Childhood and adolescence voyages in development 5th edition rathus solutions manual

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CHAPTER 9 Early Childhood: Cognitive Development

CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Discuss Piaget’s preoperational stage.

2. Explain the concepts of egocentrism, causality, confusion of mental and physical events, and mental blinders as they relate to Piaget’s preoperational stage.

3. Explain the concepts of scaffolding and zone of proximal development as they relate to Vygotsky’s views of early childhood development.

4. Describe the advantages provided in school later on by a highly academic preschool education.

5. Describe the research that supports the positive impact of Head Start on economically disadvantaged preschoolers.

6. Explain why preschoolers often cannot differentiate between commercials and the TV programs themselves.

7. Discuss theory of mind, false beliefs and the appearance-reality distinction as they relate to these to the cognitive development of the early childhood child.

8. Describe memory for past events in 1- and 2-year-olds.

9. Describe 3-year-old children’s use of rehearsal, even without their being taught to do so.

10. Discuss why a 3-year-old girl might say, “We singed it all up,” to explain that she and her mother finished singing a song.

11. Explain why “Daddy goed away” rather than “Daddy went away” is really a sign that 3-year -olds understand rules of grammar.

CHAPTER OVERVIEW This chapter covers cognitive development in early childhood. The chapter begins with an extensive discussion of Piaget’s theory of the preoperational stage, presenting his ideas on symbolic play, egocentrism, logical principles and operations, understanding of causality, and understanding of the difference between appearance and reality. The theory is then critiqued, using recent findings and new theoretical perspectives in the field. Vygotsky’s views on scaffolding within the zone of proximal development are then discussed. Other factors affecting cognitive development are presented, including research on family and home environmental factors, preschool education, and television. The area of theory of mind research is introduced, and preschooler understanding of how the mind works and where knowledge comes from is presented. Information about the impact of quality preschool experiences on later development is presented. Next, the development of memory skills (recognition, recall, strategies for remembering) is introduced. This section ends with a discussion of factors that influence memory development. The chapter ends with a description of additional developments in language ability in early childhood and a discussion of the relationship between language and cognition in human development.

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Chapter 9 CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage A. Symbolic Thought 1. Piaget’s preoperational stage (about age 2-7) is characterized by the use of symbols to represent objects and relations among them. Language, drawing, and pretend play all use symbolism.

B. Symbolic or Pretend Play: “We Could Make Believe” 1. Pretend play starts around 12-13 months with familiar activities (e.g., feed themselves), shifts to a focus on others (e.g., feed a doll) around 15-3 months, and by 30 months, others can take an active role (e.g., doll feeds itself).

2. The quality of pretend play is connected to creativity and peer relations and affects later development.

3. Imaginary friends are quite common, but more common among first-born and only children.

Having an imaginary friend is associated with many positives, such as having more real friends and advanced language skills.

C. Operations: “Transformers” of the Mind 1. Preschoolers show a lack of logical operations (mental acts) that are flexible and reversible.

D. Egocentrism: It’s All about Me 1. Preoperational children demonstrate egocentrism, meaning they can only view the world through their own perspective.

2. Piaget used the three-mountain test to demonstrate young children’s inability to take the viewpoint of others.

E. Causality: Why? Because 1. Preschoolers’ attributions of causality are precausal, that is, their ideas of causality are influenced by egocentrism, and many events are thought to be caused by will.

2. Preoperational children also engage in transductive reasoning (attributing cause and effect to non-related events), animism (attribute life and intentions to inanimate objects), and artificialism (assume environmental features were created by people).

F. Confusion of Mental and Physical Events: On “Galaprocks” and Dreams That Are Real 1. Preschoolers often confuse mental and physical phenomena. They may believe their internal thoughts reflect external reality and believe dreams are true.

2. Observing Children, Understanding Ourselves: Piaget’s Preoperational Stage G. Focus on One Dimension at a Time: Mental Blinders 1. Preoperational children lack conservation, or an understanding that properties (volume, mass, number) remain the same even if you change the shape or arrangement.

2. Instead, they focus on one dimension at a time (centration) and do not realize that some actions can be reversed (irreversibility).

3. Class inclusion, or including new objects or categories in broader mental classes, requires a child to focus on more than one aspect of situation at once, making this a difficult feat for preoperational children.

H. Evaluation of Piaget 1. Piaget underestimated preschoolers’ abilities.

2. Failure on the three-mountain test may be attributed to demands on child and language development, not egocentrism.

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Chapter 9 3. Preschoolers’ logical understanding appears more sophisticated when posing more direct questions.

