Module 4 - Early Childhood

• early childhood

  - transition period when children develop array of new skills and retain childish behaviors

  - toddler/preschool ages (2-6/7 y/o)

  - gross motor skills, fine motor skills tuning and wide ranges of typical motor development
• gross motor skills in early childhood

  - throwing a ball

  - hopping

  - catching a ball

  - running

  - kicking a ball
• fine motor skills in early childhood

  - cutting paper

  - pasting

  - pouring

  - building blocks

  - lacing

  - cutting along a line

  - printing a name

  - tracing

  - coloring
• compare ages in early childhood

  - older age = more coordination and smooth motor functioning, further progression for a more complicated motor skill

  
  

  ex: age 6, easier to climb stairs vs age 3, carefully climbing stairs holding bars
• Gross Motor vs Fine Motor - Age 2-3 yrs

  Gross

  - Can jump

  - can throw and catch ball (upper body remains rigid)

  
  

  Fine

  - can zip and unzip

  - can use spoon
• Gross Motor vs Fine Motor - Age 3-4 yrs

  Gross

  - can walk upstairs (alternating feet on each step)

  - can walk downstairs (leading with one foot)

  - can throw and catch ball (catching ball and trapping ball against chest)

  
  

  Fine

  - can use child scissors

  - can fasten and unfasten large buttons
• Gross Motor vs Fine Motor - Age 4-5 yrs

  Gross

  - can walk up and down stairs (alternating feet)

  - can catch ball with hands

  
  

  Fine

  - can use fork well

  - can cut on a line using scissors
• Gross Motor vs Fine Motor - Age 5-6 yrs

  Gross

  - can skip

  - can ride bike with training wheels

  
  

  Fine

  - can tie shoes

  - can copy some numbers and basic words
• Gross motor - all ages 2-6

  2-3: jump, throw, catch ball, rigid body

  3-4: walk up alternating, down leading, throw ball, catch ball to chest

  4-5: walk up & down alternating, catch ball w/ hands

  5-6: skip, ride training bike
• Fine motor - all ages 2-6

  2-3: zip, unzip, spoon

  3-4: child scissors, fasten/unfasten large buttons

  4-5: fork, cut line w/ scissors

  5-6: tie shoes, copy some numbers and basic words
• Other physical changes

  - brain development

  - further development of connections between neurons (neural growth) taking place at synapse (space between neurons)

  - additional brain development

  * myelination

  * synaptic pruning
• Myelination

  neurons become insulated with a layer of fat

  
  

  - fat layer servers as lubrication to speed up messages being relayed among neurons

  - process takes many years

  - process has direct impact on thinking process
• Synaptic pruning

  under utilized synaptic connections between neurons die away

  
  

  - important ones become strengthened

  - process continues throughout childhood, adolescence and early adulthood -> resulting in more efficient adult brain
• Brain development: birth thru early childhood (video notes)

  rapid neuronal growth:

  - connections made between neurons at the synapse

  - dendrites spread and connect to new growth

  - experience

  - formation of synaptic connections

  - synaptic pruning

  - experience is the mechanism for growth

  - myelination

  
  

  time period where tons of growth is happening - piaget was right - knew that experience/interacting with world does something in terms of cognition - you learn b/c you touch/interact with something and that changes how brain is working with more nerve growth

  
  

  dendrites responsible for interconnections flowing inside brain for rapid development

  
  

  - as new connections are forming, this is where memory comes in, retaining information, for entire pathways for things learned
• piaget's sensorimotor stage review

  - assimilation, accommodation, schemas

  - simple reflexes

  - first habits and primary circular reactions

  - secondary circular reactions

  - coordination of secondary circular

  - tertiary circular reactions

  - internalization of schemes + object permanence
• Piaget's Cognitive Theory - Preoperational stage

  - 2nd stage

  - operations are mental activities (ex: adding, subtracting)

  - young children hone ability to make mental representations (build upon the final substage of sensorimotor stage)

  - ages 2-7

  - children can think symbolically and engage in make-believe play but their thinking is still egocentric and lacks logic

  - "pre" operational = children not fully internalizing their actions yet (before cognitive operations; child can't use logic, transform, combine, or separate ideas)

  - piaget saw stage as very flawed but crucial to future development

  - 2 substages: symbolic function, intuitive thought
• Preoperational stage - symbolic function

  - first substage

  - age 2-4

  - continues skills begun with establishment of object permanence

  - children continue to develop their abilities to mentally represent objects that aren't in front of them

  - working toward abstract thought (but not there yet)

  - egocentrism

  - animism
• Symbolic function - Egocentrism

  - refers to a problem with taking another person's perspective or point of view (similar to selfishness but piaget doesnt use it to refer to selfishness)

  - Three Mountains Task

  - evident that children aren't born with ability to take another's perspective

  - child assumes that other people see/hear/feel exactly same as child

  - piaget pessimistic about children's ability to show this skill at young age -> ends up missing examples of perspective taking that occurs in young children if they had better understanding of task at hand
• Symbolic function - Animism

  religious belief that natural phenomena (mountains, constellations, etc) are spiritual beings of some sort

  - piaget uses term to refer to child's belief that inanimate objects can have human-like qualities (ex: feelings)

  - lines between reality and imagination are blurred

  - prone to believe in magical thoughts

  - compared to older children, young ones are less likely to think logically and more likely to think intuitively.
• Three Mountains Task

  piaget used 3 mountains to test whether kids were egocentric (ego kids assume others see the same view of mountains as them)

  
• 3 mountains task - goal

  when do kids decenter/no longer egocentric
• 3 mountains task - what age are kids no longer egocentric?

