Developmental Psychology CML

Chapter 4: Early Childhood b. 4-Year-Olds

• Have more effective control of stopping.
Physical and Cognitive Development starting, and turning
• In early childhood, children slim down and • Can jump a distance of 24 to 33 inches
shoot up. • Can descend a long stairway alternating feet
• They need less sleep than before and are more if supported
likely to develop sleep problems. • Can hop four to six steps on one foot
• They improve in running, hopping, skipping, c. 5-Year-Olds
jumping, and throwing balls. • Can start, turn, and stop effectively in games
• They also become better at tying shoelaces, • Can make a running jump of 28 to 36 inches
drawing with crayons, and pouring cereal; and • Can descend a long stairway unaided,
they begin to show a preference for using either alternating feet
the right or left hand. • Can easily hop a distance of 16 feet
• Children grow rapidly between ages 3 and 6, but
less quickly than before. Sleeping Patterns
• At about 3, children normally begin to lose their • In most cases sleep disturbances are only
babyish roundness and take on the slender, occasional and usually are outgrown
athletic appearance of childhood. • Persistent sleep problems may indicate an
• As abdominal muscles develop, the toddler emotional, physiological, or neurological
potbelly tightens. The trunk, arms, and legs condition that needs to be examined.
grow longer. • A child who experiences a sleep (or night)
• The head is still relatively large, but the other terror appears to awaken abruptly early in the
parts of the body continue to catch up as body night from a deep sleep in a state of agitation.
proportions steadily become more adultlike. The child may scream and sit up in bed,
• Muscular and skeletal growth progresses, breathing rapidly and staring or thrashing about.
making children stronger. Yet he is not really awake, quiets down quickly,
• Cartilage turns to bone at a faster rate than and the next morning remembers nothing about
before, and bones become harder, giving the the episode
child a firmer shape and protecting the internal • Walking and, especially, talking during sleep are
organs. fairly typical in early childhood. Although
• These changes, coordinated by the still- sleepwalking itself is harmless, sleepwalkers
maturing brain and nervous system, promote may be in danger of hurting themselves. Still, it
the development of a wide range of motor skills. is best not to interrupt sleepwalking or night
• The increased capacities of the respiratory and terrors, as interruptions may confuse and
circulatory systems build physical stamina and, further frighten the child
along with the developing immune system, keep • Nightmares are also common. They are often
children healthier. brought on by staying up too late, eating a
heavy meal close to bedtime, or
Gross Motor Skills in Early Childhood overexcitement, perhaps from watching an
a. 3-Year-Olds overstimulating television program, seeing a
• Cannot turn or stop suddenly or quickly terrifying movie, or hearing a frightening
• Can jump a distance of 15 to 24 inches bedtime story. An occasional bad dream is no
• Can ascend a stairway unaided, alternating cause for alarm, but frequent or persistent
feet nightmares may signal excessive stress.
• Can hop, using largely an irregular series oi • Most children stay dry, day and night, by ages 3
jumps with some variations added to 5; but enuresis —repeated, involuntary
urination at night by children old enough to be
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expected to have bladder control—is not Cognitive Advances during Early Childhood
unusual 1. Use of Symbols
- About 10 to 15 percent of 5-year-olds, Significance:
more commonly boys, wet the bed - Children do not need to be in
regularly, perhaps while sleeping sensorimotor contact with an object,
deeply. More than half outgrow the person, or event in order to think about
condition by age 8 without special help it.
Example:
Brain Development - Simon asks his mother about the
• Brain development during early childhood is less elephants they saw on their trip to the
dramatic than during infancy, but a brain growth circus several months earlier.
spurt continues until at least age 3, when the - Rolf pretends that a slice of apple is a
brain is approximately 90 percent of adult vacuum cleaner "vrooming" across the
weight kitchen table
• By age 6, the brain has attained about 95 2. Understanding of identities
percent of its peak volume. Significance:
• However, wide individual differences exist. Two - Children can imagine that objects or
healthy, normally functioning children of the people have properties other than
same age could have as much as a 50 percent those they actually have
difference in brain volume Example:
• From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid growth occurs - Antonio knows that his teacher is
in the frontal areas that regulate the planning dressed up as a pirate but is still his
and organizing of actions. teacher underneath the costume
• From ages 6 to 11, the most rapid growth is in
an area that primarily supports associative 3. Understanding of cause and effect
thinking, language, and spatial relations Significance:
- Children are aware that superficial
Motor Skills alterations do not change the nature of
• Development of the sensory and motor areas of things
the cerebral cortex permits better coordination Example:
between what children want to do and what - Seeing a ball roll from behind a wall,
they can do. Aneko looks behind the wall for the
• Handedness - preference for using a particular person who kicked the ball
hand; usually evident by about age 3 4. Ability to classify
o Because the left hemisphere of the Significance:
brain, which controls the right side of - Children realize that events have causes
the body, is usually dominant, most You sent Children organize objects,
people favor their right side. people, and events into meaningful
o In people whose brains are more categories
functionally symmetrical, the right Example:
hemisphere tends to dominate, making - Rosa sorts the pinecones she collected
them left-handed. on a nature walk into two pile: "big" and
o Handedness is not always clear-cut; not "little"
everybody prefers one hand for every 5. Understanding of number
task. Boys are more likely to be left- Significance:
handed than are girls. - Children can count and deal with
quantities
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Example: • Transduction - Piaget’s term for a