4. The approach of classic conservation tests may mislead children.

5. A Closer Look--Diversity: Development of Concepts of Ethnicity and Race 1. Four stages of understanding race and ethnicity are presented: (1) ages 3-6, race differences thought of in physical terms, (2) ages 6-10, literal understanding that race is a matter of ancestry and affects many aspects of life, (3) ages 10-14, link ethnicity to social class, (4) and adolescence, may show pride and belongingness for their ethnicity. Ages 6-14 are the best years for children to form friendships with children from other ethnicities.

II. Vygotsky’s Views on Early Childhood A. Scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development 1. Vygotsky believed that adults guide children through the zone of proximal development by scaffolding their efforts.

2. A Closer Look--Research: Effects of Scaffolding on Children’s Abilities to Recall and Retell Stories 1. Describes two studies showing that children learn and remember better when their mothers provide scaffolding, such as directing their attention and asking questions.

III. Other Factors in Early Childhood Cognitive Development A. Being at HOME: The Effect of the Home Environment 1. The Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment (HOME) observes parentchild interaction in the home. Scales include parental emotional and verbal responsiveness, avoidance of punishment, organization of the physical environment, play materials, parental involvement, and variety of daily stimulation.

2. HOME scores are strong predictors of child IQ and school achievement.

B. Early Childhood Education 1. Preschools may be academically structured or more child-centered, where learning occurs through play, and children choose their own activities.

2. Preschool enrichment programs for children living in poverty (e.g. Head Start) were designed to increase school readiness and enhance cognitive development. Many stress parental involvement and provide healthcare and social services to children and families.

3. Head Start and Early Start programs serve underprivileged preschoolers and their families.

4. These programs have shown benefits such as positive influence on IQ scores, better graduation rates, and a decrease in delinquency, unemployment, and welfare usage later in life.

5. Preschool enrichment for middle-class children can also be beneficial; but excessive parental academic expectations may impair children’s desire to learn and their social and emotional development.

C. Television: Window on the World or Prison within a False World?

1. American children spend more time watching TV than they do in school!

2. Sesame Street is the most successful educational TV show for children. Regular viewing was associated with increased skill in numbers, letters, sorting, classification, and vocabulary.

3. Children’s cognitive limitations make them particularly susceptible to commercials.

4. The couch-potato effect is a term describing the strong correlation between the number of hours a child spends watching TV and being overweight.

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Chapter 9 5. A Closer Look—Real Life: Helping Children Use Television Wisely 1. General suggestions are made to limit TV and make appropriate educational choices, as well as tips for coping with violence on TV, applying TV to real life, and understanding advertising.

IV. Theory of Mind: What Is the Mind? How Does It Work?

A. False Beliefs: Just Where Are Those Crayons?

1. Theory of mind is an understanding of how the mind works. Preschoolers have some rudimentary knowledge in this area.

2. Most 3-year-olds fail false-belief tasks and are not adept at deception. However, by age 4-5, children have gained the ability to separate their own beliefs from another who has false knowledge of a situation and the ability to deceive.

B. Origins of Knowledge: Where Does It Come From 1. Children who are 4 to 5 years old also show vast improvement over 3-year-olds when it comes to identifying the source of their knowledge.

C. The Appearance-Reality Distinction 1. Although Piaget claimed children could not distinguish real events from mental events until age 7, more recent studies suggest this ability emerges in preschool and some children as young as 3 are successful at these appearance-reality tasks.

2. However, children still have limitations in understanding that an event or object may take more than one form in the mind, understanding changes in mental states, and understanding the relationship between a model and represented object (mental representation).

V. Development of Memory: Creating Files, Storing Them, Retrieving Them A. Memory Tasks: Recognition and Recall 1. Preschool children recognize more information than they can recall.

B. Competence of Memory in Early Childhood 1. Children’s memory is best for meaningful and familiar events.

2. Children use scripts (abstract, generalized accounts of repeated events) to help them remember events. Scripts are formed after one experience and become more elaborate with repetition.

3. The development of autobiographical memory, or the memory for personal specific events, is linked to the development of language and other sills. Even though children as young as 1 or 2 years of age can remember events, these memories are rarely retained through adulthood.

C. Factors Influencing Memory 1. Types of memory: children remember activities more than objects and sequenced events better than random events.

2. Interest level: children better remember items and events that captivate their interest and motivation.

3. Retrieval cues: younger children depend on retrieval cues from adults more than older children.

Parental elaboration also improves a child’s memory for events.

4. Types of measurement: younger children are limited in measurement by use of verbal reports, which typically underestimate their memory.

D. Memory Strategies: Remembering to Remember 1. Strategies for remembering (e.g., rehearsal, organizing, mentally grouping) are not used extensively until age 5. However, these strategies can be taught.

2. Younger children use more concrete memory aids such as pointing, looking, and touching.

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Chapter 9 VI. Language Development: Why Daddy “Goed Away” A. Development of Vocabulary: Words, Words, and More Words 1. Word learning often occurs through fast-mapping, in which children quickly attach a new word to the appropriate concept.

