WEEK 5

Question 1

Describe the physical growth and change that takes place during early childhood

Answer 1

-From age 3 to 5, the typical child grows about 7 cm per year and gains about 2 kg.

-Height and weight are usually measured in percentiles. A score that falls at a particular percentile means that that percentage of scores fall below it; therefore, a child whose weight is at the 20th percentile weighs more than 20%—and less than 80%—of children of the same age.

-Three-year-old boys at the 50th percentile are 96 cm tall and weigh 14.5 kg, and at age 5 are 110 cm and 18.5 kg.

-Three-year-old girls at the 50th percentile are 96 cm tall and weigh 14 kg, and at age 5 are 108 cm and 18 kg

-Both boys and girls gain more in weight than in height during early childhood, but most add more muscle than fat. From toddlerhood to early childhood, most children lose their remaining ‘baby fat’ and their bodily proportions become similar to those of adults.

Question 2

Early childhood dental development…

Answer 2

-By their third birthday, most children have a full set of 20 teeth

-These are their primary or ‘baby’ teeth that will be replaced by 32 permanent teeth in the course of childhood, beginning at about age 6. However, this replacement process , lasts until about age 14, so children use their baby teeth for up to 10 years and have to learn how to take care of them to prevent tooth decay.

-In developed countries, children usually have their first visit to the dentist around age 3.

-Overall, children in most developing countries have more tooth decay in early and middle childhood than children in developed countries do

Question 3

Brain development in early childhood…

Answer 3

-The size of the brain continues to increase gradually during early childhood

-At age 3, the brain is about 70% of its adult weight, and at age 6, about 90%. In contrast, the average 6-year-old’s body weight is less than 30% of what it will be in adulthood, so the growth of the brain outpaces the rest of the body.

-The frontal lobes grow faster than the rest of the cerebral cortex, underlying the advances in emotional regulation, foresight and planned behaviour that take place during the preschool years

-During early childhood, the number of neurons continues the decline that began in toddlerhood via synaptic pruning.

-The increase in brain size and weight during early childhood is due to an increase in dendritic connections between neurons and to myelination.

Question 4

In which brain structures is myelination complete by age 5?

Answer 4

-Corpus callosum: Connects L+R hemispheres of the brain

-Cerebellum: Controls balance and motor movement

-Hippocampus: Involves transfer of information from short to long term memory

-Reticular formation: controls attention

Question 5

Role of myelination in Corpus Callosum…

Answer 5

increased myelination of this area of the brain enhances the speed of functioning throughout the cerebral cortex.

Question 6

Role of myelination in Cerebellum…

Answer 6

Increased myelination enhances connections between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex. This change underlies the child’s increasing abilities to jump, run, climb and throw a ball.

Question 7

Role of myelination in the Hippocampus…

Answer 7

The hippocampus is involved in the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory, so the completion of myelination by age 5 may explain why autobiographical memory (memory for personal events and experiences) is limited prior to this age

Question 8

Role of myelination in the Reticular Formation..

Answer 8

myelination is completed by age 5, which helps explain the increase in attention span that takes place in the course of early childhood.
For example, by age 4 or 5, most children could easily sit for 10–15 minutes at preschool or kindergarten while a story is read aloud, whereas most toddlers would be unable to sit still and pay attention for so long

Question 9

Infantile amnesia…

Answer 9

The inability to remember anything prior to age 2

• One theory proposes that autobiographical memory before age 2 is limited because the awareness of self becomes stable at about 2 years of age and serves as a new organiser around which events can be encoded, stored and retrieved in memory as personal; that is, as having happened ‘to me’

-Another perspective proposes that the encoding of memories is promoted by language development because language allows us to tell ourselves a narrative of events and experiences; consequently, most autobiographical memory is encoded only after language development accelerates at age 2

Question 10

Describe changes in gross and fine motor abilities during early childhood, compared with toddlerhood…

Answer 10

-gross motor development in early childhood tends to extend abilities that first appeared in toddlerhood

-Toddlers can hop a step or two with both feet, but from age 3 to 6 young children learn to make more hops in a row and to hop on one foot.

-Toddlers can jump, but from age 3 to 6 children learn to jump further from a standing position and to make a running jump.