  age 7

  
  

  kids can see more than their own pov
• 3 mountains task - method

  child shown display of 3 mountains

  - tallest mountain covered in snow

  - another mountain has trees on it

  - last mountain has church on it

  
  

  child stands on one side of display, there's a doll on other side

  
  

  child allowed to walk around display, look at it, then sit down on one side, doll is placed at different positions

  
  

  child is shown 10 pictures from different viewpoints and asked to pick which one is from doll's pov

  
  

  IF KID PICKED CORRECT = not egocentric

  
  

  IF KID PICKED CARD THAT SHOWED FROM KID'S POV = egocentric
• 3 mountains task - findings

  age 4 - no awareness of other viewpoints and always reported own pov

  
  

  age 6 - more aware of other viewpoints, but still picked incorrect, picking different pov's from self and doll, rarely picked correct one.

  
  

  age 7/8- consistently chose correct picture
• 3 mountains task - conclusion & evaluation

  age 7, thinking no longer egocentric -> child can see more than their own pov

  
  

  piaget's tasks may have underestimated child's abilities due to factors -> complicated language, unfamiliar materials, lack of context, kids misinterpreting experimenter's intention
• Critical evaluation - policeman doll study

  Martin Hughes

  - argued 3 mountains task didn't make sense to kids + more difficult b/c kids had to match doll's view with a picture

  - devised task which made sense to kid with dolls + walls

  
• policeman doll - method

  showed kids model comprising of 2 intersecting walls, boy doll and policeman dolls

  
  

  hughes placed cop doll in different positions and asked child to hide boy doll from cop

  
  

  hughes did this to make sure kid understood what was being asked, so if they made mistakes, they were explained whats wrong, and kid tried again -> results: very few mistakes were made

  
  

  hughes places 2 police dolls at wall tips, asked kid to hide boy doll (kid had to think about 2 pov's to hide boy)
• policeman doll - results

  * 3.5 - 5 yrs -> 90% correct answers

  * (even when he made it more complicated and added more walls and more cop dolls)

  4yrs -> 90% correct

  
  

  kids lose most egocentric thinking by 4 yrs
• Similarities vs Diffs b/w piaget and hughes' experiments

  similarities: both worked with kids and displays to observe whether they had egocentric thinking or not

  
  

  diff: hughes says 4yrs, piaget said 7 yrs

  hughes made sure the task made sense to the kid, piaget's did not

  hughes used the kids to physically show, piaget made them pick from pictures

  
  

  differences in "meaning" children attribute to situations might cause them to pass/fail a task.

  better meaning with hughes -> earlier success
• turntable task

  Borke tested egocentrism in kids by giving 2 identical models of 3D scenes ( different scenes that had different arrangements of toy people and animals and mountains, similar to piaget/inhelder) . one model was on a turntable and could be turned by child.
• turntable task - method

  after practice session, child familiarized with materials and idea of looking at things from another's pov

  
  

  burke adds a doll (grover from sesame street) to the display

  
  

  grover was placed so it's looking at model from a vantage point, and child would turn the other model around until own view matched what grover is seeing

  
  

  ex: grover is placed on a tree looking at mountains on stable model; child would rotate turntable model around, until they had the same pov as grover, looking at mountains on a treetop
• turntable task - results

  mountains model: 3 y/o = 42% correct, 4 y/o = 67% correct

  
  

  other model: 3 y/o = 80% correct, 4 y/o = 93% correct
• play


  - beginning of stage, kids engaging in parallel play

  -> plays in same room as other kids, but plays next to them by themselves rather than with eachother.

  - child hasn't grasped social function of language/rules yet.

  - child's absorbed in own private world, speech is egocentric -> main function of speech is to externalize child's thinking rather than for communicating with others
• Symbolic representation

  - ages 2-3

  - dramatic increase in use of symbolic function

  - ability to make one thing (word or object) stand for something other than itself

  ex: language

  
  

  - piaget argued language doesn't facilitate cognitive development -> just reflects what child already knows and contributes little to knew knowledge -> believed cognitive development promotes language development, not vice versa.
• Preoperational stage - Intuitive thought

  - second substage

  - ages 4-7

  - kids start developing reasoning ability

  - desire to know answers to many questions

  - centration

  - conservation
• animism

  belief that inanimate objects (ex: teddy bear, toys, etc) have human feelings and intentions

  - kid things the world of nature is alive, conscious and has purpose

  - piaget identified 4 stages of animism

  1. up to ages 4-5, child believes that almost everything is alive and has a purpose.

  2. 5-7 years, only object has stages

  3. 7-9 yrs, only objects that move spontaneously are thought to be alive

  4. 9-12 years, child understands that only plants and animals are alive.
• artificialism

  belief that certain aspects of environment are manufactured by people (ex: clouds in the sky, ex: cloud factory)
• irreversibility

  inability to reverse the direction of a sequence of events to their starting point
• Pretend/symbolic play

  - toddlers

  - pretending to be people they are not (ex: superheroes, jobs, etc) -> plays roles with props that are real life objects + with imaginary playmates

  - egocentrism declines, kids enjoy participation of other kids in play pretend games

  - for this to work, there needs to be way to regulate each child's relations with the other -> leads to beginning of orientation to others in terms of rules
• Intuitive thought - centration

  - focusing all attention on one feature of an object

  - focus on only one aspect of situation at one time (when they can multifocus = ability to decenter)

  - young children prevented from engaging in highly rational thought

  - young child may miss 'big picture' as well as other features of object

  - ex: conservation difficulty