2. Fast-mapping is facilitated by children’s whole-object assumption and the contrast assumption (also called the mutual exclusivity assumption).

3. Observing Children, Understanding Ourselves: An Explosion in Vocabulary B. Development of Grammar: Toward More Complex Language 1. A “grammar explosion” occurs during the third year, during which children begin using articles, conjunctions, and possessive adjectives.

2. Overregularizations also occur as children use a strict application of grammar rules even in the cases that call for exceptions (e.g., childs instead of children).

3. Children’s first questions are telegraphic with rising pitch at the end. Toward the end of the third year, children begin to incorporate the wh questions: what, who, and where. Why, when, which, and how appear a bit later.

4. Young children have difficulty understanding passive sentences and do not use them.

C. Pragmatics: Preschoolers Can Be Practical 1. There is rapid development of pragmatic speech between the ages of 3 and 5 as children’s cognitive skills allow them to adjust their speech to fit the social situation.

D. Language and Cognition 1. Piaget believed that cognitive development precedes language development. This is supported by the fact that children’s vocabulary explosion (18 months) is related to advances in categorization.

2. Others believe language development precedes cognitive development and that children create cognitive classes for objects labeled by words.

3. An interactionist view is held by most developmentalists.

4. Vygotsky believed that during the first year, vocalizations and thoughts are separate, but during the second year, thought and language combine.

5. Vygotsky held that children’s thought are initially spoken aloud, but gradually language becomes internalized. This private speech is self-regulative.

ANSWER KEY: TRUTH OR FICTION? 1. A preschooler’s having imaginary playmates is a sign of loneliness or psychological problems.

FALSE. Children with imaginary companions are less aggressive and more cooperative, and they often nurture the imaginary friends (Gleason, 2002).

2. Two-year-olds tend to assume that their parents are aware of everything that is happening to them, even when their parents are not present.

TRUE. This is a reflection of their egocentric perspective.

3. “Because Mommy wants me to” may be a perfectly good explanation for a 3-year-old.

TRUE. This is an example of precausal thinking.

4. Children’s levels of intelligence – not just their knowledge – are influenced by early learning experiences.

TRUE.

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Chapter 9 5. An academic preschool education provides children with advantages in school later on.

TRUE. Studies of Head Start and other intervention programs provide convincing evidence that environmental enrichment can significantly enhance the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children (Wilson, 2004; Zigler & Styfco, 2001).

6. One- and 2-year-olds are too young to remember the past.

FALSE. Children as young as 11½ months of age can remember organized sequences of events they have just experienced (Bauer & Mandler, 1990).

7. During her third year, a girl explained that she and her mother had finished singing a song by saying, “We singed it all up.”

TRUE. In fact the girl was the daughter of the textbook’s author!

8. Three-year-olds usually say, “Daddy goed away,” instead of, “Daddy went away,” because they do understand the rules of grammar.

TRUE. Since the child does understand the rules of grammar, they correctly apply the rule for past tense of a regular verb to an irregular verb.

IDEAS FOR INSTRUCTION I. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage A. Key Words preoperational stage symbolic play operations egocentrism

precausal transductive reasoning animism artificialism

conservation centration irreversibility class inclusion

B. Lecture Expanders The Magic Years Early childhood is often termed the “magic years” because limitations in children’s cognitions allow for magical beliefs and limit logical thinking. Have your students name some popular movies or TV shows that take advantage of the characteristics of preoperational children’s thinking. For example, in the movie Toy Story, toys come to life. If children already attribute human qualities to toys (animism), this movie could be believable. If possible, bring in a few clips from these shows and have students comment on them. Another possibility would be for students to bring in books for this age group and have them analyze them for examples of preoperational thought.

C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations Conservation Tasks in Real Life If at all possible, have a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old come to class to demonstrate the conservation tasks in real life. It will make a lasting impact on your class! (You may also want to have the children do the classic Sally-Anne or Smarties tasks to assess theory of mind.)

Video Suggestions Observing Children and Adolescents: The Video (2004 Wadsworth). Footage of children and adolescents in a variety of naturalistic settings.

Intellectual Development: The First Five Years (1997, Films for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 21 minutes). Overview of cognitive development in infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool years.

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Chapter 9 D. Student Projects Observing Children, Understanding Ourselves: Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Ask students to visit WebTutor or the premium website (register/purchase access at www.cengage.com/login) to view the video “Piaget’s Preoperational Stage.” This video is featured in Chapter 9. Below are the video narration and the application questions with answers on Piaget’s Preoperational Stage.

