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Please, checkout the uploaded file below, where you will find information and instructions. psych_140_module_4.docx psy_140___mod_4___questions_problem_set_1__2__and_3.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview PSYCH 140 – Module 4 Page 1 Physical Development in Early Childhood Early childhood is a transition period as children develop an amazing array of new skills and yet retain childish behaviors that are very unique to this stage of life! Early childhood is generally considered to include the toddler/preschool years up until approximately ages 6 or 7. As we will continue to do throughout this course, we will discuss physical, cognitive, and socioemotional aspects of development during this time period. Watch the video below as you study the material in this module. The video covers both physical as well as cognitive development, so you may want to a) Listen to the physical development portion first, b) Read the rest of the physical development material, c) Watch the rest of the video, & d) Start the cognitive development section. I have tried to upload the abobe video, but it cannot upload because it too heavy. I upload it in: kay0123…. So, if you have any other moderate way to see it let me know we can go to that process. Important gross motor skills that are normally accomplished in early childhood include throwing a ball, hopping, catching a ball, running, and kicking a ball. Examples of fine motor skills usually accomplished at this time include cutting paper, pasting, pouring, building blocks, lacing, cutting along a line, printing a name, tracing, and coloring. However, just as in infancy, there are wide ranges of what is typical motor development. Each child develops differently, and there is usually no cause for concern unless a child is substantially behind the recommended ranges.Below are some general ranges for gross-and fine-motor skills in early childhood. As you can see, there is overlap in the age guidelines, which points to the continuous nature of motor development. Age Gross Motor Fine Motor 2-3 years Can jump. Can throw and catch a ball, although the upper body remains rigid. Can zip and unzip. Can use a spoon. Can walk upstairs, alternating feet on each step. Can walk downstairs leading with one 3-4 years foot. Can throw and catch a ball,although Can use child scissors. Can fasten and unfasten large buttons. catching usually involves trapping the ball against the chest. 4-5 years Can walk upstairs and downstairs, alternating feet. Can catch a ball with hands. 5-6 years Can skip. Can ride a bicycle with training Can tie shoes. Can copy some numbers and wheels. basic words. Can use a fork well. Can cut on a line using scissors. Other physical changes include the types of brain development mentioned in Module 3. A primary type of neural growth during early childhood is the further development of connections between neurons. These connections take place at the synapse, or space between neurons. However, additional brain development occurs in early childhood. First, myelination begins. This is when some neurons become insulated with a layer of fat. This fat layer essentially serves as lubrication to speed up messages being relayed among neurons. This process takes many years, and has a direct impact on the thinking process of young children. Simultaneously, synaptic pruning begins to occur. As you learned in Module 2, this occurs when under-utilized synaptic connections between neurons die away while important ones become strengthened. This process continues throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, resulting in a more efficient adult brain. Page 2 Problem Set 1 1. What is the difference between gross motor and fine motor skills? Give two examples of each. #1_Ans: 2. Describe myelination. How does it affect the way that young children think? #2_Ans: 3. Describe synaptic pruning. What does this imply for the differences between how children think versus how adults think? #3_Ans: Page 3 Cognitive Development A. Piaget’s Cognitive Theory In Module 3, we learned about the first stage of Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory. You may want to review the Sensorimotor stage so that you can observe how the next stage builds upon it. The second stage of this theory is the Preoperational stage. “Operations” are mental activities, such as adding and subtracting. If you recall, the final substage of the Sensorimotor stage involved infants being able to make mental representations. Thus, during the Preoperational stage, young children will continue to hone this ability. According to Piaget, the Preoperational stage takes place between the ages of 2 and 7. It is termed, pre-operational because children at this age aren’t fully internalizing their actions, according to Piaget. Essentially, Piaget saw this stage as being very flawed and yet crucial to future development. Stop and Think. Do you have any experience around young children? If so, you might be able to think of ways in which they make errors in thinking. However, consider how those errors are really advances over thought patterns in infancy. How might errors in thinking lead to more sophisticated thoughts? We have only two substages to learn in the Preoperational stage: Symbolic Function and Intuitive Thought. The Symbolic Function substage (ages 2-4) continues the skills begun with the establishment of object permanence. That is, children continue to develop in their abilities to mentally represent objects that are not right in front of them. They are working toward abstract thought, but are not quite there yet, according to Piaget. Egocentrism. Perhaps you’ve observed that young children can be rather selfish (I’ve heard one adult describe young children as “tyrannical dictators”!), but “egocentrism” as Piaget uses the term does not refer to selfishness. It instead refers to a problem with taking another person’s perspective or point of view. Piaget classically illustrated this through the Three Mountains Task. Please click on this link, read the material, and watch the video to learn more about the preoperational stage and egocentrism. To summarize, it is evident that children are not born with the ability to take another’s perspective. However, Piaget may have again been overly pessimistic about children’s ability to show this skill at younger ages. Due to Piaget’s difficult procedure, he may have missed examples of perspectivetaking that can occur if young children have a better understanding of the task at hand. Animism. This term typically applies to the religious belief that natural phenomena such as mountains and constellations are spiritual