems with hearing the affect social interaction and language - long termm effects tend to be minimal except in cases where children lack exposure to stimulating language environments
theory of mind
a sort of everyday psychology that proves explanations for people's actions as caused by internal desires, emotions, and beliefs
focus on appearances
a tendency to use how things look rather than their actual quantity to judge amounts
theory theory definition
a theoretical approach that views children as continuously forming and testing new theories
selective attention
ability to focus only on relevant stimuli
executive attention ?? - check
ability to set goals, plan actions, monitor progress toward goals, detect errors, and compensate for errors
sustained attention
ability to stay focused on a particular task
Maria Montessori
an Italian physician who developed a revolutionary approach to educating impoverished and disabled children in Rome - Her approach is utilized in many private preschools in the United States.
conscience
an internal guidance system that regulates conduct without the need for external control
gender schema
an interrelated set of beliefs, observations, and expectations about how males and females should behave - The schema is created when the child knows his or her own gender, and begins to categorize objects and activities based on gender, as Figure 9.2 shows. - Still other objects are classified as "neutral." If activities are only partly gender-typed (such as cooking), children tend to force them into all-or-none categories (cooking would usually be classified as feminine) - Children's own behavior pretty much follows the schema - For example, preschool girls will sometimes insist that only they can use the toy cooking materials in the preschool.
conservation
an understanding that basic properties or substances such as number, mass, and volume remain the same after a transformation that simply changes their appearance and not the amount of substance (Piaget)
dual representation
an understanding that the symbol has two meanings—it is both a concrete object (a miniature room) and a representation of a different concrete object (a full-size room).
overregularization errors
apply past tense rule to irregular verbs - falled, broked, runned also occurs with plurals - foots, mans *sentences hinge on verb usage
What is causing the rise in asthma diagnoses in the United States and especially in the inner city?
asthma is closely related to indoor air quality - asthmatic children's symptoms are exacerbated by allergens such as dust mites, cockroaches, fungi, cat and dog hair, and common environmental irritants such as tobacco smoke - These triggering agents may be more common in the homes of low-income, inner-city children, who in turn have higher exposure because they spend more time indoors and less time playing outdoors than suburban or rural children (Morgan et al., 2004)
what were the most effective maternal strategies to help children reduce their sadness and anger?
attention refocusing and cognitive reframing
The High/Scope Perry Preschool Program
basis: randomly assigned 128 economically disadvantaged, mostly African American children to either a half-day preschool program with home visits by the teachers or to a control group. Children attended the preschool program for two years beginning at age 3 results: There were strong initial positive effects on broad cognitive abilities that completely closed the black-white and the poor-non-poor achievement test score gaps that are normally seen at school entry. This initial advantage declined over time, because public school helped the control group catch up once they entered kindergarten. There were no persistent effects on IQ, but positive effects on achievement continued through the high school years and were substantial in size. For example, gains in reading scores at age 14 were equal to 40 percent of the achievement gap. There was better classroom and personal behavior based on teacher reports, less involvement in youth misconduct and crime, fewer special education placements, and a greater high school graduation rate than the control group (Berrueta-Clement, Scwheinhart, Barnett, Epstein, & Weikart, 1984; Pianta et al., 2009; Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 1993). High school graduation increased from one-half to two-thirds, and the number of arrests by age 21 fell by 50 percent when compared with the control group. By age 40, program participants had higher frequency of employment and higher earnings, decreased welfare dependency, and reduced arrests compared to the control group. At age 40, the employment of program participants was 14 percent higher than the control group (Karoly, Kilburn, & Cannon, 2005; Schweinhart et al., 2005). For every dollar spent on this program, there were savings of $16 dollars down the road in reduced education, health, and crime costs, as well as increased employment and earnings (Belfield, Nores, Barnett, & Schweinhart, 2006).