Video Narration: According to Jean Piaget, children enter the preoperational stage of cognitive development during the preschool years. Their thinking changes dramatically in that they now have the capacity to think symbolically, using words or objects to represent something else. Sarah and Jill dress up and have a tea party; later they feed their doll. Four-year-old Jared pretends he is a “Spy Kid” and chooses an appropriate costume. Todd and Jared show further increases in mental representation. They are engaged in what Piaget called symbolic play, clearly imagining that the blocks they are playing with are something else, in this case, a building.

Despite these increases in cognitive skills the thought processes of preoperational children result in characteristic errors in reasoning. One of the most easily observed deficiencies is the tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective only, a phenomenon that Piaget termed egocentrism. Because of egocentric thinking, preoperational children may “hide” by covering their eyes or only parts of their bodies, believing that if they can’t see the seeker, then they themselves can’t be seen.

Other preoperational reasoning errors result from thinking that is intuitive, rather than logical. For example, preschool children are incapable of conservation. They do not understand that certain properties of objects, such as volume or mass, do not change just because the superficial appearance of the object changes. When given two of Piaget’s famous conservation tasks, Olivia, Debra, Jacob, Christopher, and Jack illustrate this lack of understanding.

Preoperational children are not only tied to their perceptions, they are also unable to de-center their thinking, or think about more than one aspect of a problem at a time. Their thinking also shows what Piaget called irreversibility. They are unable to reverse or mentally undo an action. The following responses to the question, “Why do they no longer have the same amount?” illustrate these limitations in preoperational thinking.

Key Terms and Concepts: Animism: The tendency to attribute life-like qualities to inanimate objects.

Centration: The tendency to concentrate on only one aspect of a situation or a problem at a time.

Egocentrism: The inability to take the perspective of another person, or to imagine the other person’s point of view.

Failure to conserve: The inability to understand that objects stay the same in weight, volume, and other properties despite changes in shape or appearance.

Irreversibility: The inability to mentally reverse a series of events or operations back to the starting point.

Perception-bound thought: Being easily distracted by the concrete, observable characteristics of objects.

Preoperational stage: Piaget’s stage of cognitive development marked by rapid growth in representational, or symbolic, mental activity.

Transductive reasoning: Reasoning from particular event to particular event.

Application Questions and Answers: 1. Describe Jean Piaget’s preoperational stage of development.

• Increases in representational thought • Reasoning is perception bound and intuitive • Characteristic reasoning errors include egocentrism, animism, centration, irreversibility, and failure to conserve

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Chapter 9 How does the ability to use mental symbols to represent objects change the way that children interact in the world?

• Increases in use of language • Ability to think about and reconstruct the past • Imitation and symbolic play • Artistic reproduction of mental images Describe the behaviors exhibited by the children in the video that illustrate representational or symbolic activity.

• Preschool children playing dress-up • Sara and Jill playing “tea party” and feeding doll imaginary food • Jared, age 4, dressing as “Spy Kid” • Todd and Jared building with blocks, constructing a “building” • 2- and 3-year-olds “hiding” by covering eyes and face 2. Using examples from the video, discuss Piaget’s concept of egocentrism.

• 2- and 3-year-old children in the video show egocentrism, or the inability to take the perspective of another person, when they believe they are hidden just by covering their own eyes or parts of their body Why are children in the preoperational stage more egocentric than older children, according to Piaget?

• Perception-bound thinking and reliance on own perceptual perspectives 3. What is conservation?

• Understanding that objects stay the same in weight, volume, and other properties despite changes in shape or appearance Describe the conservation tasks shown in the video and discuss the performance of Olivia, Debra, Jacob, Christopher, and Jack.

• Both liquid and matter tasks are shown, using colored water and play dough • All agree that amount is not the same after transformation Are their responses typical of children in the preoperational stage? Why or why not?

• Responses are typical • Show characteristic reasoning errors of preoperational thought: centration, irreversibility, failure to conserve 4. How do Olivia, Debra, Jacob, Christopher, and Jack respond when asked to explain why they thought the amount of liquid or play dough had changed or not changed?

• Debra, age 3 – “Cause it’s tall” • Christopher, age 4½ – “This one’s higher than this one” • Jack, age 5 – “This one’s low and this one’s tall” • Olivia, age 3 – “That one’s up and that one’s down” • Debra, age 3 – “It’s squished” • Jacob, age 4 – “Because you smushed that one down and not that one, that one has the most” • All responses indicate perception bound, centered thinking, and irreversibility How do these responses illustrate deficits in the reasoning abilities of preoperational children, as described

by Piaget, including centration, irreversibility, perception-bound thought, and their focus on states rather than dynamic transformations?

• Focus on height or shape in defining amount, illustrating perception-bound thought and centration • Watch transformation occur, yet cannot reverse, illustrating focus on states and irreversibility Children in Action Have students observe in a local preschool, Head Start, or university-based daycare individually or in groups. Have them develop a checklist of behaviors they think they might see that would be examples of preoperational thought (e.g., animism, conservation, centration, class inclusion, egocentrism, etc.). What examples of preoperational thought did they actually observe? How do the toys and materials in the center

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Chapter 9 encourage preoperational thought? Have them share their findings in class. Compare and contrast based on the type of setting they observed.

