3. Early Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development

Question 1

when is early childhood?

Answer 1

preschool years (2-5)

Question 2

Describe the changes in development in early childhood

Answer 2

there are changes in all domains of development rapidly and clearly observable

Question 3

what is the most observable domain of physical development in early childhood?

Answer 3

fine motor skills

Question 4

what is the most observable domain of cognitive development in early childhood?

Answer 4

acquisition of language

Question 5

what is the most observable domain of psychosocial development?

Answer 5

increasing social interactions, importance of place

Question 6

what sort of physical activities can children in early childhood begin to do?

Answer 6

physical activities that require more strength, balance and coordination

Question 7

what changes are there in the reason for movement from infancy to early childhood?

Answer 7

shift from moving for the joy of it to using movement as a means to an end

Question 8

how quick is the development of fine motor skills?

Answer 8

very rapid

Question 9

how tall is a child around 2 years old?

Answer 9

85cm which is around half of their adult height

Question 10

how much weight and height does a child between 2 and 5 gain in a year?

Answer 10

2-3 kg and 6cm per year

Question 11

what is essential for learning gross motor skills?

Answer 11

big body muscles to gain strength and coordination and balance

Question 12

what does proximal mean?

Answer 12

close

Question 13

what does distal mean?

Answer 13

far away

Question 14

what are the gross motor and locomotor skills developed at the age of 3?

Answer 14

runs forward easily and is able to climb without help

Question 15

what are the motor coordination skills developed at 3 years?

Answer 15

kicks ball forward, can jump about 30 cms

Question 16

what are the fine and manual dexterity skills developed at 3 years old?

Answer 16

able to stack blocks and pick up marbles and can hold pencils and make marks

Question 17

what are the gross motor and locomotor skills developed at 4 years?

Answer 17

stops, starts and turns while running, hops short distances

Question 18

what are the motor coordination skills developed at 4 years?

Answer 18

Pedals and steers a bike, jumps about 6 cm in air, can climb ladder

Question 19

what are the fine motor and manual dexterity skills developed at 4 years?

Answer 19

draws with pencil, cuts paper with scissors and strings beads

Question 20

what are the gross motor and locomotor skills developed at 5 years?

Answer 20

descends stairs without help, hops on one food for up to 5 meters, walks on tiptoe

Question 21

what are the motor coordination skills developed at 5 years?

Answer 21

catches ball, rocks a swing, rides a bike well

Question 22

what are the fine motor skills and manual dexterity skills developed at 5 years?

Answer 22

copies simple shapes with a pencil, threads a needles, ties simple knots

Question 23

why is drawing an exercised used to examine children’s development?

Answer 23

it allows them to express what they are thinking and how they are thinking about it. The use of colours makes it easier to get into their world. it is also an extremely important prerequisite for writing. this is often used in therapy

Question 24

what is the sensorimotor stage?

Answer 24

the infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating summary experiences with physical actions. AN infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought towards the end of the stage

Question 25

what is the preoperational stage?

Answer 25

the child begins to represent the world with words and images. These words and images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action

Question 26

what is the concrete operational stage?

Answer 26

the child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets

Question 27

what is the formal operational stage?

Answer 27

the adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic and logical ways

Question 28

what is the age range for preoperational stage?

Answer 28

2-7 years

Question 29

what is the fundamental feature of the preoperational stage?

Answer 29

symbolic representation supersede sensorimotor activities. able to understand consistences as well as object permanence and begin to internalise functional relationships (e.g. if you run faster you get there sooner)

Question 30

what are the main limitations of preoperational thinking?

Answer 30

conservation, centration, irreversibility of thought, static thought

Question 31

what is conservation?

Answer 31

understanding that essential property of things (e.g. quantity, number, volume) does not change despite superficial changes in appearance (e.g. more pieces of pizza means more pizza thus less hungry)

Question 32

what are some further limitations of preoperational thinking i.e. skills?

