Piaget Developmental Stages Summary

Chapter 9: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
Piaget’s Theory:

The Pre-operational Stage
! Piaget’s pre-operational stage: ages 2–7 years
! Use of symbolic thinking grows
! Still not capable of operations: organized, formal, logical mental processes that characterize school-age children

!
!

Make-Believe Play
! Play detaches from the real-life conditions associated with it
! prior to 2, children can only play with objects that are realistic; after 2, they can pretend and object is something different from what it actually is
! Play becomes less self-centered

! children start directing their play towards other people and objects
! Play includes more complex combinations of schemes
! Sociodramatic play – make believe with others

!
!
!
Symbol-Real-World Relations
! Dual-representation – viewing a symbolic object as both an objects in its own right and a symbol

! develops in early childhood

!
!
!
!
!
!

Limitations of Pre-operational Thought
! First substage of pre-operational thought: ! Symbolic functions include scribbled drawings representing real objects

! Child at age 2–4, still very egocentric and animistic
! Animism – the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action
! Egocentrism – inability to distinguish b/w one’s own perspective and someone else’s

!

Limitations of Pre-operational Thought
! Second substage of preoperational thought
4-7 years old
Intuitive thought: child uses primitive reasoning but is still centric (concentration on one limited aspect of a stimular and ignoring all other aspects) in thought, lacks conservation abilities ! Preoperational child’s inability to mentally reverse actions applies to numbers, length, volume, and area
Vygotsky’s sociocultural Theory
! Social Constructivist Approach – emphasizes the social contexts of learning that are mutually created between a child and a mentor
Vygotsky’s Theories
! Zone of proximal development (ZPD):
! Lower limit can be achieved by child alone
! Upper limit can be achieved by child’s skills with adult guidance and instruction
! Scaffolding involves changing level of support during a teaching session – close, direct instruction is reduced as child grasps the concept
! Language is used for social communication, solving tasks, and monitoring one’s own behavior !
!

Vygotsky’s Theory: Teaching Strategies

!

! Effectively assess child’s ZPD

! Use the child’s ZPD in teaching

! Used more-skilled peers as tutors

! Monitor child and encourage private speech

! Place instruction in meaningful context

! Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas

!

Information Processing: Attention

!
!

! A child’s ability to pay attention increases significantly during preschool years; however, there are still 2 major weaknesses:
! Salient versus relevant dimensions – paying attention to what’s most interesting rather than what’s most important

!

Accuracy of Long-Term Memory

!

! Autobiographical memory – memory of particular events in one’s own life

! Age differences in children’s susceptibility to suggestion ! Individual differences in susceptibility ! Interviewing techniques can exaggerate child’s susceptibility
! Scripts (broad representations in memory of events and the order in which they occur) show less accuracy

!

The Young Child’s Theory of Mind

!

! Age 2–3: children begin to understand three mental states – perceptions, desires, emotions ! Age 4–5: children understand “false beliefs” and that people can be mistaken
Only beyond preschool years do children have a deepening appreciation of the mind
In middle and late childhood, children understand beliefs are “interpretive”

!
!

Early childhood literacy

!

! Emergent literacy – Children’s active efforts to construct literacy knowledge through informal experiences
! Phonological awareness – ability to reflect on and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language

!
Young children’s mathematical reasoning

!
!

! Ordinality – understanding the order relationships between quantities
! Develops between 14 and 16 months

! Cardinality – understanding that the last # in a counting sequence indicates the quantity of items in a set

! Develops by age 3 1⁄2 - 4 years of age

!
!

Chapter 10:Emotional and Social Development in Early
Childhood
Erikson’s Theory: Initiative vs. Guilt
! Initiative vs. guilt – self-esteem emerges from the skills and competencies that demonstrate independence and initiative.
Self-Understanding
! Self-understanding – cognitive representation of self
! Self-concept – people’s understanding of who they are.
! Appearance,personality and abilities
! Self-esteem – judgments we make about our own worth and the feelings associated with those judgments. (parents promoting positive reinforcement, what the child is good and bad at based on previous experiences).

!
Understanding Others
! Advances in understanding others

! 4 or 5 years old children begin to perceive others in terms of psychological traits
! “My teacher is nice”
! Awareness that ppl. do not always accurately report their beliefs
! Faking sick
Emotional Development
! Self-conscious emotions –

! children must be able to distinguish between self and others ! Feelings that involve injury to or enhancement of their sense of self
! Pride, shame, embarrassment, and guilt(They are turned on by others).
Pair and share
Why is it important that parents “socialize” their children’s emotional development?
It helps them deal with their emotions and realize that its okay to feel them.
What are some practical emotional socialization tips.
Rewarding good behavior and discouraging bad.
Emotion-Coaching and Emotion-Dismissing Parents
! Emotion-coaching – monitor their kid’s emotions, 
 view negative emotions as teachable, and help kids 
 to label and deal with their emotions. 