which gender is more likely to be injured/killed
boys - This may be due to temperamental differences (boys are more active and impulsive), differences in the rate of physical maturation and motor development, and societal and parental attitudes, which permit more boys than girls to explore unsafe situations, take risks, and therefore put themselves in a position to be injured (Schwebel & Gaines, 2007).
when do children understand the principle of conservation?
by age 7 or 8 - They insist that the quantity remains the same across the transformations, and they can explain why the liquid looks higher in the thinner glass. According to Piaget, children at this age use reversible mental operations, such as visualizing the water being poured back into the original container (Halford & Andrews, 2006).
cognitive reframing
changing the child's interpretation of the situation so that it is no longer negative ex: pointing out that the baby socks could be given to a baby the family knowns or used as finger puppets
working memory example
child is listening to story read by parent and relies on working memory to answer the parent's questions about what happened in the story
what are the five main categories of maltreatment?
child neglect, medical neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and psychological maltreatment
power grip
children can hold a pencil or crayon against the palm of their hand
peers
children fo approximately the same age and developmental level
fast-mapping
children gain an initial approximate understanding of a word as it is used in the immediate context
sequential bilingualism
children learn a second language after mastering the first to some degree
implication of research on children numeracy
children need to work with concrete materials and gain familairity with counting and other number concepts long before they start formal schooling
sociodramatic play
children play different roles in simple skits of their own devising
gender segragation
children play increasingly with children of their own gender
symbolic representation
children shift the way they mentally represent the world at 18 - 24 months as this develops - the understanding that one object/action can stand for another ex: pretend play which transforms at 18 months as kids transform toys into other things
symbolic representations
children shift the way they mentally represent the world at 18-24 months ex: pretend play
cooperative pretend play
children take turns pretending to be something or someone
private speech
children talk out loud to themselves and use their speech to guide their attention, plan their actions, and inhibit inappropriate actions
letter knowledge
children's emerging knowledge of print progresses from scribbling, to lining up marks from left to right, to writing down random letters, and finally to spelling out familiar words (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). - Gradually, children figure out that letters are parts of words, and they learn to spell their names and to read common words in their environment, such as PIZZA. - At this point, they may not recognize pizza if it is written in a different font or in lowercase letters
cause of chronic asthma
combination of genetic predispositions and environmental exposures that are still not fully identified (Beijsterveldt & Boomsma, 2008; Jaakkola, Nafstad, & Magnus, 2001). - asthma generally appears by age 5 and stems from hypersensitivity of the bronchial tube (airway) linings to allergens such as pollen, house dust, and animal hair or environmental irritants such as tobacco smoke.
cumulative risk
composite measure that included factors such as family income, marital status, environmental stress, maternal depression, food insufficiency, health problems within family and among others
prosocial behavior
defined as voluntary actions to help another, is considered by developmental theorists and parents to be an essential aspect of social development. - Many psychologists have argued that prosocial behavior is innate to the human species, and represents a general means by which human beings survived as a group, which means that in some sense we are "wired" to be prosocial.
executive functions
deliberate, conscious strategies employed by individuals to reach goals, make decisions, or solve problems
Psychologists infer that children know they have a personality because when asked to compare themselves to a puppet's personality, the children __________.
