How do height, weight, and body composition change in early childhood? (hint: and how do these changes compare to changes in the first year of life?)

Gains in height/weight slow relative to
infancy
Body fat %
¤ Peaks ~9 months
BMI: Birth to 18 years

Body fat %
¤ Decreases until ~5
years

How do rates of synaptic pruning vary across different lobes?

Synaptic pruning, especially in frontal lobe

Occipital lobe - seeing hearing (visual cortex auditory cortex
Temporal lobe- receptive language areas speech production (angular gyrus/brocas area)
Frontal lobe- Higer cognitive functions

The cerebellum plays a vital role
in

B. balance and motor control memory

Hippocampus

memory

Brain lateralization

¤ Hemispheres specialize for cognitive function
¤ Left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side
of the body
¤ Right hemisphere of the brain controls the left half
of the body

¤ Language is typically left-lateralized
¤ Spatial skills are typically right-lateralized

Different rates of development between right
and left hemispheres

Left: peaks at 3-6 years
¤ Right: more gradual throughout childhood
¤ Why?

Broca -front

wemicke- back

Language comprehension

¨ Precedes
production
¨ Supported by
¤ Infant-directed
speech
(i.e., parentese)
n High-pitched
n Exaggerated
expression
n Clear pronunciation
n Distinct pauses

Basics of Language Development

Children learn language without explicitly
being taught.
¨ All typically developing children learn a
language successfully through normal
exposure.
¨ Experience Expectant Learning – acquired
during a sensitive period…
nAge 0 – 6 years for language acquisition.
nChildren learn very rapidly during this
time

leaning grammatical structures

¨ Grammar is…
¤ Rules for building words
n Endings like /s/ for plurals
¤ Rules for building sentences
n Word order matters
n Sally hit Arnold vs. Arnold hit Sally vs.
Did Sally hit Arnold?
¨ These are two distinct rule systems,
both acquired around 2 years of age,
with prolonged development into later
childhood

nutrition

¨ Picky Eating
¤ Increases during early childhood
¤ Based on what you have learned in class, how
might you encourage a child to eat more/new
foods?

Tips for picky eaters!
¤ Increase exposure to healthy foods
¤ Avoid offering bribes
n Causes greater interest in treat and dislike of healthy food
¤ Get the children involved

childhood injuries

Unintention
al injury is
leading
cause of
death
between 1
and 44 years
of age

¨ Children need supervision. They do not
internalize many safety rules until they are
older

motor development

Gross motor development
¤ Balance
¤ Coordination

¨ Fine motor development

puzzles, writing, tying shoes

Corpus callosum

connecting the left and right
hemisphere

Which of the following is NOT true of physical
development during early childhood?

Children gain weight faster than they did
in infancy

or Children gain height at a slower rate
than they did in infancy

what is Recall

Generate information solely from memory
¤ Name as many states as you can

what you have in your brain

what is ¨ Recognition

Decide whether provided
information is correct
¤ Which of the following is not a state?
n South Carolina
n South Dakota
n West Virginia
n North Minnesota

early childhood, about 6 or 7 years old

Children do much better on recognition than recall

kids are going to rigorize much better then they recall, so recognition tasks are easier for children

memory strategies

What are memory strategies and how do they change in early childhood?

Strategies: mental activities used to improve
memory
¨ Children increase their use of memory
strategies in early childhood

over time we have to increase the amount we use strategies because the older the more in deft and cognitive tasks the more information we take in. a lot of information in once is hard to process.

Scripts

Define “scripts” and give an example of when a child might use a script.

Scripts: knowledge for how events typically
occur (including the order)
¤ Usually beneficial but can lead to memory errors

these are knowledge bases how events occurs. this refers to our routes our understating of what comes after of one another. this helps us remember of what to do.

when you wake up in the morning, you might have a certain orders you need to do things, job in the bed, take a shower...

sometimes these scripts can lead to memory error. if you gone trough not thinking though the order of events that you expected to do in the morning, maybe you will forget one step.

we can trip people up when we add in to the false or mess information trough that script.

Dr. Jones shows a group of 4-year-olds a set of 10 items
on a tray. She then mixes them up with some
unfamiliar items and asks the children to point to the
ones in the original set. Dr. Jones is testing

Recognition

this is because children's are being asked what they are seeing before and what they are seeing now

Metacognition

higher order cognitive process that helps us understand our own knowledge bases and the way of how we think as well as other people knowledge bases of how they think.

Introspection

thanking about our own thoughts

though there own life or event

this can be harmful if is rumination faced

rumination means if you are thinking about it over and over again

Theory of mind

thinking about other people's thoughts and beliefs

we are social nacully beans we want to interact with other people and part of interaction is understanding were we come from and also understanding were someone else comes from. at least in terms of there thoughts process.

Why/how do false belief tasks assess theory of mind?

An understanding of how the mind works and how it
influences behavior.
n Key component: understanding others’ minds
¤ That other people have thoughts…
n …that can be different from your thoughts…
n …and even different from reality!

¨ How can we test that children understand
that other people’s beliefs can be different
from their own and reality?
¨ False beliefs
¤ Content tasks
¤ Location tasks

this is the understanding of how the minds works and how it influxes behaver. the key compensate of this is understating peoples thoughts. this is awareness of other people think differently then us. this is not mind reading.

