Early Childhood Study Guide PDF

# Study Guide for Early Childhood Chapters ## Chapter 8 1. **Describe the normative growth of a well-nourished child in height and weight between ages 2 and 6.** - Children become slimmer as the lower body lengthens - From age 2-6, each year well-nourished children add almost 3 inches in h...

# Study Guide for Early Childhood Chapters ## Chapter 8 1. **Describe the normative growth of a well-nourished child in height and weight between ages 2 and 6.** - Children become slimmer as the lower body lengthens - From age 2-6, each year well-nourished children add almost 3 inches in height and gain about 4.5 pounds 2. **Explain why adults often overfeed children.** - Misinterpreting hunger cues, using food as reward or comfort, wrong portion sizes, anxiety about child not eating enough 3. **Explain why myelination is important for thinking and motor skills.** - Myelination is the primary reason for faster thinking. - Speeds signals between neurons - Allows children to be better thinkers, be less clumsy, and eventually to read, write, and add. 4. **Explain how brain maturation affects impulsivity and perseveration.** - Lack of impulse control signifies a personality disorder in adulthood but not in early childhood. - Some young children perseverate, which is to stick to a thought or action. 5. **Explain how stress hormones affect brain development.** - Relationship between stress and brain depends on age of the person and degree of stress. - Disrupts the development of the brain. 6. **Identify factors that help children develop their gross motor skills.** - Early childhood - Practice and age - Brain maturation and peer experience - Play 7. **Identify factors that help children develop their fine motor skills.** - More difficult, small hand and finger movement - Practice and maturation 8. **Differentiate between primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.** - **Primary Prevention:** prevention efforts are implemented before health issues occur. - **Secondary Prevention:** early detection and intervention. - **Tertiary Prevention:** addresses existing conditions. 9. **Explain why the rates of child motor vehicle deaths have declined.** - More primary preventions have been put in place (sidewalks, pedestrian overpasses, streetlights, traffic circles). 10. **Explain why reported abuse is much higher than substantiated abuse.** - Each child is counted once, even if there are multiple reports. - Many investigations do not find substantial proof. 11. **Explain why childhood neglect is considered worse than abuse.** - Child victims of neglect have more severe long-term cognitive impairment. 12. **Identify who should notice signs of abuse in children.** - Teachers, authorities, neighbors, family 13. **Describe the long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment.** - Regard people as hostile and exploitative. - Less friendly, more aggressive, more isolated. - Social deficits. - Substance abuse. ## Chapter 9 1. **Identify the three abilities that comprise executive function.** - **Executive Function:** the cognitive ability to organize and prioritize the many thoughts that arise from the various parts of the brain, allowing the person to anticipate, strategize, and plan behavior. - Memory, inhibition, and flexibility 2. **Describe health habits that advance executive function.** - Routines, simplify directions, reward system, frequent breaks 3. **Discuss the effect of siblings on theory of mind.** - **Theory of Mind:** a person's theory of what other people might be thinking. - Having a sibling advances theory of mind. 4. **Explain why the ability to lie is a measure of cognitive advancement.** - Lying demonstrates the development of the theory of mind. 5. **Discuss how words are an example of symbolic thought.** - **Symbolic thought:** allows a child to think symbolically, including understanding abstract terms and symbols. 6. **Describe some aspects of preoperational thought that are not logical.** - **Centration:** focus on one idea, excluding all others. - **Appearance-focus:** a thing is whatever it appears to be. - **Static Reasoning:** the world is stable and unchanging. - **Irreversible Reasoning:** do not recognize that reversing a process might restore whatever existed before. 7. **Describe an example of over imitation.** - **Overimitation:** when a person imitates an action that is not a relevant part of the behavior to be learned. - Tapping a box before opening it. 8. **Explain how guided participation increases a child's zone of proximal development.** - Provides them with the necessary support from a more knowledgeable other, to successfully complete tasks that are beyond their current capabilities. 9. **Explain what Vygotsky believed aided in cognition.** - Social interaction and cultural context. 10. **Describe the evidence that supports the notion that early childhood is a sensitive time for learning language.** - Children engage in fast-mapping. 11. **Explain what fast-mapping is and how it aids the language explosion.** - **Fast-mapping:** the speedy and sometimes imprecise way in which children learn new words by tentatively placing them in mental categories according to their perceived meaning. 12. **Explain how overregularization is actually a sign of cognitive advancement.** - **Overregularization:** application of rules of grammar even when exceptions occur 13. **Identify aspects of language learning that show the limitations of logic in early childhood.