II. Vygotsky’s Views on Early Childhood A. Key Words (none) B. Lecture Expanders Your own ZPD Help students understand that Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development is a concept that applies to learning at all stages of life, not just early childhood. A relevant example for college students is their own selection of courses. The sequencing of college courses is often designed with the zone of proximal development in mind. For example, it is best to successfully complete Introductory Psychology before moving on to more advanced classes in psychology such as Cognitive Psychology and Infant and Child Psychology. Introductory Psychology provides a base of knowledge that scaffolds the learning of more advanced materials. Taking upper-level psychology courses without any prior knowledge would likely be outside one’s ZPD. The main point is that there is material that is next best to learn for most topics.

C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations Video Suggestions Lev Vygotsky: Documentary (2009, PHD Lowe Productions, 1 hour 53 minutes). This video examines Vygotsky’s life, his theory, and how his theory is applied in real life.

Growing Minds: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood (1996, Davidson Films, 25 minutes). David Elkind’s discussion and presentation of this topic.

D. Student Projects Scaffolding in Real Life Students should complete this project by scaffolding children of two different ages in a task and reflecting on their role as the more experienced collaborator. The task should be something that the student can complete competently on their own but that their two child participants cannot do independently. You may assign a task to your students or let them pick their own tasks according to their personal skill sets.

Suggestions for this task include origami, putting together a complex puzzle, and making a friendship bracelet out of thread or yarn. Require ethical treatment of the child participants and informed consent from the parents/guardians. The following questions should be answered by the students in a written report: (1) What ages were your two participants?

(2) Describe each child’s zone of proximal development. (Hint: What could the child do on his/her own? What was needed to complete the task?)

(3) How did you scaffold each child? Was your level of scaffolding different for each child?

(4) Lastly, reflect on the type of scaffolding you are receiving in your current college classes.

III. Other Factors in Early Childhood Cognitive Development A. Key Words (none) B. Lecture Expanders Parental Control of Children’s Media This chapter offered helpful tips on helping children use media wisely. This is quite an important topic considering the prevalence of TVs today along with many other forms of media, including cell phones and handheld electronic devices. They are truly everywhere! A 2004 survey found that 30% of children under

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Chapter 9 age 11 have a television in their bedroom and that this practice is associated with increased television and video usage. Interestingly, lower socioeconomic status families appear to be at higher risk for having a television in a child’s bedroom (Christakis, BE Ebel, FP Rivara, FJ Zimmerman, 2004). Parents should be aware that they have the tools of TV ratings and the V-chip. A TV rating of TV-Y is appropriate for children of all ages, and TV-G is also generally acceptable. Further, the V-chip is in all TVs 13” or larger that were made after January 2000. The V-chip can be programmed to block all programs of a certain rating (i.e., TV-Y7, TV-14) of content (violence).

Current information regarding children and the media can be found on the Public Broadcasting System website dedicated to providing practical information for parents (PBS Parents). Recommendations for various types of media use (TV, computers, advertisements, and video games) based on the age of the child are provided. Use this information to begin discussions in your class regarding the pros and cons of media in the lives of young children. http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/ Christakis, D.A., Ebel, B.E., Rivara, F.P., & Zimmerman, F.J. (2004). Television, video, and computer game usage in children under 11 years of age. Journal of Pediatrics, 145 (5), 652-656.

C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations HOME Environment Questionnaire After students have come to understand the most critical elements of the home environment for cognitive development according to the research (parental involvement, age-appropriate play materials, opportunities for variety in daily stimulation, and responsiveness), have them design a questionnaire to give to parents. Five concrete questions that operationalize these factors should be written for each (20 questions in all). Students could work alone or in groups. Expand this activity by having students actually pilot this questionnaire with parent volunteers. Did it give them the information they wanted, or are there changes they would make?

Early Childhood in Action Most local school districts employ early childhood specialists (teachers, physical therapists, occupational therapist, school psychologists, and speech and language pathologists) who work exclusively with the preschoolers. Invite a panel of these professionals to class to talk about their jobs and experiences with preschool children who may have developmental delays or who are at risk of developing delays. Have your students develop a set of questions they’d like to ask before the panel comes. Be sure and ask about working with families of preschoolers!

Video Suggestions Building Literacy Competencies in Early Childhood (2000, Davidson Films, 30 minutes). Looks at developing literacy skills in preschool classrooms.

Nourishing Language in Early Childhood (1996, Davidson Films, 31 minutes). Emphasis on the importance of language for cognitive, social, and emotional development. Includes classroom footage.

