1. Chapter 9: Cognitive Development in Preschool Children
MODULES
9.1 Cognitive Processes
9.2 Language
9.3 Communicating with Others
9.4 Early Childhood Education
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2. Module 9.1 Cognitive Processes
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Name the distinguishing features of thinking during the preoperational stage.
Discuss how children’s information processing improves during the preschool years.
Explain why Vygotsky viewed development as an apprenticeship.
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Piaget’s Account
Preschoolers are in Piaget’s preoperational stage.
Children can use symbols but there are many weaknesses in their thinking: egocentrism, centration, and appearance as reality.
Improved biological theories and theory of mind.
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Three-Mountains Task
Conservation Tasks
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5. Information-Processing Perspectives on Preschool Thinking
During the preschool years, children become better at regulating their attention.
Autobiographical memory originates in the preschool years.
Preschoolers’ counting follows 3 basic principles.
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6. Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Zone of proximal development: difference between what one can do alone and with assistance.
Scaffolding: matching the amount of assistance to the learner’s needs.
Private speech: comments intended to regulate own behaviour.
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Module 9.2 Language
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Describe the conditions that help preschoolers expand their vocabularies.
Understand how children progress from speaking single words to complicated sentences.
Discuss how a child acquires the grammar of the child’s native language.
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8. Encouraging Word Learning
Talk more, but with not at children.
Asking children questions while reading fosters identification of meaning of new words.
Bilingual children learn language as rapidly as monolinguals.
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9. The Effect of Asking Children Questions
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10. From Two-Word Speech to Complex Sentences
Speech is often telegraphic in 1-year-olds.
Gradually by 2-years of age add grammatical morphemes.
Rule-based so errors of overregularization occur.
“Wug” Stimuli
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11. How Children Acquire Grammar
Language input is important but more than just imitation because children’s speech has its own grammar.
Neural circuits in the brain allow children to infer grammar of the language they hear.
Semantic bootstrapping hypothesis: children rely upon word meaning to discover grammatical rules.
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12. Module 9.3 Communicating with Others
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Explain when and how children learn conversational turn-taking.
List the skills required to be an effective speaker.
Describe what is involved in becoming a good listener.
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Taking Turns
Even before children speak, parents model turn-taking.
By age 3, children know this is a key rule.
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Speaking Effectively
Toddlers’ first conversations are about themselves.
Preschoolers adjust their speech based on the age of the listener and the context.
Understand that when listeners misunderstand, speakers need to do something, such as repeating what they said.
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Listening Well
Preschoolers often don’t detect ambiguities in messages or assume they understand the speaker’s intent.
Preschoolers are more likely to believe confusing statements or statements that contradict their beliefs when told by a parent instead of a peer.
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16. Module 9.4 Early Childhood Education
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Identify how the aims of preschool programs are best achieved.
Explain how effective Head Start programs are.
Discuss whether television can be used to educate preschool children.
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17. Varieties of Early Childhood Education
Preschools and daycare centers may not be the same.
Goal of child-centered programs is to educate the whole child.
Academic programs follow an explicit curriculum to achieve academic goals.
Many programs based on Piagetian ideas.
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18. Preschool Programs for Economically Disadvantaged Children
Children from low-income families benefit from programs, such as Head Start, that foster healthy development.
In general, children in Head Start are less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to be in special education and more likely to graduate from high school.
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19. Using TV to Educate Preschool Children
3-year-olds who watch Sesame Street, now called Sesame Park in Canada, regularly have larger vocabularies later.
Viewers of shows that stress prosocial behaviour, such as Mr. Dress-Up, are more likely to act prosocially.
TV watching does not lead to decreased attention span, mixed findings regarding impact on creativity.
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Conclusions
During the preschool years, children form a theory of mind- a naïve understanding of connections between thoughts, beliefs, and behaviour.
Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as a collaboration between a novice child and more skilled teachers who scaffold children’s learning.
As children move beyond two-word speech, they begin to master questions, negation, and other more complex sentence forms.
Although early childhood education programs vary in the structure of the curriculum, all anchor teaching in play.
The contents of TV programs can influence children’s development.
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