PSYC 2314Lifespan Development

Chapter 9

The Play Years:

Cognitive Development

How Young Children Think

• Piaget’s Preoperational Thought– Symbolic thought– Centration– Egocentrism– Conservation

How Young Children Think

• Vygotsky: Children as Apprentices– Guided participation– Zone of proximal development (ZPD)– Scaffolding

Vygotsky’s

• Believed that language advances thinking in two ways:– Private speech– Social mediation

Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky

• Piaget– Active learning

– Egocentrism

– Structure

– Symbolic thought

• Vygotksy– Guided participation

– Apprenticeship in thinking

– Scaffold

– Proximal development

Children’s Memory

• Abilities and Limitations – Deficient in storage and retrieval skills– Do not attend to the features of an event that are

most pertinent to adults– Scripts: skeletal outlines of the usual sequence

of events during certain common, recurring experiences.

– Meaningful past experiences

Children’s Eyewitness Testimony

• When children are required to give eyewitness testimony, they should be provided a structure sequence that enhances their ability to remember accurately.

• Children should be interviewed by a neutral professional who asks specific but not misleading questions in a friendly—not stern or shocked—manner.

Children’s Eyewitness Testimony

• The interview of a child should occur only once, soon after the event, and be videotaped for later trial use.

• Although young children can provide accurate details concerning what happened, remembering who was involved may be more difficult.

• Children sometimes add false information to follow a script that makes sense to them, especially if a long delay occurs between the event and the account.

Theory of Mind

• An understanding of human mental processes:– Clearly distinguish between mental phenomena

and the physical events to which they refer– Appreciate how mental phenomena (like

beliefs, expectations, and desires) can arise from experiences in the real world

– Understand that mental phenomena are subjective

Theory of Mind

• An understanding of human mental processes:– Recognize that people have differing opinions

and preferences– Realize that beliefs and desires can form the

basis for human action– Realize that emotion arises not only from

physical events but also from goals and expectations

Theory of Mind

• Preschoolers’ conceptual growth quickly becomes enlisted for practical purposes, such as persuasion, sympathy, and teasing.

• Theory of mind is strengthened by a combination of factors: brain maturation, language ability, having at least one sibling, and culture.

Language

• Fast mapping: used by children to add words to their vocabulary, the process of hearing word once or twice and then quickly defining it by categorizing it with other words.

Language

• Young children have greater difficulty with abstract nouns as well as with words that express comparisons or relationships.

• Have difficulty understanding metaphors and analogies

• By age 3, children typically demonstrate extensive grammatical knowledge.

Preschool Education

• Characteristics of high-quality preschool programs:– Low teacher-child ratio– Well-trained staff– A curriculum geared toward cognitive

development rather than behavioral control– An organization of space that facilitates

creative and constructive play.

Head Start

• Children score higher on achievement tests, have higher grades, and less likely to be placed in special classes or develop a criminal record.