beings of some sort. However, Piaget used the term to refer to a child’s belief that inanimate objects can have humanlike qualities, such as feelings. Essentially, the lines between reality and imagination are blurred in early childhood. Children at this age are prone to believe in magical thoughts. Compared with older children, they are also less likely to think logically, and more likely to think intuitively. This brings us to the second substage, which is the Intuitive Thought substage. Between ages 4 and 7, according to Piaget, children start to develop reasoning ability. Part of this process includes the desire to know answers to many, many….many questions! However, young children are prevented from engaging in highly rational thought because of this feature: centration. Centration involves focusing all attention on one feature of an object. In doing so, the young child may miss the “big picture” as well as any other feature of the object. An example of centration is a young child’s difficulty with conservation. Conservation, in this context, refers to the understanding that the physical properties of substances or objects do not change if merely the appearance is altered. Just because an object looks different doesn’t mean it’s substantially changed. Piaget famously tested conservation using beakers filled with liquid (to test conservation of liquid). Conservation of matter can be tested by forming two balls with equal amounts of clay. If one of the balls of clay was flattened, then the two objects look different: However, no clay was taken away from the first ball—it was simply flattened. If the researcher asks a Preoperational child, “Which ball has more?”, he might get some interesting responses. Often, the child says, “The first one has more because it is longer.” Thus, the child did not conserve matter; he fails to understand that there cannot possibly be more matter in the first ball because nothing was added to it or removed from the second one. Piaget concluded that the reason why young children have difficulty conserving matter is that they are too focused on one feature: the height of the ball, for example. Thus, centration prevents conservation. Today, three features of Piaget’s theory now influence how teachers are trained to work with young children. It is important to note that these features are not universally accepted in early childhood education. The purpose of mentioning these features, then, is to simply show how theory affects practice. 1. Since children’s abilities naturally unfold, teachers should be aware of a child’s readiness to learn. It may be detrimental for teachers to try to rush acquisition of a skill if the child is not ready. 2. Learning through exploring the environment, or discovery learning, is an ideal learning model. 3. It is important to recognize individual differences in learning. Rather than comparing a child’s progress to national norms, a Piagetian model would instead compare a child’s current progress to previous development. B. Vygotsky and Cognitive/Social Development Another theorist who has greatly impacted both eastern and western early childhood educational models Lev Vygotsky. As with Piaget’s theory, a detailed discussion of Vygotsky’s theory is beyond the scope of this module. This module, then, will simply present some key concepts. While Piaget approached development from a biological/maturational perspective, Vygotsky instead emphasized that cognitive development always occurs in a social context. You will see, then, how his concepts incorporate social interaction. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the gap between what children can accomplish alone and what they can do if guided by an expert. Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky did not focus on independent learning and instead considered what learning could be accomplished collaboratively with others. To achieve more skill and competence, scaffolding can be used. Scaffolding involves the teacher/expert to offer changing levels of support as the child’s competence increases. That is, early on, the adult may guide a student at every step of the way. Later on, however, the teacher doesn’t need to offer much support since the student can now do much of the task on her own. Page 4 Problem Set 2 1. Type out the two substages of Piaget’s Preoperational stage, and describe in detail key features of each substage. #1_Ans: 2. Compare and contrast Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s approaches to cognitive development. #2_Ans: 3. Define “zone of proximal development” and “scaffolding.” #3_Ans: Page 5 Socioemotional Development in Early Childhood In this section, we will explore two topics that pertain to socioemotional development: a) gender and b) parenting styles. A. Gender Gender refers to the social dimensions of being male or female (one’s sex refers to biological dimensions). During early childhood, young children accumulate information about what girls are like and boys are like. Both biological and social influences play integral roles in gender development. This is an enormous topic for which you can access additional sources, if you’re interested. For our purposes, however, let’s summarize some key influences. 1. Biological influences. The 23rd pair of chromosomes determines how our sex, and sex hormones (estrogens, androgens) influence the development of sex characteristics. Differences in brain structure and function are being noted in neuroscience research. 2. Social Influences. From birth, others may treat girls and boys differently. This can occur accidentally such as by being more protective of toddler girls and more accepting and even encouraging of rough behavior from boys. 3. Cognitive influences. Children obtain knowledge from the world about gender and incorporate this into their own understanding. They may choose to imitate stereotypical gender behaviors. Gender Schema Theory states that children have a desire to conform to societal standards and therefore may tune their attention and behavior to act in ways in keeping with their respective gender. However, gender is another prime example of a genotype-environment interaction. Most current research in psychology emphasizes both environmental and biological contributions to gender; biological and social influences affect each other in ways that researchers are just beginning to discover. Early childhood is an important time for developing an understanding about gender. During this time, children develop Gender Constancy, which is the knowledge that one’s sex remains the same even if outward appearance changes (that is, excepting sexual reassignment surgery). Therefore, gender constancy is