** - After learning a word, children use it to describe other objects in the same category. - Bilingual children who don't know a word in the language they are speaking often insert a word from their other language. - Abstractions are difficult for young children; actions are easier 14. **Describe child-centered and teacher-directed programs.** **Explain the focus and outcomes of each.** **And explain the role of teachers in child-centered programs.** - **Child-centered programs:** - Stress children's natural inclination to learn through play rather than by following adult directions. - Space and materials are arranged to scaffold artistic expression, science exploration, and interactive play. - Teachers provide guidance and opportunity. - **These programs are influenced by Piaget, who emphasized that children discover new ideas if given a chance, or by Vygotsky, who thought that children learn from playing, especially with other children.** 15. **Describe the goals of the Head Start program.** - Advance language and social skills in children from every background. 16. **Describe the long-term gains from intervention preschools.** - Increased vocab. - Gains continue with support. - Benefits become apparent in 3rd grade or later. ## Chapter 10 1. **Explain how protective optimism might lead to a child's acquisition of new skills and competencies.** - Fostering a positive self-concept and motivation to try new activities. 2. **Describe what Erikson thought to be crucial for young children.** - Protective Optimism 3. **Describe and identify an example of intrinsic motivation.** - Drive, or reason to pursue goal. - Comes from inside a person (need to feel smart or competent). - Seen when children invent imaginary companions. 4. **Describe and identify an example of extrinsic motivation.** - Drive or reason to pursue a goal. - Arises from the need to have achievements rewarded from outside. - Receiving material possessions or another person's esteem. 5. **Explain how playing with peer's changes over time and is associated with physical development and emotion regulation.** - Provide opportunities to practice motor skills and their emotional regulation by allowing them to navigate social cues, manage frustrations, and develop empathy through interactions with others. 6. **Describe how caregivers should respond when children engage in risky play.** - **Risky play**: any play that may cause injury to child. - Caregivers should observe, asses actual risk, and provide support while allowing the child to explore their boundaries within safe limits. 7. **Describe what children learn from rough-and-tumble play.** - **Rough-and-tumble play**: play that seems rough, but there is no intent to harm. - Children learn strength, movement, and social skills. 8. **Describe what children learn from sociodramatic play.** - Explore and rehearse social roles. - Explain ideas and persuade playmates. - Practice emotional regulation. - Develop self-concept in nonthreatening context. 9. **Identify how many hours of screen time is recommended for preschoolers and how many hours of screen time they actually have.** - 1 hour of screen time recommended, actually have 2.5 hours. 10. **Explain the advantages and disadvantages of screen time in early childhood.** - **Advantage:** help children learn. - **Disadvantage:** can lead to health issues and developmental delays. 11. **Describe the four main styles of parenting.** - **Authoritarian Parenting:** high behavioral standards, strict punishment of misconduct, and little communication - **Permissive Parenting:** high nurturance and communication but little discipline, guidance, or control - **Authoritative Parenting:** parents set limits and enforce rules but are flexible and listen to their children - **Neglectful/uninvolved Parenting:** parents indifferent toward their children and unaware of what is going on in their children's lives 12. **Describe the consequences and long-term outcomes of each style of parenting.** - **Children of authoritarian parents**: conscientious, obedient, and quiet but unhappy. Guilty or depressed and blame themselves. May rebel as adolescents and leave home before age 20. - **Children of permissive parents**: lack of self-control and emotional regulation. Immature and lack friendships. May still be dependent on parents in early adulthood. - **Children of authoritative parents**: successful, articulate, happy with themselves, and generous with others Well liked by teachers and peers. - **Children of neglectful/uninvolved parents**: immature, sad, and lonely. May have high rates of injury and abuse. 13. **Describe types of discipline parents can utilize and the effects of each.** - **Corporal punishment** (hitting, spanking) is controversial and is illegal in some countries. Corporal punishment is more common in lower-income nations. In the United States, physically punished children are more likely to become disobedient, bullies, lawbreakers, and violent. - **Psychological control**: Threats to withdraw love and support; relies on a child's feelings of guilt and gratitude to the parents. Reduces child's autonomy and increases shame, doubt, and guilt. - **Time-out**: Children removed from an activity. Toy-out removes toys. Favored method for improving emotion regulation if not done for too long or in anger. - **Induction**: A disciplinary technique that involves explaining why a particular behavior was wrong in a way the child can understand. Takes time and patience. Associated with fewer behavior problems in school. 