-Toddlers begin to climb stairs, but from age 3 to 6 children learn to climb stairs without support, alternating their feet.

-Toddlers can throw a ball, but from age 3 to 6 children learn to throw a ball further and more accurately, and they become better at catching it, too.

-they also increase their running speed and their ability to stop suddenly or change direction.

Question 11

New gross/fine motor skills developed in early childhood…

Answer 11

-As toddlers they could already pick up a small object using two fingers, but now they learn to do it more quickly and precisely.

They could already hold a crayon and scribble on a piece of paper, but in early childhood, they learn to draw something that is recognisable to others, such as a person, animal or building

-New fine motor skills learned in early childhood include putting on and removing their clothes, using scissors and using a knife to cut soft food

Question 12

Describe the development of handedness and identify the consequences and cultural views of left-handedness…

Answer 12

-even prenatally, fetuses show a definite preference for sucking the thumb of their right or left hand, with 90% preferring the right thumb. The same 90% proportion of right-handers continues into childhood and throughout adulthood in most cultures

• Adopted children are more likely to resemble their biological parents than their adoptive parents in their handedness, suggesting a genetic origin

-identical twins are more likely than ordinary siblings to differ in handedness, even though identical twins share 100% of their genotype and other siblings only about 50%. This appears to be due to the fact that twins usually lie in opposite ways within the uterus, whereas most singletons lie towards the left

-In Africa, even today, using the left hand is suppressed in many cultures from childhood onwards, and the prevalence of left-handedness in some African countries is as low as 1%, far lower than the 10% figure in cultures where left-handedness is tolerated

-In early and middle childhood, left-handers are more likely to have problems learning to read and to have other verbal learning disabilities This may have something to do with the fact that about one-quarter of left-handers process language in both hemispheres rather than primarily in the left hemisphere.

Question 13

Explain the features of Piaget’s preoperational stage of cognitive development…

Answer 13

-In Piaget’s theory, early childhood is a crucial turning point in children’s cognitive development because this is when thinking becomes representational

2-7 years old

Question 14

‘Conservation’…

Answer 14

-the principle that the amount of a physical substance remains the same even if its physical appearance changes

-In his best known demonstration of this mistake, Piaget showed young children two identical glasses holding equal amounts of water and asked them if the two amounts of water were equal.
The children typically answered ‘yes’—they were capable of understanding that much. Then Piaget poured the contents from one of the glasses into a taller, thinner glass, and asked the children again if the two amounts of water were equal.
Now most of the children answered ‘no’, failing to understand that the amount of water remained the same even though the appearance of the water changed.

Question 15

Piaget’s two types of cognitive deficiencies…

Answer 15

-Centration: meaning that young children’s thinking is centred, or focused, on one noticeable aspect of a cognitive problem to the exclusion of other important aspects. In the conservation-of-liquid task, they notice the change in height as the water is poured into the taller glass but neglect to observe the change in width that takes place simultaneously.

• (Lack of) Reversibility- the ability to reverse an action mentally. When the water is poured from the original glass to the taller glass in the conservation task, anyone who can reverse that action mentally can see that the amount of water would be the same. Young children cannot perform the mental operation of reversibility, so they mistakenly believe the amount of water has changed.

Question 16

Animism…

Answer 16

the tendency to attribute human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects and forces.

Question 17

Explain what ‘theory of mind’ is and the evidence for how it develops during early childhood…

Answer 17

Perspective-taking ability advances considerably from age 3 to 6, as demonstrated by performance on false-belief tasks.

Question 18

‘Theory of Mind’…

Answer 18

the ability to understand thinking processes in one’s self and others.

Question 19

Identify the ways that cultural learning takes place in early childhood…

Answer 19

-A great deal of cultural learning takes place in early childhood through observing and working alongside parents or siblings, and in many cultures children begin to make important work contributions to the family during this stage.

-In developed countries, children also gain cultural learning in the preschool setting.

Question 20

Explain how advances in vocabulary and grammar occur in early childhood.

Answer 20

Children’s vocabularies expand immensely in early childhood, from about 1000 words at age 3 to about 2500 words at age 6, and they readily grasp the grammatical rules of their culture with few errors by age 4.