! Kids are better at self-soothing and regulating their negative effect
! Emotion-dismissing – deny or change negative emotions

!
Empathy

! Prosocial Behavior (Altruism) – actions that benefit another person without any expected reward for the self
! Empathy – feeling with another person and responding emotionally in a similar way(deeper level actually feel it).
! Sympathy – feelings of concern or sorrow for another’s plight

!
!
Advance in peer play
! Play-activity that children engage in bc they enjoy it for its own sake
! Unoccupied play-stand in one spot making random movements
! Solitary play-child plays alone and independently of others
! Onlooker play- child watches others play
! Parallel play- two children play besides each other, but not together
! Associates play- involves social interaction with little or no organization
! Cooperative play- consists of social interaction in a group with a sense of group identity. !
Foundations of Morality
! The Psychoanalytic Perspective –

! According to Freud, our superego develops by identifying with the same-sex parent, who’s moral standards we adopt
! Current view is that conscience formation is promoted by a type of discipline called induction, in which an adult helps the child notice feelings by pointing out the effects of the child’s misbehavior on others
! Empathy-based guilt – expression of personal responsibility and regret. Parents need to help kids deal with guilt constructively.
Parents modeling appropriate behavior. Helping the child understand it and the parents understands why the child developed the feeling. Develop ways to dea

Foundations of Morality
! Social Learning Theory
! Prosocial behavior – helping behavior that benefits others
! Abstract modeling – process in which modeling paves the way for the development of more general rules and principles

!
!
Foundations of Morality
! Piaget theorized that children go through two distinct stages in how they think about morality
! Heteronomous morality – think of justice and rules as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control
! Autonomous morality – kids become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and in judging an action, they consider the actor’s intentions as well as the consequences ! Immanent justice – if a rule is broken, punishment will be immediate

!
Punishment
! What are some reasons for avoiding corporal punishment?
! Models poor methods of handling stress (out of control, aggressive behavior)
! Punishment can instill fear, rage, or avoidance
! Tells kids what NOT to do rather than what TO do
! It can be abusive (even unintentionally) 

!
Alternatives:

! Time-out, Positive Discipline

!
Development of Aggression

! By age 2, two general types of aggression emerge
! Proactive (instrumental) aggression – children act to fulfill a need or desire (e.g., obtain an object, privilege, space, or social reward) and unemotionally attack a person to achieve their goal
! Reactive aggression – angry, defensive response to provocation or a blocked goal and is meant to hurt another person
! Both can come in 3 forms: Physical, verbal, and relational

!
Gender
! Gender - social dimension of being male or female
1.

! Gender identity – the sense of being male or female

2.

! Gender roles – set of expectations that prescribe being male or female

3.

! Gender-typing - a child’s learning of his or her gender role

4.

! Gender constancy – the understanding that sex is biologically based and remains the same even if clothing, hairstyle, and play activities change

!
Environmental Influences on Gender Typing
! Parents

!

1.

! Differential expectations of children depending on gender

2.

! Sons are given toys that stress action and competition

3.

! Daughters are given toys that stress nurturance,cooperation,and 
 physical attractiveness

4.

! Boys are more gender-typed, particularly by their fathers 

! Teachers

5.

! Boys and girls engage in different social behaviors (as rein forced by 
 teachers) 6.

! Boys are disciplined with more disapproval and control

Environmental Influences on Gender Typing
! Peers

! By age 3, same-sex peers positively reinforce one another for gendertyped play by praising, imitating, or joining in
! In-group favoritism – more positive evaluations of members of one’s own gender

!
!
Gender Schema Theory
! Gender schema theory – an individual’s attention and behavior are guided by an internal motivation to conform to gender-based sociocultural standards and stereotypes.

