Portage Learning Developmental Psych Module 4 | Questions and Answers with complete solution

Physical development in early childhood - Fine motor skills vs gross motor skills - - Fine motor skills: skills that use smaller muscles. Ex: pouring liquids or coloring - Gross motor skills: skills that use large muscle groups. Ex: throwing a ball or running Explain the rapid period of neural growth during early childhood - The connections are made between neurons at the synapses and dendrites spread and connect to new growth. Synaptic pruning through early childhood - when under-utilized synaptic connections between neurons die away while important ones become strengthened. when under-utilized synaptic connections between neurons die away while important ones become strengthened. Mylenation - Where neurons are insulted with a layer of fat to speed up messages between neurons and enhances processing speed Cognitive development in early childhood - Piaget's pre-operational stage - 1. Symbolic function substage (ages 2-4) - where children have animistic thinking (they believe inanimate objects or animals have human-like qualities) and are egocentric (cannot see another's perspective) 2. Intuitive though substage- where children begin to reason but cannot engage in highly rational thought because they only focus on one aspect of something or put all their attention on one object (centration) and do not see the bigger picture. An example of centration is their difficulty withconservation where they cannot understand that just because an object looks different doesn't mean it substantially changed. How Piaget has inspired education for young children - 1. Teachers should be aware of a child's readiness to learn because it might be detrimental to rush acquisition of a skill 2. Learning by exploring the environment is most ideal 3. it is important to recognize childrens' differences in learning and not compare them. Vygotsky's approach to cognitive development - focused on what can be learned with collaboration with others or an expert Zone of proximal development- gap between what kids can accomplish alone and what they can do with guidance of an expert scaffolding is a form of teaching that offers changing levels of support as the child progresses Piaget vs. Vygotsky - Piaget approached cognitive development from a biological/maturational standpoint and believed that abilities naturally unfolded at certain ages. Vygotsky approached cognitive development from a sociocultural standpoint and emphasized collaborative learning. Socioemotional development in early childhood - A. Gender B. Parenting Styles Key influences on gender - 1. Biological influences- our 23rd chromosomes influence the development of sex characteristics2. Social influences- where they incorporate how society treats girls and boys differently 3. Cognitive influences- where children may choose to imitate stereotypical gender behaviors from the world gender schema theory - states that children have a desire to conform to societal standards and therefore may tune their attention and behavior to act in ways in keeping with their respective gender gender constancy - knowledge that one's sex remains the same even if outward appearance changes gender stereotypes - set belief about the expected behaviors of males and females.