- Lindsay shares some cady with her preoperational child’s tendency to mentally link
friends, counting to make sure that each particular phenomena, whether or not there is
girl gets the same amount logically a causal relationship
6. Empathy o For example, Luis may think that his
Significance: “bad” thoughts or behavior caused his
- Children become more able to imagine own or his sister’s illness or his parents’
how others might feel divorce
Example: • Animisim – the tendency to attribute life to
- Emilio tries to comfort his friend when objects that are not alive
he sees that his friend is upset. • The world becomes more orderly and
7. Theory of Mind predictable as preschool children develop a
Significance: better understanding of identities: the concept
- Children become more aware of mental that people and many things are basically the
activity and the functioning of the mind same even if they change in form, size, or
Example: appearance.
- Bianca wants to save some cookies for
herself, so she hides them from her
brother in a pasta box. She knows her
cookies will be safe there because her
brother will not look in a place where
he doesn't expect to find cookies.

Cognitive Development
• Preoperational stage of cognitive development -
children this age is not yet ready to engage in
logical mental operations; lasts from
approximately ages 2 to 7, is characterized by a
great expansion in the use of symbolic thought, • Theory of Mind – Awareness and
or representational ability, which first emerged understanding of own mental processes and
during the sensorimotor stage those of others
• Between ages 3 and 5, children come to
Advances of Preoperational Thought understand that thinking goes on inside the
• Advances in symbolic thought are accompanied mind; that it can deal with either real or
by a growing understanding of space, causality, imaginary things; that someone can be
identities, categorization, and number. thinking of one thing while doing or looking
• Symbolic Function – the ability to use mental at something else; that a person whose eyes
representations (words, numbers, or images) to and ears are covered can think about
which a child has attached meaning objects; that someone who looks pensive is
o Example: “I want ice cream” even if the probably thinking; and that thinking is
child did not see ice cream at that different from seeing, talking, touching, and
moment knowing
• Deferred imitation – based on mental
representation of a previously obvious event; Memory Development
robust after 18 months • During early childhood, children improve in
• Present play – play involving imaginary people attention and in the speed and efficiency with
and situations which they process information; and they begin
to form long-lasting memories.
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• Still, young children do not remember as well as 2. Episode memory – long-term memory of
older ones. For one thing, young children tend specific experiences or events, linked to
to focus on exact details of an event, which are time and place; episodic memory is
easily forgotten, whereas older children and temporary and children remember clearly
adults generally concentrate on the gist of what events that are new to them
happened. 3. Autobiographical memory – memory of
• Also, young children, because of their lesser specific events in one’s life; a type of
knowledge of the world, may fail to notice episodic memory, not everything in episodic
important aspects of a situation, such as when memory becomes part of autobiographical
and where it occurred, which could help jog memory—only those memories that have a
their memory. special, personal meaning to the child