Question 21

Describe how children learn pragmatics in early childhood and identify to what extent these social rules are culturally based…

Answer 21

Pragmatics guide us in knowing what to say—and what not to say—in a given social situation. By age 4, children are sensitive to the characteristics of their conversational partner and will adjust their speech accordingly. All cultures have their own rules for what kinds of speech can be used in what kinds of situations.

Question 22

Which part of the brain is influential in the decrease in temper tantrums in early childhood?

Answer 22

the development of the frontal cortex promotes this process because this is the part of the brain most involved in emotional self-regulation

Question 23

Changes to empathy in early childhood…

Answer 23

-Children become better at perspective taking, and being able to understand how others think and feel makes them more empathic.

• Empathy promotes prosocial behaviour such as being generous or helpful. It contributes to the moral understanding of principles such as avoiding harm and being fair because, through empathy, children understand how their behaviour would make another person feel.

-As empathy increases, prosocial behaviour increases over the course of early childhood

Question 24

Moral development in early childhood…

Answer 24

-advances further as children gain a more detailed and complex understanding of the rules and expectations of their culture

-Toddlers know when others approve or disapprove of something they have done, and they usually respond with the appropriate sociomoral emotion. However, in early childhood there is greater awareness of the rule or expectation that evoked the approval or disapproval.

-young children are more capable than toddlers of anticipating the potential consequences of their actions and avoiding behaviours that would be morally disapproved

Question 25

Gender constancy...

Answer 25

the understanding that maleness and femaleness are biological and cannot change. Earlier, children may be so insistent about maintaining gender roles because they believe that changing external features like clothes or hair styles could result in a change in gender.

Question 26

Gender socialisation in early childhood...

Answer 26

-Once children learn gender roles and expectations, they apply them not only to themselves, but also to each other. They reinforce each other for gender-appropriate behaviour, and reject peers who violate gender roles -Boys who cry easily or who like to play with girls and engage in girls’ games are likely to be ostracised by other boys

Question 27

Gender Schema...

Answer 27

-A gender schema is a gender-based cognitive structure for organising and processing information -Gender schemas influence how we interpret the behaviour of others and what we expect from them -According to gender-schema theory, gender is one of our most important schemas from early childhood onwards. By the time we reach the end of early childhood, on the basis of our socialisation we have learned to categorise a wide range of activities, objects and personality characteristics as ‘female’ or ‘male’

Question 28

'Self-socialisation'...

Answer 28

-Once young children possess gender schemas, they seek to maintain consistency between their schemas and their behaviour -Boys become quite insistent about doing things they regard as boy things and avoiding things that girls do; girls become equally intent on avoiding boy things and doing things they regard as appropriate for girls -By the end of early childhood, gender roles are enforced not only by socialisation from others, but also by self-socialisation as children strive to conform to the gender expectations they perceive in the culture around them.

Question 29

What factors should parents consider when searching for a high-quality preschool experience for their children?

Answer 29

-Education and training of teachers. Unlike teachers at higher grade levels, preschool teachers often are not required to have education or credentials specific to early childhood education. Preschool teachers who have training in early childhood education provide a better social and cognitive environment. -Class size and child–teacher ratio. Experts recommend no more than 20 children in a classroom, and a ratio no higher than five to ten 3-year-olds, teacher or seven to ten 4-year-olds, per preschool teacher. -Age-appropriate materials and activities. In early childhood, children learn more through active engagement with materials rather than through formal lessons or rote learning. -Teacher–child interactions. Teachers should spend most of their time in interactions with the children, rather than with each other. They should circulate among the children, asking questions, offering suggestions and assisting them when necessary.

Question 30

Authoritative Parents...

Answer 30

-high in demandingness and high in responsiveness. -They set clear rules and expectations for their children. Furthermore, they make clear what the consequences will be if their children do not comply, and they make those consequences stick if necessary. -A distinctive feature of authoritative parents is that they explain the reasons for their rules and expectations to their children, and they willingly engage in discussion with their children over issues of discipline, sometimes leading to negotiation and compromise. -Children who have authoritative parents tend to be independent, self-assured, creative and socially skilled

Question 31

Authoritarian parents...