Answer 32

number skills, classification, animism, magical thinking

Question 33

what is the number skill limitation in preoperational thinking?

Answer 33

questions concerning understanding of numerical concepts

Question 34

what is the classification limitation in preoperational thinking?

Answer 34

limited to basic level categories and incapable of taxonomic categorisation

Question 35

what is taxonomic categorisation?

Answer 35

defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups.

Question 36

what is the animism limitation of preoperational thinking?

Answer 36

tendency to apply attributes of living things to inanimate objects (e.g. trips over rug and then says "the rug tripped me" - thinks the rug is alive)

Question 37

what is the limitation of magical thinking in preoperational thinking?

Answer 37

attribute inexplicable events to magic or fantasy figures

Question 38

what indicated that children developed a sound understanding of the world earlier than Piaget thought?

Answer 38

simplified tasks that are less demanding (e.g. memory and verbal skills)

Question 39

what is involved in language development?

Answer 39

language, phoneme, morpheme, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, prosody

Question 40

what is language?

Answer 40

a symbolic system in which a finite number of signals can be combined according to rules to produce an infinite number of messages

Question 41

what is a phoneme

Answer 41

a basic sound unit in language

Question 42

what is a morpheme

Answer 42

the basic meaning unit in a word

Question 43

what is syntax?

Answer 43

rules combining words to form meaningful sentences

Question 44

what are semantics?

Answer 44

the aspect of language certering on meanings

Question 45

what are pragmatics?

Answer 45

rules specifying how language should be used in different social contexts

Question 46

what is a prosody?

Answer 46

the sound of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and timing

Question 47

what are the three important pre-language skills?

Answer 47

production of speech-like noise. Reception and pseudo-conversations

Question 48

what is reception

Answer 48

listening to others' spech

Question 49

what guides language acquisition?

Answer 49

the motivation to communicate

Question 50

what is involved in semantic development

Answer 50

learning word meanings

Question 51

what is expressive language?

Answer 51

words, sigs and gestures

Question 52

what is receptive language?

Answer 52

understanding what is communicated

Question 53

what is naming explosion in early childhood?

Answer 53

the rapid expansion of vocabulary between 14 and 24 months

Question 54

what commonly declines as vocabulary develops with regard to meaning?

Answer 54

the overextensions and underextensions of meanings

Question 55

How is the process of a child's semantic production described?

Answer 55

it is an active constructive process

Question 56

What is the main contributor to the acquisition of vocabulary and word meaning?

Answer 56

social conversations

Question 57

what are the elements to mastering rules of language?

Answer 57

holophrastic stage, two-word sentences and telegraphic speech, overregulation, and complete sentences

Question 58

what is holophrastic stage?

Answer 58

one word to convey the meaning of a sentence

Question 59

what are two-word sentences and telegraphic speech?

Answer 59

early sentences that consist primarily of content words and omit all less meaningful parts of speech

Question 60

what is overregulation in the mastering of the rules of language?

Answer 60

the overapplication of regular grammatical patterns to words that require irregular modification

Question 61

what are the two fundamental theories of language?

Answer 61

nativist, neurocognitive approach and the learning and socio-cultural approaches

Question 62

who was the main influence of the nativist, neurocognitive approach?

Answer 62

Noam Chomsky

Question 63

what does the nativist, neurocognitive approach provide about language development?

Answer 63

language skills are hard-wired at birth through innate Language Acquisition Device.

Question 64

what is the level of support for the nativist, neurocognitive approach to language development?

Answer 64

Logically plausible and widely favourable but unproven hypothesis

Question 65

what side of the nature-nurture debate is the learning and socio-cultural approach to language development?

Answer 65

nurture

Question 66

who were the main influences of the learning and socio-cultural approach to language development?

Answer 66

Skinner, Bruner, Vygotsky

Question 67

what did the learning and socio-cultural approach provide about language development?

Answer 67

language is a social tool and social construction created for social reasons.

Question 68

What is the level of support for the learning and socio-cultural approach to language development?

Answer 68

empirically better supported