14. **Describe the conditions under which time-out is effective and when it is not.** - Time-out is most effective when used consistently, immediately following a negative behavior, with a clear explanation of why the time-out is occurring, and when the "time-out" area is a calm, non-stimulating space. - It becomes ineffective when used for prolonged periods, inconsistently applied, or if the child is unable to understand the connection between their behavior and the consequence, or if the time-out space is inadvertently reinforcing. 15. **Explain how children develop empathy and antipathy.** - **Empathy**: an understanding of other people's feelings and concerns. - **Antipathy:** a hatred or disgust of some other people. 16. **Describe the similarities and differences of the four kinds of aggression.** - **Instrumental aggression**: type of aggressive behavior that is premeditated and calculated to achieve a specific goal. - **Reactive aggression**: type of aggressive behavior that is characterized by an impulsive response to a perceived threat or provocation. - **Relational aggression**: type of aggression that involves intentionally harming someone's social standing or relationships. - **Bullying aggression**: aggressive behavior needs to be mean and harmful, repeated, intentional, and there must be an imbalance of power 17. **Explain when do children recognize that men and women are different.** - Child use gender labels by age 2 and believe some gender roles by age 4. 18. **Differentiate the characteristic of the sex and gender ideas of 5-year-olds, in contrast to those of adults.** - Children's understanding is more rigid and based on observable cues like clothing and toys. - Adults have a more complex understanding that includes social constructs. 19. **Describe the Gender Similarities Hypothesis.** - Males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. 20. **Explain how parents and peers reinforce gender norms.** - Parents buy gender norms by buying gender stereotyped toys and clothes. - Children are likely to react when other children violate expected gender-role behaviors. 21. **Discuss how young children think about male and female.** - Young children categorize themselves and everyone else as either male or female, and then they think and behave accordingly. 22. **Explain how sociocultural norms may explain gender differences.** - Stress and importance of cultural values and customs. - Transmitted through parents. 23. **Discuss how evolutionary theory might explain gender norms.** - Holds sexual attraction as crucial for humankind's most basic urge, to reproduce. - Suggests that men and women signal their sex through traditional gendered display differences to aid reproduction. ## Chapter 11 1. **Describe how growth during middle childhood compares with growth earlier or later.** - Middle childhood is a time of slow and steady growth. 2. **Explain why middle childhood is considered a healthy time.** - Fatal diseases or accidents are rare, the healthiest years of the life span. - Safeguarded by genetic and environmental factors. 3. **Identify the longitudinal trends in physical fitness of the world's children.** - A significant decline in overall physical activity and fitness levels. 4. **Explain how parents affect children's physical activity.** - Role modeling, encouragement, support, direct reinforcement. 5. **Explain how motor skills and physical activity affects a child's education.** - Motor skills like writing and making music helps brain development. - Physical activity helps with selective attention and reaction time. 6. **Explain how body movement affects brain development.** - Exercise improves brain function. - Family physical activity leads to better health. 7. **Explain the difference between selective attention and quick reaction time.** - **Selective attention**: the ability to concentrate on some stimuli while ignoring others. - **Reaction time**: the time it takes to respond to a stimulus, physically or cognitively. 8. **Differentiate between achievement and aptitude.** - **Aptitude**: potential to master a skill or body of knowledge. - **Achievement**: what is attained, measured by comparison with peers. 9. **Explain how IQ scores are determined.** - Stanford-Binet test. 10. **Explain the different views of intelligence.** - Centered around whether intelligence is a single, general ability or a collection of multiple, distinct abilities. 11. **Explain why the theories of multiple intelligence are popular in elementary schools.** - Acknowledges that children have diverse strengths and learning styles, allowing teachers to personalize instruction by catering to each student's intelligence. 12. **Describe the four principles of psychopathology.** - Abnormality is normal. - Disability changes year by year. - Plasticity and compensation are widespread. - Diagnosis and treatment reflect the social context. 13. **Differentiate between multifinality and equifinality.** - **Equifinality**: a basic principle of developmental psychopathology that holds that one symptom can have many causes. - **Multifinality**: a basic principle of developmental psychopathology that holds that one cause can have many final manifestations. 