similar to the Piagetian idea of conservation. Prior to developing gender constancy, a toddler might think that a woman can turn into a man if she cuts her hair short! As you can see, a young child’s understanding of gender involves experiencing the world and obtaining more information for their schema for gender. Research in early childhood notes that it is very common for young children to engage in gender stereotyping. As young children develop knowledge about gender, they may take this information to the extreme. Therefore, they may say that only women can cook and that girls must wear dresses, or that boys are rough and always play with trucks. These beliefs may occur despite parents’ and teachers’ efforts to dispel stereotypes. However, these beliefs are (hopefully) a stepping stone for children who are, again, just trying to figure out what these different categories are. Please read the following article on gender stereotypes and toys in early childhood: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/28/toys-kids-girls-boys-childhooddevelopment-gender-research. While public discourse is often very divided on childrens gender socialization in early childhood, one thing that parents and teachers often agree upon is how to find ways to help promote childrens optimal cognitive development, and the issue of what toys are accessible (and permissible) for children to play with has a direct impact on this type of development. B. Parenting Styles Research has long explored the influence that parents have on children, and a wide variety of parenting behaviors can be observed. The general behavioral patterns that parents may show are their parenting styles. Diana Baumrind (1971) developed an extremely influential categorization of parenting styles. While many parents might not fit precisely within these categories, they serve as general patterns of behavior. Important dimensions to be considered are how responsive (appropriately affectionate, communicative, and responsive to children) and demanding (setting limits, discipline) the parents are. Parenting Style Level of Responsiveness Level of Demandingness Authoritarian Low High Authoritative High High Permissive High Low Neglectful Low Low Although they sound similar, Authoritarian and Authoritative parenting differ greatly. Authoritarian parents are more removed from their children; they set a firm boundary between the parenting and child roles. They set the rules and expect them to be followed without question. Authoritative parents, in contrast, are considered to be the ideal type of parents according to Baumrind and subsequent researchers. These parents balance high levels of communication and affection with appropriate limits on children’s behavior. Much research indicates that children growing up in these types of household have the best likelihood of developing strong social skills. Permissive parents are very indulgent and do not set limits on their children. This may result in children who do not develop self-control. Neglectful parents are largely removed from their children’s lives. Parenting in this category can cross the line into child maltreatment since neglect is a form of child abuse. That line is crossed if the parent repeatedly fails to supervise the child or fails to provide the essentials of life. Child abuse, incidentally, most typically occurs with children under the age of seven, and the majority of children who die from child abuse are under the age of three. Page 6 Problem Set 3 1. Define Gender Schema Theory, Gender Constancy, and Gender Stereotype. #1_Ans: 2. Identify and describe each of the parenting styles. Try to use your own words as much as possible. In addition, come up with an example of each. #2_Ans: Page 7 Answers to Problem Sets Problem Set 1 1. Gross motor refers to large muscle development, while fine motor skills require dexterity. Therefore, skills that require arm and leg strength, such as throwing, kicking, and running are gross motor skills. However, skills requiring minute movements to be made with the hands are fine motor skills. For example, writing, coloring, and cutting paper. 2. Myelination is when some neurons become insulated with a layer of fat. This fat layer speeds messages being relayed among neurons and therefore enhances processing speed. 3. Synaptic pruning is when under-utilized synaptic connections between neurons die away while important ones become strengthened. Adult brains that have gone through much of this process are essentially more efficient than children’s brains. However, they may also be less plastic, or changeable. For example, it may be harder to learn new things and do adapt quickly. Problem Set 2 1. During the Symbolic Function substage (ages 2-4) children continue to develop in their abilities to mentally represent objects that are not right in front of them. Limitations or errors in thinking that occur in this substage include Egocentrism and Animism. Egocentrism refers to a problem with taking another person’s perspective or point of view. Animism refers to a child’s belief that inanimate objects can have lifelike qualities. In the Intuitive Thought substage, children start to develop reasoning ability. However, young children are prevented from engaging in highly rational thought because of centration. Centration involves focusing all attention on one feature of an object. In doing so, the young child may miss the “big picture” as well as any other feature of the object. Centration may also result in a child’s difficulty with conservation. Conservation involves understanding that the physical properties of substances or objects do not change if merely the appearance is altered. 2. Piaget approached cognitive development from a biological/maturational standpoint. That is, he believed that abilities naturally unfolded at certain ages. Vygotsky, on the other hand, approached cognitive development from a sociocultural standpoint and emphasized collaborative learning. 3. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the gap between what children can accomplish alone and what they can do if guided by an expert. Scaffolding involves the teacher/expert to offer changing levels of support as the child’s competence increases. Problem Set 3 1. Gender Schema Theory states that children have a desire to conform to societal standards and therefore may tune their attention and behavior to act in ways in keeping with their respective gender. Gender Constancy is the knowledge that one’s sex remains the same even if outward appearance changes. A Gender Stereotype is a set belief about the expected behaviors of males and females. 2. Authoritarian parents ar ... Purchase answer to see full attachment