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Why Childhood
Special Social Learning Tasks
We need to learn the
rules of our society.
We need to learn to
speak.
We need to understand
the intentions of others.
We need to absorb societies
knowledge base.
Slow Growing Frontal lobes
Growth of neural connections
and pruning of unused neurons occurs in the frontal lobes on a delayed timetable.
As the frontal lobe
matures, we mature from toddler to infant to adolescent.
Growth
Physical Development
Cephalocaudal growth
Growth occurs from top to bottom
Larger heads, squat bodies
Mass to specific growth
Mass movement precedes precise movement
Precision can be improved through training
In younger years - girls out perform boys
in precision (fine motor skills) but, boys out perform girls in power (gross motor skills).
Nutrition plays a major
role in this developmental period
Motor Skill Milestones
Growth Threats
Threats to Development and Health
Stress
can
lead to reduction in height
can
also bring on puberty faster
Inadequate protein intake
Stunting
less developed
muscles, bones, and brain tissue, compromises both gross and fine motor development, produces apathy.
Obesity
Childhood Obesity
BMI = ratio of one’s
weight to height; obesity is characterized as being at or above the 95th percentile of the norm in the NHANES poll
15% of children today
are obese
Two times as many obese
children in the U.S. since 1970s
Two times as many obese
children in England since 1990
Four times as many obese
children in Egypt since 1988
Socioeconomic factors:
Developed nations show overweight in low
income
Underdeveloped show it in upper incomes
Obesity rates in U.S. seen highest among
African American and Hispanic boys and girls
Childhood Obesity
Factors Influencing Obesity
Sedentary lifestyle
Air-conditioning
- less outside play
Oversized portions in
restaurants
Television
Parental obsession about
food
Eating fast, rather
than slow consumption
Childhood Obesity Experts
Self-esteem vs. Obesity
Self-esteem is more
associated with parental anxiety than actual body mass.
Diseases of Obesity
Type 2 diabetes and
high blood pressure are on the rise in our young.
Typically a disease of aging, related
to being heavy
High blood pressure
can lead to heart disease
Dealing With Childhood Obesity
Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
Preoperations (pre-ops)
are defined by an inability to step back and think – to perceive differently.
Preoperational stage begins at 2 years
of age.
They already have object permanence.
They are using language as a means to
an end.
They understand intentions of others.
Until about age 8, they can only see what
meets the eye.
Pre-op: Strange
ideas about substances
Conservation tasks
A
variety of tasks involving changing the shape of a substance to see if children can look beyond the appearance of the substance.
They are centered –
stuck on one aspect
They do not understand
reversibility
They do not understand
class inclusion
They have trouble with
seriation tasks
Bigger=more; taller=older
Face Value
Pre-op: Peculiar Perceptions about People
Pre-op children lack
identity constancy
A scary mask turns a person into a monster
Animism
Giving life to inanimate objects
Anthropomorphism
Giving human characteristics to non-humans
Artificialism
Humans make everything, including natural
phenomenon
Egocentrism
The inability to see anotherfs
point of view
Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage
Concrete operations
are defined by the ability to reason and think; more adult like
Concrete stages begins at around age 5
They can reason conceptually about concrete objects
Major shifts start to occur around age
8
Cannot think abstractly in a scientific way
Full development may not occur until age
10 or 11
Using Piaget
How can we use Piaget’s ideas?
It will happen when
a child is ready.
Explaining there are no monsters under
the bed; instead useanti-monster spray
Children must have the
ability to do a task before you try to use it in teaching.
academic schoolbegins between 6 and 7
Critically Evaluating Piaget
Since concrete operations
appear gradually, is it right to call the two distinct stages?
Piaget derived his theory
from a small biased sample of children (his own).
Piaget overestimated
egocentrism.
Societal factors and
scaffolding can influence the timetable for the emergence of concrete operations.
Vygotsky
The Zone of Proximal Development
The difference between
solving a problem by oneself and solving it with the help of another is the Zone of Proximal Development.
Scaffolding is providing
the proper support for learning –tailoring to the child.
Infant directed speech
is a type of scaffolding.
Becoming an effective scaffolder
Break complex problems
into smaller strategies
Give non-threatening
feedback
Continue to give assistance
as long as it takes
Set frameworks and motivation
for learning
Other societies see scaffolding differently
Even in our own society.
there are different approaches to scaffolding that appear to work equally well.
The Information-Processing Perspective
Development is continuous
rather than distinct
The scientific method
is paramount to research
They use the computer
as a metaphor for the mind
An example of how IPP is used...