!
Styles of Child Rearing
! Child-rearing styles are combinations of parenting behaviors that occur over a wide range of situations, creating an enduring child-rearing climate

!
Baumrind’s Parenting Styles
! Authoritative parenting – encourages kids to be independent but still places limits; verbal give and take
! Authoritarian parenting – restrictive, punitive style; limits and controls child
! Permissive/Indulgent parenting – parents are highly involved with their children but place few demands on them
! Uninvolved parenting – parent is very uninvolved in child’s life

!
Parenting Styles and Child Outcomes
Authoritative
Independent, friendly with peers, self-assertive, cooperative; strong motivation to achieve; successful, likable. Regulate own behavior effectively, both in terms of their relationships and emotion regulation

Authoritarian
Withdrawn, showing relatively little sociability. Not very friendly, often behaving uneasily around peers. Girls are unusually dependent on parents; Boys are unusually aggressive/hostile Permissive
Dependent and moody, low in social skills and self-control
Uninvolved
Feel unloved and emotionally detached, which impedes physical and cognitive development. These kids are the worst off

!
Reasons for Physical Abuse
! Difficult line between “spanking” and “beating” ! Privacy of child care
! Child care is seen as the sole responsibility of the parent
! Unrealistic expectations regarding children’s abilities to be quiet and compliant
Developmental Consequences of Abuse
! Poor emotion regulation

! Problems in peer relations

! Attachment problems

! Difficulty adapting to school
! Excessive negative affect

! Blunted positive affect

! Insecure attachment

! Overly aggressive
The Cycle of Violence Hypothesis
! Cycle of violence hypothesis – abuse and neglect that children suffer predispose them as adults to abuse and neglect their own children

Chapter 12: Cognitive Development in Middle
Childhood

!

Piaget’s Theory:

Concrete Operational Stage

!

! Concrete Operational Stage
! 7 – 11 years
! Perform concrete operations (reason through concrete examples – conservation tasks) ! Reversibility – the capacity to think through a series of steps and then reverse direction, returning to beginning
! Classification – ability to divide things into subsets and understand interrelationships

!

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought
! Children can only think in an organized, logical fashion dealing exclusively with concrete information they can directly perceive

!

Information Processing
! 2 basic changes
! Increases in information-processing speed and capacity (i.e., digit span improvement)
! Gains in inhibition (ability to control internal and external distracting stimuli)
**Seating Chart

!

What is Intelligence?
Intelligence – “to choose between;” and “to make wise choices.”
Intelligent Behavior – goal-oriented and adaptive
1.Reasoning
2.Capacity to acquire knowledge 3.Problem-solving ability

!

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
! Fluid Intelligence – represents a person’s “pure” ability to perceive, remember, and think; capacity to process novel information. Something that isn’t related to requiring information overtime. Math, manipulation, problem solving. Working memory.

!

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
! Crystallized Intelligence – represents the extent to which individuals have incorporated the valued knowledge of their culture; knowledge acquired over a lifetime.

!
Intelligence – Wechsler
! Wechsler made the intelligence scales less dependent on verbal performance (V) by introducing many non-verbal reasoning items that lead to a performance (P) IQ scale.
The PIQ and VIQ scores lead to an overall IQ score.

!
!
!
!

Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale
! Verbal:
General Information/comprehension,Arithmetic Reasoning, Similarities, Digit span,
Vocab.
! Performance:
Picture completion,picture arraignment,block design, object assembly,digit symbol,substitution !

WAIS:
! Information-questions about general information. Who is bill clinton
! Comprehension-questions about social circumstances or meaning of proverb
Why is there a legal droning age?
! Arithmetic- solving word problem.
If I have 4 blocks take 2 away how many do I have?

!

WAIS-Verbal Scale
! Similarities- Explain how two concept/things are related.
Pencils and trees
! Digital span- Listen t a series of numbers, then repeat them both forward and backward. ! Vocabulary- Define the meaning of words.

!

Children with Learning Disabilities
! It is mandated by the US that schools place children who require special supports for learning in the “least restrictive” environments that meet their educational needs

! Inclusive classrooms – students with learning disabilities are mainstreamed as much as possible to prepare them for post-education world
! Learning disability – great difficulty with 1 or more aspects of learning, usually reading. !
!
!
!
!
!

Thinking
! Critical Thinking – thinking reflectively and productively; evaluating evidence
! Creative Thinking – ability to think in novel and unusual ways to come up with unique solutions to problems( it is important but not tested in a IQ test)
! Convergent thinking – one correct answer
! Divergent thinking – many answers to the same question

!
!

What is Creativity?(Applied Creativity)
! Creativity – originate problem solutions that are novel as well as practical and useful
! Creative thought has the following characteristics
! Originality is the ability to see unique solutions to a problem
! Fluency is the generation of a large number of solutions to a problem
! Flexibility is the ability to shift problem-solving strategies

!
!

Chapter 13:Socio-emotional Development in
Middle Childhood
The Self – Self-Esteem/Self- Concept
! Self-esteem – how we evaluate ourselves (e.g., self-worth) GLOBALLY... (e.g., I am a good person)
! OT self and actually self the closes we can get is self-esteem

! Self-concept – domain-specific evaluations of the self (e.g., academic, athletic, appearance) !

