Preschool Age Children - Lecture Five Flashcards
(25 cards)
What does the preschool age child “live to do” (ages 3-6)?
Play
What characterizes physical growth in preschool children (ages 3-6)?
Steady growth, body becomes more proportionate, and improved physical skills like skipping, hopping, running, throwing/kicking balls, riding a bike, climbing, and better hand-eye coordination.
How do securely attached preschool children typically behave?
They use verbal skills to communicate and negotiate, use parental explanations for security, draw on internal working models of attachment through play, are emotionally open and positive, show good self-regulation, seek support from adults when parents aren’t available, have positive peer relationships, and exhibit good empathy and self-esteem.
What are common traits of insecurely attached preschool children?
They often have restricted or negative affect, moodiness or depression, trouble regulating emotions and behavior (over or under control), seek negative attention, show oppositional behavior, display aggression or emotional distance toward peers, have poor understanding of others’ emotions, and view themselves as incompetent or unlovable.
What are the main social development tasks for preschoolers?
Learning social skills, prosocial behaviors (sharing, comforting, helping, controlled aggression), learning values, playing with peers, and establishing friendships.
How do peer relationships influence preschoolers?
They help decrease egocentrism, motivate perspective-taking, negotiation, sharing, and cooperation, and are a protective factor for emotional and social well-being.
What are friendships like for preschool age children?
They begin to label other children as their friend and show a preference for them, shared preferences is a core feature
How does play develop in preschool children?
They move from parallel play to shared play with emerging shared ideas and perspective-taking. Play reflects cultural norms and social roles learned from parents.
What characterizes language growth in preschool children?
Rapid acquisition of about 50 new words per month; by age 7, they know roughly 14,000 words. Language development is inherently social and driven by the desire to tell stories.
How is language learned?
From other people
How does language ability impact preschoolers?
It supports imaginative play, makes children better collaborative players, and delays in language lead to problems in play and relationships.
What is private speech and its function?
Talking to oneself, which helps with self-direction and practicing self-control through limit setting.
What are the two primary functions of symbolic play?
Exploration of reality/social roles and mastery of stress and anxiety through play that is outside reality but reflects it.
What themes often appear in preschool symbolic play?
Imitation of adult behavior, caretaking, practicing parental/gender/occupational roles, concerns about body damage, vulnerability, and mastery of danger.
What are key cognitive milestones during preschool years?
Encoding memories in language, generalizing experiences, recognizing similarities/differences, motivated assimilation of new information, and increased flexibility in thinking.
What is egocentric thinking according to Piaget?
Preschoolers see the world only from their perspective, have difficulty taking others’ points of view, and under stress, this egocentrism increases.
What is transductive reasoning?
Overgeneralizing from past experiences to explain new events.
What is animism in preschool cognitive development?
Attributing life-like qualities to inanimate objects.
How do preschoolers judge reality?
By surface appearances rather than logical reasoning, making it hard to understand conservation of number and quantity.
How do preschoolers balance fantasy and reality?
They have magical and egocentric thought alongside more logical understanding, but reality testing is fragile under stress.
What are common sources of anxiety for preschool children?
Aggressive feelings, fear of losing parental affection, failures in controlling bodily functions, fear of peer rejection, and fears from magical thinking or poor reality testing.
How does attachment history affect self-regulation in preschoolers?
Secure attachment supports seeking help when distressed; insecure attachment leads to mistrust and poor coping.
What strategies do preschoolers use for self-regulation and coping?
Play and fantasy for emotional displacement, internalizing mutual regulation, conscious inhibition of emotions, and defense mechanisms like displacement, projection, denial, and regression.
What skills comprise emotional competence in preschoolers?
Managing emotional expression, modulating arousal to avoid overwhelm, understanding self and others’ emotions, and reading social cues to guide responses.