Memory
We know there are three
areas of memory:
Sensory memory
Working (short term) memory
LTM
IPP
Working memory holds about 7 items (+-2)
Tests using phone numbers
show that an unknown area code can disrupt retention of a new number.
How much can we recall?
Toddlers: 2 numbers
Seven-year-olds: 5 numbers
As the frontal lobes activate, we get new abilities:
Executive functions
Rehearsal
Selective attention
Inhibiting responses
IPP
Executive functions
Ability to inhibit responses
Giving time to reflect, plan and direct
behavior
Development of heuristic strategies for
problem solving
Rehearsal
Repeat information to embed it into memory
Selective attention
develops
Young
children tend not to focus
Older
children learn to focus
Inhibiting responses
Young
children and adults with frontal lobe damage have trouble inhibiting
A
good game to test inhibiting capability and train inhibition is Simon Says
IPP
How can we use the IP Theory?
We need to teach rehearsal
strategies
Help to focus young
people on topic
Expect to regularly
remind children to do a task
Use scaffolding to create
organization
In memory recovery situations:
Asking leading questions to children is
dangerous and leads to false memories
What about children out of sync with the norm?
What happens when a
child cannot concentrate?
ADHD
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
A disorder predominant
among boys
Characteristics
Excessive
restlessness
Easily
distracted
Difficulties
focusing
Difficulties
with selective attention
Usually
found in elementary school
Competing
stimuli produces problems
Multi
tasking is nearly impossible
ADHD
How can we help children with ADHD?
They need a lot more
gentle handed treatment.
Create a child-centered
environment.
Never expect them to
multitask.
Take away the temptation
of competing objects.
Give specific times
for “physical” play.
Consider the possibility
that certain foods are effecting the inhibitory centers of the brain. Be aware of any specific ingestion that causes specific
behaviors.
Language
Inner Speech
According to Vygotsky:
learning to regulate behavior and master cognitive challenges; “talking to oneself”
Vygotsky believed all
childhood intellectual skills came from language development
Founded by scaffolders
and repetition
Developing Speech
Phonemes are the sound
meaning of words
C is for Cat
At the age of 3, children have trouble
with multi-syllable words
During elementary school, this problem
is largely resolved.
Language
Interestingly, hand coordination outpaces vocalization skills and children develop sign language
skills faster than speech.
Phonemes are the basic sounds of speech.
Morphemes are the basic meanings of language.
One measure of language acquisition is
thegmean length of utterancehor MLU.
Syntax is the system of grammatical rules in a language:
The last thing children learn is the syntax
of their language, which is the grammar rules.
Language
Children learn grammar in stages:
When they start putting
three words together, they begin to show an understanding of grammar. “Me
want milk” makes grammatical sense, but “milk want me” does not.
At age 2,
words ”me out” shows grammatical sense
Semantics – the meaning of words
increases
astronomically in the first 6 years, but it never ceases, so we can learn new words until we die.
Chomsky’s Language
Acquisition Device (LAD) is a supposed brain mechanism that prepares us for learning semantics.
Language
Overregularization – is the use of the regular tense with irregular words:
I have two hands, therefore,
I have two feets.
If I have two cats, I must have two mouses.
If I walked, I must have runned and swimmed.
Overextensions – is the extension of a word meaning to a broadly incorrect
use:
If children have a dog at home, they may
determine that all four legged creatures are dogs.
Or, children may decide that their animal
is a dog and every other animal must be something else (an underextension).
The Enduring Self
Constructing our personal past
Studies of autobiographical
memories indicate that scaffolding with past talk conversations helps children build a personal past.
Scaffolding seems to
work well by talking about shared experiences.
An adult’s leading
questions create richer autobiographical selves in the children.
Cultural differences
in autobiographical talk occur:
Experiments
show differences between individualistic and collectivistic societies.
Theory of Mind
Making sense of other minds
By age four, children
really begin to relate to each other
They develop a theory
of mind
Other people have other thoughts and perspectives
At age four, children know their thoughts are not another
person’s thoughts
At age four, they can use this information to manipulate
their world (Can I Daddy? Mommy said it was OK.)
Four-year-olds know how to lie
Specific Cognitive Skills
Children see that people have different minds earlier than Piaget predicted
Some research pinpoints
theory of mind at 18 months
Some children with older
siblings develop theory of mind earlier – maybe as a self-defense mechanism
Autism interferes with
the development of theory of mind and, therefore, autism impairs socializing skills
Down’s syndrome
slows the development of theory of mind, but doesn’t stop it from developing
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