D. Student Projects Television Have students design a coding sheet for assessing the content of children’s television shows and then have them watch at least three television programs aimed at preschool-aged children and do the coding.

Examples include Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, Doodlebops, Backyardagins, etc.

Students can work alone or in groups to design the coding sheets. Features of the programs that could be examined include acts of violence, acts of prosocial behavior, stereotypical male and female behaviors, words and concepts having to do with theory of mind development (e.g., know, dream, think, pretend), types of commercials, etc. Then have students respond to what they observed, evaluate it, and discuss their

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Chapter 9 own ideas about the pros and cons of TV for children and how they think they will regulate their own children’s viewing.

IV. Theory of Mind: What is the Mind? How Does It Work?

A. Key Words theory of mind

appearance-reality distinction

mental representations

B. Lecture Expanders Theory of Mind Deficits in Autism The material on theory of mind in this chapter can be linked to the material on Autism Spectrum Disorders presented in Chapter 7. As stated in Chapter 7, the presence of severe difficulties in interacting with others is a defining characteristic of autism and spectrum disorders. Even high-functioning children with autism have been shown to demonstrate significant delays in formulating the theory of mind that contributes to typical social interactions (Frith, 2004). Even in comparison to other children matched on age and IQ, children with autism experience profound difficulties with tasks that require knowledge of the contents of other individuals’ minds (Baron-Cohen, 1991). Some investigators have even attributed autism to a biologically impaired theory of mind module, a hypothetical brain mechanism that enables children to understand other human beings (Fodor, 1992; Frith, 2004). To illustrate the importance of theory of mind for social interactions, have students describe a few recent social interactions they had and then explain how they used theory of mind in this interaction.

Baron-Cohen, S. (1991). The development of a theory of mind in autism: Deviance and delay? Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 14, 33-51.

Fodor, J. A. (1992). A theory of the child’s theory of mind. Cognition, 44, 283-296.

Frith, U. (2004). Emanuel Miller lecture: Confusions and controversies about Asperger syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(4), 672-686.

C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations Theory of Mind Tasks Some researchers argue that theory of mind is actually a set of multiple theories of mind. Thus, the different experimenter designed assessments (e.g., false-belief by appearance, false-belief by representational transfer, and an aspectuality tasks) are actually measuring different skills, and these skills may develop at different rates (Naito, 2003). Have your students find several examples of theory of mind tasks used by researchers. Students should share their findings with the rest of the class. Alternatively, you can bring in several examples and demonstrate them to the class (or have students participate in the tasks).

Some examples: the Sally-Anne false-belief task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983), the aspectuality task (O-Neill, Astington, & Flavell, 1992), and the faux pas task (Baron-Cohen, O’Riordan, Stone, Jones, & Plaisted, 1999).

More information regarding theory of mind tasks as it relates to autism is provided on the Speech Therapy Information and Resources website. The Sally-Anne false-belief task is also illustrated on this site.

Naito, M. (2003). The relationship between theory of mind and episodic memory: Evidence for the development of autonoetic consciousness. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 85, 312-336.

Speech Therapy Information and Resources (2011) Autism and Theory of Mind. http://www.speechtherapy-information-and-resources.com/autism-and-theory-of-mind.html (Accessed October 6, 2012)

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Chapter 9 Video Suggestions Cognitive Development: Representation in Three- to Five-Year-Old Children (1997, Films for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 30 minutes). Examines recent research into theory of mind, analogical reasoning, causal reasoning, and other cognitive abilities in preschoolers.

D. Student Projects The Shrinking Room - Children’s Understanding of Representations A wonderfully creative study presented in the primary literature clearly illustrates the difficulties young children have in figuring out how symbols are related to what they stand for. Have your students read The Credible Shrinking Room: Very Young Children’s Performance with Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Relations. This short article was published in the journal Psychological Science, Vol. 8, pages 308-313.

Have your students write a summary of the theory that guided the hypotheses, the procedure, and the findings in this article. Make sure your students comment on the ethics of using mild deception in this study.

False Beliefs: The Crayon Box Task If students have access to children between the ages of 3 and 5 years, have them try out the crayon box task with them. It is absolutely amazing to watch a child who does not yet have a well-developed theory of mind claim that they themselves or another person always “knew” that there was something other than crayons in the box. An understanding of the appearance-reality distinction and a concept of humans that involves a representational capacity is so basic to our nature that it is difficult to imagine what it would be like to be in the world and not have it. This activity can help students gain some understanding of just how significant a developmental transition the acquisition of an understanding of false beliefs is in the life of a preschooler. After testing a few children, have students write down what the children said. Students should also try and think about how this understanding develops from simpler concepts.