Hierarchal structure of self-esteem in mid elementary school years.
1.General self esteem

!

2. Academic
3. LA,Math,Other school projects

!

2. Social Competence
3.Relationship with peers, Relationship with parent

!

2.Physical/ athletic competence
3. Outdoor games, Various sports

!
2.physical appearance
!
The Self:Erikson

! Industry vs. Inferiority – children become interested in how things are made and how they work.
! Mastery-oriented attributions – crediting their successes to ability and their failures to factors that can be changed or controlled (e.g., insufficient effort)
! Learned helplessness – attributing successes to external factors (e.g., luck) and failures to ability

!

Perspective Taking
Perspective Taking-capacity to imagine what other people may be thinking and feeling. level 0-(3-6) Undifferentiated: recognition that self and others can have different thoughts/feeling but they confuse the two
Response: The child predicts that Holly will save the kitten because she does not want it to get hurt and believes that Holly's father will feel just as she does about her climbing the tree: "Happy, he likes kittens."

!

Level1(4-9) Social informational-Understand that different perspectives may result because people have access to different information

Response: When asked how Holly's father will react when he finds out that she climbed the tree, the child responds, "If he didn't know anything about the kitten, he would be angry. But if Holly shows him the kitten, he might change his mind."

!

Level2(7-12) Self-reflective- step into another persons shoes and view own thoughts/ feelings from anthers perspective vice versa
Response: When asked whether Holly thinks she will be punished, the child says, "No.
Holly knows that her father will understand why she climbed the tree." This response assumes that Holly's point of view is influenced by her father being able to "step in her shoes" and understand why she saved the kitten.

!

Level 3 (10-15) Third Party Perspective taking-Children can step outside a two-person situation and imagine how the self and other are viewed from the point of view of a third, impartial party.
Response: When asked whether Holly should be punished, the child says, "No, because Holly thought it was important to save the kitten. But she also knows that her father told her not to climb the tree. So she'd only think she shouldn't be punished if she could get her father to understand why she had to climb the tree." This response steps outside the immediate situation to view both Holly's and her father's perspectives simultaneously. !

Level 4(14-adulthood) Societal perspective-taking- individuals understand that thirdparty perspective-taking can be influenced by one or more systems of larger societal values. Response: When asked if Holly should be punished, the individual responds, "No. The value of humane treatment of animals justifies Holly's action. Her father's appreciation of this value will lead him not to punish her."

!

Peer Groups
! Peer groups – collectives that generate unique values and standards for behavior and a social structure of leaders and followers
! Organized (at this age) on the basis of proximity and similarity in sex, ethnicity, popularity, and aggression
! Although most school-age children believe it’s wrong to exclude a peer, most of them still do

!

Peer Acceptance
! Peer acceptance – the extent to which a child is viewed by a group of agemates, such as classmates, as well liked

! Researchers usually measure social preferences

!

Peer Acceptance
! Popular children – frequently nominated as best friend; rarely disliked
! Neglected children – infrequently nominated as a best friend, but not disliked by peers ! Rejected children – infrequently nominated as best friend; actively disliked by peers
! Controversial children – frequently nominated as best friend but often disliked

!
!

Peer Acceptance (Effects on Children)
! Popular children
! Give out reinforcements, listen carefully, communicate well, happy, emotion regulation, show care and concern for others and are self-confident
! Neglected and controversial children
! Described as shy by peers; interventions help them to try to get attention (positively) by peers and to maintain the attention
! Rejected children
! More serious adjustment problems than neglected folks

!

Parent-Child Relationships
! In middle childhood, the amount of time children spend with parents declines dramatically ! Effective parents engage in correlation, a form of supervision in which parents exercise general oversight while letting children take charge of moment-by-moment decision making

!

Siblings
! Sibling rivalry tends to increase in middle childhood
! Parents tend to compare their children on a range of activities as they age – this is stronger in same-sex siblings
! Siblings work at being different from one another to decrease the comparisons
! School-age siblings continue, though, to rely on each other for companionship, academic, peer, and family challenges

!

Only Children
! Only children are not spoiled and in some respects, they are actually advantaged
! US children growing up in one-child and multi- child families do not differ in selfrelated personality traits
! Only children are higher in self-esteem and achievement motivation, do better in school, and attain higher levels of education
! Tend to be less well-accepted in the peer group, perhaps because they have no had opportunities to learn effective conflict-resolution strategies through sibling intera