described how they usually acted in a way that was consistent with parents' assessment of their personality traits
The Head Start program
designed in 1965 to prepare disadvantaged children for school. Head Start preschool experiences appear to have modest benefits. The most complete current data come from the National Head Start Impact Study. - The study included more than 5,000 low-income 3- to 4-year-olds across the country who were randomly assigned to Head Start or to a control group that could attend other kinds of preschools. After 9 months, Head Start children showed benefits in vocabulary, emergent literacy, and numeracy, and they displayed fewer behavioral problems. These benefits faded by the end of grade 1, except for a small Head Start advantage in language skills (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Similar results were obtained in a recent longitudinal evaluation study of 3,000 children participating in Early Head Start, a smaller program that targets low-income children who are 1 to 3 years of age (Love, Chazan-Cohen, Raikes, & Brooks-Gunn, 2013).How might the modest initial gains and fading benefits of Head Start be improved upon? The Head Start REDI (Research-Based, Developmentally Informed) intervention program enriches the standard Head Start curriculum with evidence-based practices promoting language, preliteracy, pre-math, social skills, self-control, and emotion understanding. Researchers randomly assigned 356 4-year-olds to Head Start REDI or regular Head Start in several schools in Pennsylvania. Results revealed that Head Start REDI improved kindergarten phonological decoding skills, learning engagement, and social problem-solving skills, and it reduced aggressive and disruptive behavior (Bierman et al., 2014). Follow-up analyses revealed that there were benefits of Head Start REDI for executive function skills that persisted into grade 3 for children who were low in executive function at ages 4 and 5 (Sasser, Bierman, Heinrichs, & Nix, 2017). These studies and others indicate that one way Head Start can be more effective is by increasing its emphasis on academic skills training (Fuller, Bein, Bridges, Kim, & Rabe-Hesketh, 2017).
instrumental aggression
designed to achieve a goal such as acquiring objects, attention, or privileges ex: Amrisha wrestles a toy that she had been waiting to play with for several minutes out of Keisha's hand.
The idea behind the concept of __________ as applied to abuse and neglect is that the experience of stress due to maltreatment leads to physiological or psychological effects at one age and creates negative behavior at a subsequent age.
developmental cascade
Children who can guess what a character described as selfish might do next in a story appear to have a level of understanding of other people's __________.
dispositional traits
Jimi people of Papa New guinea
do not have indigenous pictorial art - When asked by a Western researcher to draw a human form, 10- to 15-year-old Jimi children who had not attended formal schooling produced stick figures resembling those of preschoolers in industrialized cultures, suggesting that this is a universal starting point for pictorial art (martlet and Connolly)
when do nightmares and sleep terrors usually occur?
during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep -Sleep terrors are episodes of intense fear, screaming, and flailing about that occur while children are asleep, usually during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Sometimes children sleepwalk during a sleep terror episode
When children fail at a task or disappoint an adult, they are likely to be feeling one of two emotions:
evaluative embarrassment (nervous smile, gaze aversion, and touching the face or body) or shame (casting the eyes downward, shoulder slumping, and turning the corners of the mouth downward)
Studies measuring cortisol levels as children were induced to experience a self-conscious emotion revealed that __________.
evaluative embarrassment and shame are more stressful than simple embarrassment
According to Vygotsky, sociodramatic play with peers may have benefits for __________.
executive functioning
example of sexual abuse
exposing a child to indecent acts that are sexual in nature
Rule and Stewart / Cratty and Gabbard findings
found that children had an easier time learning to write with a pencil if they had prior experience using paint brushes, stringing beads, and using scissors. Practicing a variety of movements with the fingers may help children's brains achieve more complete control over the small, precise muscle movements and visual guidance necessary for writing
zone of proximal development
gap between children's ability to solve a problem independently and their ability to solve it with the help of more capable peers
Evidence for __________ is provided by studies showing that each gender pays greater attention to and has better memory for objects and events associated with their own gender.
gender schema theory
scripts
generalized versions of events that happen to children - contain significant events in order but not individual events that happened to the child at a. specific time
Barbara Rogoff
guided participation: she extended the zone of proximal development concept to include not just direct instructional interactions but any social interaction where a child might potentially learn from observing and participating with the adult in an activity
In a classic study of delay of gratification, it was observed how long 4-year-olds could wait for a larger treat when they had a smaller treat in front of them. Children who could wait longer, or who did not give in and eat the smaller treat, __________.
had higher educational achievement and social competence in adolescence
Diana Baumrind's influential studies of parenting style showed that children of authoritarian parents were more likely to __________ than children of authoritative parents.
have higher levels of both internalizing and externalizing behavior
A 4-year-old boy who adamantly believes that only boys can be firefighters and only girls can be nurses is applying __________ to the classification of these two careers.
his gender schema
tripod grip
hold the pencil or crayon with their thumb, index, and middle finger closer to the tip than the end
myelination
improves the speed at which messages are transmitted throughout the CNS and helps brain areas collaborate more efficiently in performing cognitive and motor tasks
cooperative pretend play
in which children share a fantasy such as playing house or pretending to be animals, or take on complementary pretend roles such as mommy/baby or superhero/villain, but without much planning or discussion of how the roles will be enacted.
