• Intellectual Development
    • Piaget’s Stage of Preoperational Thinking

During the stage that Piaget has described as preoperational, children are not yet able to engage in organized, formal, logical thinking.  However, their development of symbolic function permits quicker and more effective thinking as they are freed from the limitations of sensorimotor learning.  Preschoolers are in the preoperational stage, from age 2 to 7, characterized by symbolic thinking.  A key aspect of preoperational thought is symbolic function­ ability to use symbols, words, objects to represent something not physically present

Mental reasoning and the use of concepts increases, but children are not capable of operations­

  • The Relation Between Language and Thought

Symbolic function is directly related to language acquisition. Symbols allow greater speed of processing­ not limited by senrosimotor thinking. Can think into future. Still likely fantasy based­ what did you want to be when you grow up? Does thought determine language or does language determine thought?

Piaget­ language grows out of cognitive advances

  • Centration: What You See Is What You Think

Centration— process of concentrating on one limited aspect of stimulus; ignoring other aspects

Your book gives the example of putting a dog mask on a cat.  3­4 year olds, cat should start acting like a dog

  • Conservation: Learning That Appearances Are Deceiving
    1. Preschoolers do NOT understand conservation—knowledge that

quantity is unrelated to the arrangement/physical appearance of objects – play doh – related to centatration – test them using the cups task

  • Incomplete Understanding of Transformation
    • Preschoolers are unable to understand the notion of transformation— the process in which one state is changed into another—because they ignore the intermediate steps.

Your text gives the example of a pencil held upright, and then allowed to fall on its side.  Passes thru different angles. Kids who dong understand transformation cant recall/imagine different angles

  • Egocentrism: The Inability to Take Others’ Perspectives Egocentrism – inability to take others’ perspectives. 2 forms:

Egocentric thought takes two forms.

Lack of awareness that others see things from different physical

perspectives

Failure to realize that others may hold thoughts/feelings/POV

different from self

Egocentrism is at the root of many preschool behaviors; for example, talking to oneself – Don’t realize own behavior could trigger reactions in others

Another example involves hiding games.  – cover faces­ they assume if they can’t see others, others can’t see them.

  • The Emergence of Intuitive Thought

A number of advances in thought occur in the preoperational stage.

  • Intuitive thought— use of primitive reasoning: reasoning + natural curiosity = “Why?”; start to believe they are rights; cannot explain why
  • Functionality— actions/events/outcomes are related in fixed patterns­ Ex­ turning a doorknob and pushing opens the door
  • Identity— certain things stay the same regardless of changes in shape/size/appearance; helps to gain conservation
  • Evaluating Piaget’s Approaches to Cognitive Development

Critics­ underestimate kids’ capabilities. Cognitive development more continuous

Training can improve performance on conservation tasks. Too much focus on shortcomings

  • Information­Processing Approaches to Cognitive Development
    • Memory: Recalling the Past
      • Autobiographical memory­events from one’s own life­ not very accurate until after 3; slowly becomes more accurate

Preschoolers’ autobiographical memories fade, unless they involve something particularly memorable.  They may not be accurate ­ preschoolers’ memories of familiar events are often organized in terms of scripts, broad representations in memory of events and the order in which they occur.  Ex­ script for going to class­ particular instance difficult to recall

  • Preschoolers have difficulty describing certain information andoversimplify recollections. Ex­ remember mom and dad yelling, but unable to recall what the fight was about.
  • Forensic Developmental Psychology

Focuses on reliability of kid’s autobiographical memories in legal proceedings.

Highly susceptible to suggestions­ may change answers if asked questions repeatedly – should not be questioned repeatedly Should be questioned ASAP after event. Questions need to be specific

  • Vygotsky’s View of Cognitive Development: Taking Culture Into Account

Differences in learning styles cross­culturally led Vygotsky to propose that the nature and progress of children’s cognitive development are dependent on the children’s social and cultural context.­ cultural differences; social interactions

Cognition proceeds because of social interactions where partners jointly work to solve problems.  This is one of the reasons so many schools are so big on group projects.  Vygotsky felt that peers were better teachers than adults – they are on the same level.

  • The Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding: Foundations of

Cognitive Development

  • According to Vygotsky, children’s cognitive abilities increase when

information is provided within their zone of proximal development (ZPD)­ level at which child can almost, but not fully, comprehend/perform task w/out assistance

  • Scaffolding­support for learning/problem solving that encourages

independence, growth

  • The Growth of Language
    • Language Development During the Preschool Years

 

Children rapidly progress from two­word utterances to longer, more sophisticated expressions that reflect their growing vocabularies and emerging grasp of grammar. Language dev. Affected by SES­ lower SES kids have lower linguistic ability Between late 2s and mid­3s, sentence length increases.