Eco sensorium

Egocentrism

jumpers tide are notorisly ecosenric. they are focused on there own point of veiw so there own introspected thinking about there own thoughts then thinking about others peoples brains

can these belifs be diffrent from the childs belifes. and can these diffrence be diffrent from reality

Children have difficulty understanding the world
from another’s viewpoint

kids have difficulty to understand the word from any viewpoint except from there own. and this is not at there fuit they are just thinking right now.

a coversation between a two and 5 years old is a little messy we got alot of stimis conversation as once and they are not tracing togther each other.

and alot of times kids are going to apply there likes and there prefrances on to you.

for example you might say hey what do you think i might like for chriemass. the kids might say you might what to watch a movie because i would like that too. this. is normal

False beliefs

siantice used two tasks to get children's thinking

Content tasks
¤ Location tasks

young kids are not good about thinking about other people older kids are. so when does that shift

Content tasks
¤ Location tasks

false belief content task

¨ Crayon box-Crackers Task

we would show a kid a crayon box and ask them what is in this box. the kid is properly gonna say crayons. but lets say we open the box and say that it has crackers. now the information changes for that child, now there beliefs has changed to a concrete knowledge to actually what is in the box . so now we are going to ask them so what is in the box, now they are going to say crackers are in the box. you may also want to ask them will what is initially think is in the box. younger kinds are not good at thinking backwards this way. they are going to say oh i thought there was crackers in there ,the whole time. older kids are doing to recognize oh i had this idea that crayons are going to be in the crayon box. But then that idea changed because i saw new information. so that is testing the conceptual understanding of the task.

False Belief location task

sally-Anna task

we have two actors and we have two locations. location A is the basket location B is the box. sally has a ball and puts it in the basket and walks away. while she is gone the second actor or anne moves the ball from the basket and pleases it in the box. so there is a change of location sally does not know about. when we think about the theory of mind of kids we asked them, were will sally look for the ball? but young kids are applying there own knowledge projecting it on to sally she would look in the box actually i know that it is in the box and sally also knows that it is in the box.

so when we are thinking about what is happing between 3 and 5. at 3 kids are not passing these false belifs tasks. they have diffulity thinking about other people mental state. but in five they are passing these note problems. so between 4 and 5 kids are eantering some sort of school invarment. they are interacting closly with other people, which states to make you think about what other people are thinking.
we are also seeing brain secrecy chaining as well. so this relates too some of the cognitive envirments that we are seeing rated to memory and portion of frontal lobe. so thinking about desition makeing.

Three-year-old Timmy is answering questions
about the Sally-Anne Task. Which is the most
likely about his answers?

A. He will understand that Sally can have
false beliefs
B. He will not understand that Sally can
have false beliefs
C. He will that Sally will look for the ball in
the place where it actually is

D. Both B & C

Stages of Piaget’s
Cognitive-Developmental Theory

preoperational

2-7 years

Preoperational Stage: What kids
can do

we are starting to get better at ¨ Mental representations. this can come from symbolism different experiences or television. alot of thing we are watching or lassoing too, they are starting to make there way into memory.

Symbolic representation: The big shift from the
sensorimotor stage

we are using symbols to describe ourselves into the real world. symbolic representation is the advisement from the sensory motor skill.

we are doing something with that information

we start to play and drew and be creative

Preoperational Stage: What develops

Symbolic
¨ Sociodramatic
play (enact
complex scenes
with others)

making up a world using our imagination or crate different fantasies

complex socializing with others

there all pretending to play and costumes, and there is scaffolds

as we get older we see more complex and we continue to play with others for Awelye. in the middle childhood we see complex recuse going on and is ful

¨ Dual representations

Children initially have
difficulty using objects
symbolically for multiple
purposes
¤ It is difficult for young
children to recognize an
object as both an object AND
a symbol
¤ In later years, symbolism is
part of everyday play and
interactions

¤ 2.5- and 3-year-olds were shown a model where
a Snoopy was hidden behind a couch
¤ Only the 3-year-olds were
able to find the Snoopy in the
real room

holding two things in mind at once. this aballty to theory in mind and it also aballys to object knowledge

for example a banana can be used at two symbols one time the banana can be used as food or another time the banana can be used as a phone . but as we progress symbolism is going to be very common strategy that we used to play and also to think about.

we can also think of it in terms of modeling. we show 2.5- and 3-year-olds a module of a root. it has chores, a dresser a rug and we have this tiney snoopy figure and place it behind the couch in this module. when we bring this children into an identical room the real size room that machines the modal , can they aplly what they saw in the modal and find snoopy in the real room. 2.5 years old cannot 3 years old can. it takes practice to understand that one thing represent another.

¨ Hierarchical classification

Children have difficulty grouping and ungrouping
items into categories

we also begain to learn to clasifuy things into diffrent groups

but what is a little treykey is understanding the larger unbrlise that these categores might call upon.

so if i asked you which has more blue flowers of red flowes. red flowers has more.

which has more red flowers or flawores. this will be flawors

if you ask the kids the same questions. if you give them snak options so if you ask wgich has more gold fish or gummes. games right. which has more gummes or snaked snakes right. kids are going to say gummes. and there going to make tis mistac and they are going to understand okay gooldfish and gummes both faLL INTO THE SNAK CATEGORY, but they often make a mistack, they focuse on the amount that it is infront of them

Conservation

Children have difficulty understanding that
changing the appearance does not change its
properties

this is the idea that inharet proberty should stay the same no matter the cusement.

for example mass in going to stay the same if you have two equal masses between two items. if you change the appearance of the item that does not mean that the mass adumaticlly changea, they stay the same. samething with numbers and liquides

¨ Why do they perform poorly?
¨ Centration
¨ Only focus on one feature

Why do they perform poorly?
¨ Irreversibility
¨ Unable to
think backwards
logically