According to Michel and colleagues' developmental cascade model of handedness development, __________.
infants' experiences with using primarily one hand in early motor skills tend to lead to use of that hand for more complex motor skills at the next developmental phase
gender typing
involves actions, preferences, and attitudes that are associated with culturally defined roles that a boy or girl expects to play example: George's father makes negative comments when George plays with his sister's dolls. He also praises his son for not crying when he stubs his toe.
reactive (or hostile) agression
involves an angry response to a blocked goal or retaliation against aggression by another. person and it is intended to inflict harm - may decline because kids find non-aggressive ways to achieve goals - may increase because of children's better understanding of other's intentions - if they perceive hostile intent, they are likely to retaliate in a hostile way ex: Willie pushes Grace angrily after she calls him a liar.
relational aggression
involves damaging another person's position or relationships within the peer group by means of social exclusion or spreading rumors - seen as early as age 3 - becomes more common with age - small sex difference ex: Grace says that Willie "lied to teacher" in order to get him in trouble with the preschool teacher.
effortful control
involves inhibiting the most typical action in a situation in order to act in a less typical and more adaptive way ex: child who receives a gift he does not want might normally sign but suppress this response and instead smiles and thanks the gift giver
rough and tumble play
involves playful fighting accompanied by positive emotions - In rough-and-tumble play, children can gradually escalate the level of aggression, and then scale it back when someone yells, "Ouch!" or "Cut it out!" - This type of play is quite common across cultures (Pellegrini, 1988; Smith & Boulton, 1990). ex: Vince pretends to be a tae kwon do fighter, and kicks out at Mike without hitting him. Mike smiles, says "Hey-ya!" and pretends to strike back at Vince. They continue to "spar" for a few minutes.
socially transitioned
meaning that their gender had been completely accepted by their parents
autobiographical memory
memory for early experiences
influences of handedness
multiple genetic and environmental factors - yet-unidentified genes - prenatal experience - extensive practice during infancy and toddlerhood
is handedness predetermined at birth?
no - there are multiple genetic and environmental influences, and the skill takes a few years to emerge and stabilize (Michel, 2014).
Brown et al study results
parents' ratings of the children's personalities agreed fairly well with the children's self-ratings (Brown, Mangelsdorf, Agathen, & Ho, 2008; Marsh, Ellis, & Craven, 2002).
dispositional traits
people's behavioral and psychological traits that endure over time. For example: a child might learn that her mother is generally cranky after work, but calm and cheerful later in the evening.
how many examples of positive behavior are needed to make a positive judgement? for negative behavior?
positive: 1 or 2 negative: at least 5
Young children's self-assessments of their abilities and personality traits are often characterized by an overconfidence known as __________.
positivity bias
Which of the following is likely to be a direct developmental effect of an insecure or disorganized attachment in a child with a history of maltreatment?
problems interacting with peers
emergent literacy
process where children begin developing literacy several years before they can read and write
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
radioactively tagged glucose is introduced into the bloodstream and taken up by the brain to be "read" by the scanner - reveals that the cerebral cortex of an average 4 year old consumers more glucose (uses more energy) than the average adult (Chugani, Phelps, Mazziotta)
social conventional rules
refer to rules of conduct in particular social contexts, such as school rules, game rules, and rules of politeness.