Syntax­ proper order of words. Ways kids use syntax doubles each month

By age 3, children use plurals and possessive forms of nouns (boys/boy’s), employ the past tense (adding ­ed), use articles (the/a), and can ask and answer complex questions (“Where did you say my book is?”).

By 6, the average child has a vocabulary of 14,000 words. Preschoolers acquire a new word every 2 hours, 24 hours a day. They manage this feat through a process known as fast mappingnew words associated with meaning after only 1 or 2 presentations

Preschoolers begin to acquire the principles of grammar­ rules of how thoughts can be expressed. Speech is grammatically correct over 90% of the time.

  • Private Speech and Social Speech
    • Preschoolers engage in a lot of private speech­ not intended for others. Talking to self or toys, but not to each other So why do they do this?
      • Vygotsky – facilitates thinking, helps control behavior, solve problems, reflect. Stream of consciousness that will later be internalized
      • Piaget – private speech is egocentric­ problem­ they have conversations with family/peers­obviously know their speech can affect others
      • This private speech may also aid in the development of pragmatics­aspect of language related to communicating effectively/appropriately with others. Often talk to toys almost conversationally. Turn­taking, polite phrases, appropriateness of information
    • Social speech­directed towards others. Want to express more to others; can get frustrated if not understood.
  • How Living in Poverty Affects Language Development

The language children hear at home influences their language development.

  • Economic level was a significant factor in the amount of parental interactions, types of language children were exposed to, and kinds of language used.

SES also affects the types of words parents use with their children. Language kids hear at home affects lang. dev. Higher SES parents talk to their kids more than lower SES parents do

4 year old kid in high SES house has heard 13 million more words from parents than kids in low SES houses. Lower SES parents more likely to issue orders/stop behaviors. Higher SES parents more likely to have conversations

  • Poverty was also related to lower IQ scores by age 5.
  • Length of time spent in poverty affects outcomes. Lower SES parents often face stressors. Higher SES parents do not. Less supportive

III. Schooling and Society

  • Early Childhood Education: Taking the Pre­ Out of the Preschool Period Three quarters of children in the United States are enrolled in some kind of care outside the home. A major factor is working parents.  Evidence suggests that children can benefit from early educational activities.
  • The Varieties of Early Education
    • Child­care centers –all day care; some effort at education­ mostly

social/emotional

  • Family child care centers – small, home based. Many unlicensed.

Organized institutions­ tend to be licensed; better overall quality of care

  • Preschools (nursery schools) –developmental enrichment,

intellectual stimulation. Usually more limited in operational hours

  • School child care –provided by some school districts. Usually

aimed at disadvantaged kids. More focus on intellectual development

  • The Effectiveness of Child Care
    • Advantages: increases in verbal fluency, memory and comprehension advantages, higher IQ scores, social advances
    • Disadvantages: less polite/ complaint, less respectful of adults,

may be more competitive/ aggressive

  • The Quality of Child Care

Characteristics of high­quality child­care: well­trained providers, overall size of group; child­care provider to child ratio. Curriculum planned out in advance. Lots of conversations between caregivers and kids. Basic health and safety standards. US lags behind more industrialized countries in quality/quantity/affordability of childcare

  • Preparing Preschoolers for Academic Pursuits: Does Head Start Truly Provide a Head Start?
  • In the United States, the best­known program designed to promote future academic success is Head Start. Started in 1960’s as part of “war on poverty”. “Whole Child”­ physical health, self­confidence, social responsibility, social/emotional development.

Graduates of Head Start programs tend to:

  • show immediate IQ gains (don’t last)
  • be better prepared for future schooling
  • have better future school adjustment
  • less likely to be enrolled in special ­ed classes or be held back in 1st grade
  • higher academic performance at end of high school (modest) Critics­ other programs are more cost effective

 

  • Are We Pushing Children Too Hard and Too Fast?

David Elkind argues that U.S. society tends to push children so rapidly that they begin to feel stress and pressure at a young age.  Standardized tests are being implemented at earlier and earlier grades. Better to encourage learning, not push it

Children require developmentally appropriate educational practice – based on both typical development and unique characteristics of a given child