Three steps of memory filing system Language development

1. Encoding – information is prepared for long- • At age 3 the average child knows and can use
term storage and later retrieval 900 to 1,000 words.
2. Storage – retention of information in memory • By age 6, a child typically has an expressive
for future use (speaking) vocabulary of 2,600 words and
3. Retrieval – information is accessed or recalled understands more than 20,000 (Owens, 1996).
from memory storage • With the help of formal schooling, a child’s
a. Recognition – ability to identify previously passive, or receptive, vocabulary (words she can
encountered stimulus understand) will quadruple to 80,000 words by
b. Recall – ability to produce material from the time she enters high school
memory o Fast mapping – process by which a child
absorbs the meaning of a new word
Three storehouses of the brain after hearing it once or twice in a
1. Sensory memory – initial, brief, temporary conversation
storage of sensory information • As children learn vocabulary, grammar, and
2. Working memory/short-term memory – short- syntax, they become more competent in
term storage information being actively pragmatics—the practical knowledge of how to
processed use language to communicate.
3. Long-term memory – storage of virtually o This includes knowing how to ask for
unlimited capacity that holds information for things, how to tell a story or joke, how
long periods to begin and continue a conversation,
and how to adjust comments to the
Forming and retaining childhood memories listener’s perspective.
• Memory of experiences in early childhood is o These are all aspects of social speech:
rarely deliberate: Young children simply speech intended to be understood by a
remember events that made a strong listener.
impression • Private speech – talking aloud to oneself with
• Three types of childhood memories: no intent to communicate with others
1. Generic Memory – memory that produces • Emergent literacy – preschoolers’ development
scripts of familiar routines to guide of skills, knowledge, and attitudes, that underlie
behavior; begins at about age 2 reading and writing
a. Script – produced by generic o Social interaction is an important factor
memory; general remembered in literacy development
outline of a familiar, repeated o Children are more likely to become
event, used to guide behavior good readers and writers if, during the
preschool years, parents provide
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conversational challenges the children Understanding conflicting emotions