gender identity
refers to an individual's inner sense of being male or female ex: Jazz clearly had an inner sense of being female, despite being born male
phonological awareness
refers to the ability to analyze the sound components of spoken words - distinct instruction is necessary in most cases
emotion regulation
refers to the ability to modulate one's emotional arousal - influenced by biological, cognitive behavioral, and experiential factors (Thompson)
scaffolding
refers to the collaboration of adult and child -Scaffolding involves the efforts of both children and adults. One way that children may contribute is by overimitating adult actions. *not used by Vygotsky
level 2 perspective taking
requires the child to understand that two people may see the same things differently (flavell)
Brown et al study --IDK CH
researchers persuaded them to compare their personality traits to with those of puppets. Children responded consistently in judging their own personality traits, such as timidity ("I don't climb things that are high") and agreeableness ("I share toys with kids I don't know").
Nielsen and Tomaselli 2010 study
result: over imitation is a universal characteristic of young children that contribute to scaffolding and guided participation
fundamental movement skills
running, hopping ,skipping, climbing, etc. that form the foundation for other movements or combinations of movements employed in various games and sports.
attention refocusing
shifting the childs attention away from the source of the negative emotion ex: the broken prize situation was drawing the child's attention to the stickers that came in the bag with the prize
According to the National Sleep Foundation Survey, which of the following is the most common sleep disturbance?
stalling before bedtime
egocentrism
the child's assumption that other people have the same point of view as them
which hand controls which hemisphere's motor regions
the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere's motor and sensory regions, and the right hand by the corresponding regions of the left hemisphere.
animism
the tendency to attribute the qualities of human beings or other living things to inanimate objects
centration
the tendency to focus on only one salient aspect or dimension, such as the height of the liquid or the length of a row of coins
visual perceptive taking
the understanding that other people can see an object from a point of view that is different from one's own
what level of lead exposure is considered safe?
there is none!
what are researchers using twin designs for?
to separate environmental from genetic influences of parents on prosocial behavior - Identical twins have the same genotypes, so any differences in behavior must be due to the effects of different environments - Studies have found that when twins happen to be treated differently by their parents, they show differences in prosocial behavior and different rates of behavioral problems, favoring the twin who was treated better (Deater-Deckard et al., 2001; Mullineaux, Deater-Deckard, Petrill, & Thompson, 2009).
power assertive techniques -- Kochanska
used to enforce compliance to rules like physical restraints and stern commands --> likely to have children who tend to break rules when the parent is not present
critiques of Vygotsky's theory
vague, hard to measure, not inherently developmental in nature Paris and Cross: - zone of proximal development is difficult to measure in practice and there are no standardized ways to assess how wide it is
Piaget's test of conservation
visual focused when a pre operational child doesn't not understand the principle of conservation, when a glass of milk is poured into a thinner container and it looks like there is more there really isn't. (number, mass, volume always remain the same) - In one version of Piaget's task, the child is shown two identical glass containers of liquid and asked whether there is the same amount of liquid in each or more in one or the other. After the child agrees that the amounts are the same, the liquid from one glass is poured into a taller, thinner glass, and the question (same, more in one, more in the other) is repeated. Children ages 4 to 5 years typically say the tall glass has more water. It does no good to pour the liquid back into the original container. The child again typically agrees that both glasses have the same amount of water, but once the liquid is poured into the taller container, he asserts again that the amounts differ. Piaget devised several additional tests of conservation, as you can see in Figure 8.2 and the accompanying video.
associative learning
when words are repeated in an experimental context, children follow principles of general learning and memory ex: they are more successful at learning the meaning of a new word if it is presented over several days (distributed exposure) than if it is presented the same number of times on a single day
sociodramatic play (repeat term)
which children actively plan and assign roles, is common - Children act in and direct their own little plays, and will stop to discuss how to change things if someone has a better idea, or the actors become confused
mutually responsive orientation
which the parent responds with warmth but firmness to the child's emotional signals and attempts to exert independence.