Developmental Psychology Chapter 7 Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive Development Early Childhood Physical Development has slowed down from infancy Changes in Proportion o Kids are no longer growing up o Baby fat changes limbs grow grow into heads stomach flattens Growth Curve Charts Episodic Growth o Documents developmental norms o On average kids grow 2 1 2 inches a year and gain 6 pounds o Boys are slightly taller than girls o Most recent research monitors growth weekly much more frequent o When charted looks like a staircase kids plateau at one step and then have a little growth spurt Growth spurts over short periods of time Individual Differences in Kids Growth o All babies similar o Beginning at preschool age growth patterns begin to vary o Body Mass Index BMI is weight appropriate for height Kids in 85th percentile BMI overweight Kids in 95th percentile BMI obese Kids in 5th percentile BMI underweight 80 of kids fall in normal range between 5 and 85 Diet and Nutrition o Appetite declines drastically in early childhood o Fewer calories smaller appetite from infancy o Normal for appetite to vary from meal to meal o Obesity Huge problem 9 million kids 60 of overweight in preschool likely to be overweight by age 12 Parents Less at Risk to have Overweight Kids if o Kids normal weight BMI in preschool small none overweight by age 12 o Parents should provide kids with a variety of foods o Kids will put less 25 on their plate at meals than parents will put on their plate for them let kids fill their own plates o Parents should avoid entertaining bribing kids with food creates anxiety around food leads to stress eating o Parents should encourage outdoor play monitor TV time o Parents themselves should eat healthy and be regularly active lead by example encourage kids to do the same Early Childhood Cognitive Development Piaget o Preoperational Stage of Development Stage 2 o Kids not only know more but think differently o Semiotic Function symbolic kids start using props symbols for other things representing the world mentally ex using building blocks to represent a house o Kids at this time have a larger vocabulary Gaps in Cognitive Development Classification categories Conservation o Kids have trouble classifying groups and subgroups placing things in larger o Ex kids will say a puppy dog dog dog but a dog is not an animal o Awareness that objects can remain the same despite changes in appearance o Kids have problems conserving mass number and volume o Example number Kids will recognize that there are 8 balls in a row but when you spread the balls apart they will say there are MORE balls o Child focuses on one aspect of a task but does not consider other aspects o Example child will look at length not number o Kids have trouble reversing actions o Example will flatten a ball of clay but can t comprehend rolling it back to its Centration Reverse Operations original size Egocentric o Kids are self centered o Have trouble seeing things from different perspectives o Kids do not listen to each other Mountain Task large mountain o Piaget sat with kids and looked at 3D pictures one small mountain and one o Kids were asked to identify which mountain was large and which was small from their perspective but when asked to visualize the mountains from the other perspective placement of mountains should have changed they could not do it o Kids give inanimate objects emotions properties etc Animism Challenges to Piaget not clean cut o Stages said to be one at a time but really stages are overlapping they are o Egocentric kids will speak differently softer to children younger than them kids can t be entirely egocentric if they try to relate to a younger child s perspective Behavior emotions are also different toward parents when kids try to get what they want Theory of Mind o Childs ability to attribute mental stages to others and themselves o 2 Years Old children understand that infants don t have the same level of speech as them kids understand that other kids will understand an object better if they are able to hold touch it o 4 Years Old understand that mental states may sometimes be wrong False Belief Task example a box is labeled Band Aids kids open it up and find crayons 4 year old will understand that the box is wrong o 5 7 Years Old understand the Reciprocal Nature of Thinking they have thoughts their friends have thoughts people can think about each other Factors Influencing the Theory of Mind o Extent of engaging in pretend play understanding more quickly the emotions of others o Kids who have parents that discuss emotions more o Kids with a larger vocabulary parents speak to them more o All help to develop a more sophisticated theory of mind sooner Vygotsky o Key to cognitive development social interaction o Kids learn strategies coping mechanisms via social interaction remember them and use them later Stages 1 Primitive 0 2 years no internalization of strategy kids only learn via reinforcement and punishment 2 Na ve Psychology 2 3 years beginning to use language but not sophisticated Language is not used to mentally represent cannot engage in private speech 3 Private Speech 4 5 years more sophisticated internalize statements about solutions beginning to solve problems not yet ingrown 4 Ingrowth Stage 6 7 engage in private speech completely use symbols labels represent instructions develop accumulate sets of solutions and apply them to specific problems sophisticated Criticism too much emphasis on private speech Scaffolding kids perform better in school with parents that put emphasis on scaffolding Collaborative Learning kids working in groups more creative more sophisticated solutions than when working alone o Capacity to learn and use skills required to adapt to the demands of ones culture and environment o Intelligent behavior will vary across situations depends on demands of situations we face ones ability vs many dimensions o Our intelligence is made up of crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence o Crystallized developed over time historic Ex vocabulary history o Fluid problem solving skills and abilities Ex logical reasoning inference o abilities inductive and deductive knowledge We tend to retain crystallized knowledge over the extent of our lives and lose some capacity for fluid intelligence Intelligence Horn Gardner o Forms of intelligence exist apart and away from another o Individuals can be amazingly talented in certain areas all different Different Areas of