Answer 31

-high in demandingness but low in responsiveness. -They require obedience from their children, and they punish disobedience without compromise. -They expect their commands to be followed without dispute or dissent. -Children with authoritarian parents tend to be less self-assured, less creative and less socially adept than other children

Question 32

Permissive parents...

Answer 32

-Low in demandingness and high in responsiveness. -They have few clear expectations for their children’s behaviour, and they rarely discipline them. Instead, their emphasis is on responsiveness -They believe that children need love that is truly ‘unconditional’. -Children with permissive parents tend to be immature and lack self-control.

Question 33

Disengaged parents...

Answer 33

-low in both demandingness and responsiveness -Their goal may be to minimise the amount of time and emotion they devote to parenting. Thus, they require little of their children and rarely bother to correct their behaviour or place clear limits on what they are allowed to do. -They also express little in the way of love or concern for their children. They may seem to have little emotional attachment to them. -Children with disengaged parents also tend to be impulsive

Question 34

Reciprocal or Bidirectional effect...

Answer 34

Not only are children affected by their parents, but parents are affected by their children

Question 35

Filial piety...

Answer 35

children are expected to respect, obey and revere their parents throughout life

Question 36

'Psychological control'...

Answer 36

parenting that uses shame and withdrawal of love

Question 37

Mead's classification of childhood stages...

Answer 37

-0-2 years: Lap Child, needs constant care; doted on by others -3-4 years: knee child, Still cared for mainly by mothers, but spends more time with other children -5-6 years: yard child, More time spent with same-sex peers; sometimes unsupervised

Question 38

 Identify advances in emotional understanding and self-regulation during early childhood...

Answer 38

Early childhood is a key time for the development of emotional self-regulation as children improve at effortful control. Children also improve in their ability to understand the sources of others’ emotions.

Question 39

Describe moral development in early childhood, including empathy, modelling and morality as cultural learning.

Answer 39

The capacity for empathy increases in early childhood, which leads in turn to an increase in prosocial behaviour. Children learn morality in part through modelling. Early childhood is also a time when children begin to show a capacity for moral reasoning and demonstrate that they have learned the moral beliefs of their culture.

Question 40

Describe the roles that parents and peers play in gender socialisation and explain how gender schemas lead to self-socialisation.

Answer 40

Children learn gender identity by age 2, but do not learn gender constancy until age 6 or 7. During early childhood they often become rigid in their views of gender roles. Parents are key agents of gender socialisation, especially fathers, and conformity to gender roles is enforced by peers as well.

Question 41

Identify the features that are most important in preschool quality and explain how they reflect cultural values...

Answer 41

-Children generally benefit cognitively from attending preschool, but the social effects of preschool are more mixed and in some ways negative. -Key dimensions of high-quality preschool programs include education and training of teachers, class size and child–teacher ratio, age-appropriate materials and activities, and quality of teacher–child interactions.

Question 42

Describe the main cultural variations in how parents discipline young children and explain how cultural context influences children’s responses to discipline...

Answer 42

-In Western cultures, the approach to discipline in early childhood tends to emphasise the authoritative approach of explaining the consequences of misbehaviour and the reasons for discipline -outside the West, the parental role has more authority and children are expected to obey. Physical punishment and ‘psychological control’ have quite different effects on children, depending on the cultural context.

Question 43

 Identify the most common features of sibling relationships worldwide and describe how children with no siblings differ from other children.

Answer 43

-A combination of conflict along with helping and sharing between siblings is very common worldwide in early childhood. - ‘Only children’ fare very well compared to children with siblings, even in China, where there has been concern about the social effects of the government’s ‘one-child’ population policy.

Question 44

Explain how the quality of friendships changes from toddlerhood to early childhood and describe the role of play and aggression in young children’s friendships...

Answer 44

-Children engage in cooperative pretend play more in early childhood than in toddlerhood. -Physical aggression peaks in toddlerhood and the first year of early childhood, then declines as verbal aggression rises.

Question 45

Identify the rates and consequences of media use in early childhood...

Answer 45

In early childhood, media-viewing time per day varies from about 1 to 3 hours across developed countries. Abundant evidence shows that violent television promotes aggressive behaviour in young children