are ready for—if they use a rich • younger children’s confusion about their
vocabulary and center dinner-table talk feelings is that they do not understand that they
on the day’s activities, on mutually can experience contrary emotional reactions at
remembered past events, or on the same time.
questions about why people do things • Emotions directed toward the self, such as guilt,
and how things work shame, and pride, typically develop by the end
of the third year, after children gain self-
Psychosocial Development awareness and accept the standards of behavior
The Developing Self their parents have set. However, even children a
• Self-concept – sense of self, descriptive and few years older often lack the cognitive
evaluative mental picture of one’s abilities and sophistication to recognize these emotions and
traits; It is “a cognitive construction . . . a system what brings them on
of descriptive and evaluative representations
about the self,” that determines how we feel Gender identity
about ourselves and guides our actions • Awareness of one’s femaleness or maleness and
• Self-definition – cluster of characteristics used all it implies in one’s society of origin
to describe oneself; typically changes between • Gender differences – psychological or
about ages 5 and 7 behavioral differences between males and
o Single representations – neo-Piagetian females
term, first stage in development of self- • Gender roles – behaviors, interest, attitudes,
definition in which children describe skills, and traits that a culture considers
themselves in terms of individuals appropriate for each sex; differ for males and
unconnected characteristics and in all- females
or-nothing terms • Gender-typing – socialization process whereby
▪ His statements about himself children, at an early age, learn appropriate
are one-dimensional (“I like gender roles; acquisition of gender roles
pizza. . . . I’m really strong”). • Gender Stereotypes – preconceived
▪ His thinking jumps from generalizations about male or female role
particular to particular, without behavior
logical connections.
▪ At this stage he cannot imagine
having two emotions at once
(“You can’t be happy and
scared”) because he cannot
consider different aspects of
himself at the same time.
• Representational mappings – second neo-
Piagetian development of self-definition in
which a child makes logical connections
between aspects of the self but still sees these
characteristics in all-or-nothing terms.
Play: The Business of Early Childhood
• Self-esteem – the judgement a person makes
• Play is important to healthy development of
about their self-worth; based on children’s
body and brain.
growing cognitive ability to describe and define
• It enables children to engage with the world
themselves
around them; to use their imagination; to
discover flexible ways to use objects and solve
problems; and to prepare for adult roles.
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• Through play, children stimulate the senses, 3. Inductive techniques - Disciplinary techniques
exercise their muscles, coordinate sight with designed to induce desirable behavior by
movement, gain mastery over their bodies, appealing to a child’s sense of reason and
make decisions, and acquire new skills. fairness.
4. Power Assertion - Disciplinary strategy designed
Cognitive levels of play to discourage undesirable behavior through
1. Functional Play/Locomotor play – play involving physical or verbal enforcement of parental
repetitive large muscular movements control.
2. Constructive play/Object play – use of objects 5. Withdrawal of Love - Disciplinary strategy that
or materials to make something involves ignoring, isolating, or showing dislike
3. Dramatic play/Pretend play/fantasy for a child.
play/imaginative play – involves imaginary
people or situations; peaks during preschool Parenting Styles
and declines as school-age children become 1. Authoritarian parenting
more involved in formal games with rules • according to Baumrind, emphasizes
control and unquestioning obedience.
• Dramatic play involves a combination of • Authoritarian parents try to make
cognition, emotion, language, and sensorimotor children conform to a set standard of
behavior. It may strengthen the development of conduct and punish them arbitrarily and
dense connections in the brain and strengthen forcefully for violating it
the later capacity for abstract thought • They are more detached and less warm
than other parents.
• Their children tend to be more
discontented, withdrawn, and
distrustful.

2. Permissive parenting
• emphasizes self-expression and self-
regulation.
• Permissive parents make few demands and
allow children to monitor their own
activities as much as possible.
• When they do have to make rules, they
explain the reasons for them.
• They consult with children about policy
decisions and rarely punish.
• They are warm, noncontrolling, and
undemanding.
Parenting • Their preschool children tend to be
1. Reward and punishment - using reward and immature—the least self-controlled and the
punishment to discipline and change the child’s least exploratory
behavior
2. Corporal punishment – use of physical force 3. Authoritative parenting
with the intention of causing pain but not injury • emphasizes a child’s individuality but also
so as to correct or control behavior stresses social constraints.
→ Psychological aggression – verbal attacks on • Authoritative parents have confidence in
a child by a parent that may result in their ability to guide children, but they also
psychological harm
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respect children’s independent decisions,

interests, opinions, and personalities.
• They are loving and accepting but also
demand good behavior and are firm in
maintaining standards.
• They impose limited, judicious punishment,
when necessary, within the context of a
warm, supportive relationship
• They favor inductive discipline, explaining
the reasoning behind their stands and
encouraging verbal give-and-take.
• Their children apparently feel secure in
knowing both that they are loved and what
is expected of them.
• Preschoolers with authoritative parents
tend to be the most self-reliant, self-
controlled, self-assertive, exploratory, and
content

Relationships with other children

• Most sibling interactions are positive. Older
siblings tend to initiate activities, and younger
siblings to imitate. Same-sex siblings, especially
girls, get along best.
• Siblings tend to resolve disputes on the basis of
moral principles.
• The kind of relationship children have with
siblings often carries over into other peer
relationships.
• Only children seem to develop at least as well as
children with siblings.
• Preschoolers choose playmates and friends who
are like them and with whom they have positive
experiences.
• Aggressive children are less popular than
prosocial children.