V. Development of Memory: Creating Files, Storing Them, Retrieving Them A. Key Words scripts

autobiographical memory

rehearsal

B. Lecture Expanders Elaborative Reminiscing One way parents can help their preschool aged children to develop rich autobiographical memory is to reminisce with them using an “elaborative style” (Reese & Newcombe, 2007). During conversations about past events, an elaborative parent follows up on children’s comments and elicits long-detailed discussions.

(This can be contrasted with a repetitive style, in which a parent may simply repeat a question that a child did not answer without providing any new information.)

The role of maternal reminiscing in the emergence of autobiographical memory is evident in cultural differences in individuals’ earliest memories. Research examining adults’ earliest memories has found that European Americans tend to have an earlier age at earliest memory than Asians do (McDonald, Uesiliana, & Hayne, 2000; Mullen, 1994). Further, Asian mothers are less elaborative than are European-American mothers (Wang, Leichtman, & Davies, 2000).

Reese and Newcombe (2007) offer these tips for parents to maintain an elaborative style when talking about the past: ▪Draw your child into the conversation with what, where, who, when questions ▪Respond to your child ▫Praise your child’s responses ▫Follow in your child’s responses with related questions ▫If your child doesn’t respond, rephrase your question with new information ▫Keep it fun (p. 1170)

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Chapter 9 McDonald, S., Uesiliana, K., & Hayne, H. (2000). Cross-cultural and gender differences in childhood amnesia.

Memory, 8, 365-376.

Mullen, M. K. (1994). Earliest recollections of childhood. A demographic analysis. Cognition, 52, 55-79.

Reese, E. & Newcombe, R. (2007). Training mothers in elaborative reminiscing enhances children’s autobiographical memory and narrative. Child Development, 78 (4), 1153-1170.

Wang, Q., Leichtman, M. D., & Davies, K. (2000). Sharing memories and telling stories: American and Chinese mothers and their 3-year-olds. Memory, 8, 159-177.

C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations Preschoolers Outperform You on This Memory Task!

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm is frequently used by experimenters to investigate false memories. Have your students complete a small example of the DRM by asking them to listen carefully as you present the following list of words. Tell your students this is a memory test and you are going to ask them to remember the words on the list. Then read the following list of words, taken from Braneird, Renya, and Forrest (2002): Butter Food Eat Sandwich

Rye Jam Milk Flour

Jelly Dough Crust Slice

After completing the list, have your students write down as many words as they can remember. Then, ask how many falsely remember the word “bread”? Bread was not on the list but was conceptually related to it. Roediger and McDermott (1995) found that adult participants falsely recalled the non-presented lures (like bread) with the level of false recall equaling or exceeding the correct recall of items that were presented in the middle of the list! (There are many lists available if you would like to use a few more examples). Because young children do not process information on the same level as adults, Brainerd, Reyna, and Forrest (2002) showed that kindergartners rarely made these memory mistakes. Thus, young children are actually better at this memory task than adults! Interestingly, if the list words are related by sound (rhyming) rather than meaning, 5-year-olds report false memories of words that were phonetically related (Dewhurst & Robinson, 2004).

Brainerd, C. Reyna, V., & Forrest, T. (2002) Are young children susceptible to the false-memory allusion?

Child Development, 73 (5), 1363–1377.

Dewhurst, S.A. & Robinson, C. A. (2004). False memories in children: Evidence for a shift from phonological semantic associations. Psychological Science, 15 (11), 783-786.

Roediger, H.L., III, & McDermott, K.B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803– 814.

Video Suggestions Early Childhood Cognitive Development: Weighing the Evidence (1999, Films for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 22 minutes). ABC footage on building better babies, including interviews with experts.

Music and Early Childhood (1994, Filmakers Library, 28 minutes). Covers the potential benefits for language and cognitive development of music education. Includes interview with Howard Gardner.

D. Student Projects Peoples Beliefs about Children’s Memory This project is based on a survey recently conducted by Magnussen and his colleagues (2006). Have your students survey 10 adults on the following two questions:

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Chapter 9 1. When small children recount events they have experienced, do you think they remember better, as well as, or worse than adults?

2. Many people talk about memories from their early childhood years. How far back in time do you believe people can remember?

Then, have your students write a brief report on whether public opinion is consistent or inconsistent with current research findings. Magnussen et al. found that the public tended to overestimate the memory abilities of young children, but fairly accurate in estimating the offset of childhood amnesia around age 3.

Magnussen, S., Andersson, J., Cornoldi, C., De Beni, R., Endestad, T., Goodman, G., et al. (2006). What people believe about memory. Memory, 14(5), 595-613.

VI. Language Development: Why Daddy “Goed Away” A. Key Words fast mapping whole-object assumption

contrast assumption overregularization

pragmatics private speech

B. Lecture Expanders How to Positively Influence Preschoolers’ Language Development One way to foster the development of preschoolers’ language skills is through shared reading, which occurs when a caregiver reads a book to a young child and discusses the book as they go along. This activity has a positive effect on both expressive and receptive language development because many elements of adult speech that foster children’s linguistic development (e.g., frequent use of open-ended questions, the provision of familiar linguistic routines in which children can become progressively more active agents, the elaboration of the child’s current focus) occur at an accelerated rate during shared reading episodes. However, children also actively influence caregivers’ utterances during shared reading by displaying (or not!) interest (Deckner, Adamson, & Bakeman, 2006). You may want to discuss your students’ experiences in shared reading, their favorite childhood books, and how shared reading is captured on the HOME scales discussed earlier in the chapter.

Deckner, D. F., Adamson, L. A., & Bakeman, R. (2006). Child and maternal contributions to shared reading: Effects on language and literacy development. Applied Developmental Psychology, 27(1), 3141.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) provides specific activities caregivers should use to foster language development in children from birth to age 6. Present these to the class and have them reflect on how often they have seen examples of these activities in their own lives or in their observations of others.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2012) http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/parent-stim-activities.htm (Accessed October 6, 2012) C. Classroom Activities and Demonstrations Pragmatics Have your students pretend to tell (or write an email) about a recent date (or outing with a friend) to their best friend, their mother, and their 3-year-old cousin. Have students’ note the differences in these three accounts. Do they differ in length? Level of vocabulary? Word choice? Content? All of these differences illustrate pragmatics.

Say That Again? Speech and Language Pathology in Action Most local school districts employ speech and language pathologists to work with young children who either have speech or language problems or who are at risk of developing speech or language difficulties.

Invite one (or more) to visit your class to talk about their jobs and experiences with working with young children and their families. Have students prepare a list of questions to ask prior to their visit.

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Chapter 9 Video Suggestions Developing Language: Learning to Question, Inform, and Entertain (1994, Films for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 25 minutes). Covers later language development, including sophisticated aspects of conversational speech.

D. Student Projects Observing Children, Understanding Ourselves: An Explosion in Vocabulary Ask students to visit WebTutor or the premium website (register/purchase access at www.cengage.com/login) to view the video “An Explosion in Vocabulary.” This video is featured in Chapter 9. Below are the video narration and the application questions with answers on An Explosion in Vocabulary.

Video Narration: After the age of 2, there is a vocabulary explosion. Children learn words at an astronomical rate, acquiring more than 14,000 new words by the age of 6. Many new words are very difficult for the child to pronounce. So, children develop all kinds of strategies to simplify difficult words. Initial consonants may be dropped or replaced with less difficult forms.

At the same time, children are developing this extensive vocabulary, they are also beginning to use grammatical morphemes, or word endings that impart grammatical information such as possession, plurals, and tense. As children begin to use new word forms, rules for combining words and word endings may be over used, an error called overregularization.

Preschoolers are also learning the system of rules, or the grammar, of their language. By the age of 4, rather than using one or two words to make a request or to comment, children begin to use complete sentences that include adjectives, pronouns, and prepositions. They are better conversationalists and can talk about the things that interest them such as preschool, their friends, or outings and interesting experiences. Four-year-old Caroline tells about her experience with bowling and miniature golf.

Application Questions: 1. When does the vocabulary spurt begin?

• Between 18 and 24 months Why do researchers believe that children learn new words at such an astronomical rate?

• By fast-mapping, or retaining words in memory after hearing it on a small number of occasions • Proposed by nativists that the brain is genetically preprogrammed to make neural connections rapidly when exposed to language 2. How old does Debra say that she is? What error does she make in her articulation of her answer? Is this typical for a child her age? Why or why not?

• 3 years, says “I free” • Drops consonant blend, replaced by simpler form • Yes, typical strategy for simplifying pronunciation of difficult words 3. What is a grammatical morpheme?

• Word endings that impart grammatical information such as possession, plurals, and tense Olivia and Christopher incorrectly add “-ed” to refer to the past tense. What does this indicate regarding their mastery of the rules of English?

• Overusing rule of tense, overregularization • Olivia says, “I don’t remember what I watcheded” • Christopher says, “I think somebody taked it” How old do you think Christopher and Olivia are? Why? • Between 2 and 4 years • Overregularization common in preschool children

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Chapter 9 4. Discuss the language achievements of early childhood in the context of Olivia’s conversation with the interviewer.

• Produces complex sentences indicating syntactic development • Uses the relational words on, in, into, and over • Semantic difficulty with unfamiliar bowling equipment: “…You try to knock it in a blue thing” and “…You can’t knock the thing that is right there over” Do You Hear What I Hear? Listening to Young Children Have students form small groups and observe young children in action. This could be at a local daycare or preschool, in malls, or playgrounds. Ask them to specifically listen for conversations between caregivers and the children or between children. Have them bring back samples of these conversations and analyze them for characteristics of language in young children outlined in the text.

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