14. **Differentiate between typical children and those with ADHD.** - **ADHD**: a condition characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention and/or by hyperactive or impulse behaviors; it interferes with a person's functioning or development. Issues include misdiagnosis, drug misuse, and typical behaviors considered pathological. 15. **Identify the gender and age differences in ADHD.** - Higher in males than females. Males have earlier onset. - Highest in adolescents. 16. **Explain the treatment options for ADHD.** - Medication, therapy, school-based programs, behavior management. 17. **Explain the features of dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia.** - **Dyslexia**: unusual difficulty with reading, thought to be the result of some neurological underdevelopment. - **Dyscalculia**: unusual difficulties with math, probably originating from a distinct part of the brain. - **Dysgraphia**: difficulty in writing. 18. **Describe the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.** - **Autism spectrum disorder**: a developmental disorder marked by difficulty with social communication and interaction, including difficulty seeing things from another person's point of view, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. - No social smile and less gazing at faces and eyes. 19. **Discuss which children would benefit from an IEP and what an IEP is.** - **IEP**: a document that specifies educational goals and plans for a child with intellectual disabilities. 20. **Describe the benefits and problems (not all in the text) of response to intervention (RTI).** - **RTI**: an educational strategy intended to help children who demonstrate below-average achievement in early grades, using special intervention. - **Pros:** objective, easy to apply and understand. - **Cons:** not practical or accurate for young students and requires a student to reach a certain level of "failure" before being identified. ## Chapter 12 1. **Explain why cognition in middle childhood is termed as concrete operational thought by Piaget.** - **Concrete operational thought:** Piaget's term for the ability to reason logically about direct experiences and perceptions. 2. **Explain how Vygotsky and Piaget differ in their explanation of cognitive advances in middle childhood.** - Piaget emphasizes individual exploration and maturation as primary drivers of cognitive development in middle childhood. - Vygotsky believes that social interaction and cultural context play a crucial role, with children learning within their zone of proximal development. 3. **Explain what neuroscience research has added to traditional theories of cognitive development.** - Recent studies of brain development note the need for automatization, the process by which a sequence of thoughts and actions is repeated until no conscious thought is required. 4. **Explain how and why a child's knowledge base increases in middle childhood.** - **Knowledge base:** facilitates memory and understanding of new information. - Knowledge gained during school years; judgement improves. - Past experiences, current opportunity, personal motivation. 5. **Define automization, seriation, and classification and explain how they are associated with cognitive development in middle childhood.** - **Automization:** the process by which a sequence of thoughts and actions is repeated until no conscious thought is required. - **Classification:** organization of things into groups according to some characteristic that they have in common by age 8, most children can classify. - **Seriation:** includes knowledge that things can be arranged in logical series. 6. **Describe how control processes might help a student learn.** - **Control processes:** require the brain to organize, prioritize, and direct mental operations. - Selective attention, metacognition, metamemory. - Control processes improve with age and direct and indirect experience. 7. **Explain how language benefits from cognition in middle childhood.** - Concrete operational children can use prefixes, suffixes, compound words, phrases, and metaphors, so they can better understand meanings of new words. - Ability to use words and devices to communicate in various contexts. - Allow children to change formal and informal codes to fit audience. 8. **Describe the relationship between language and cognition.** - Language and cognition are closely linked and interact in a complex way that shapes how we think, perceive, and communicate. 9. **Explain why a child's linguistic code may be criticized by teachers but admired by peers.** - Teachers see code as inappropriate or lacking logic. Peers see it as social acceptance and awareness of the peer group. 10. **Describe how a family's income affects language development.** - Strong correlation between academic achievement and socioeconomic status. - Limited early exposure to words. - Teacher and parent's expectations. - Environment. 11. **Differentiate between hidden curriculum and the stated school curriculum.** - **Hidden Curriculum:** the unofficial, unstated, or implicit patterns within a school that influence what children learn. - **Stated school curriculum:** explicit, while hidden curriculum is not directly stated. 12. **Differentiate between charter schools, private schools, and home schools.** - **Charter schools:** a public school with its own set of standards that is funded and licensed by the state or local district in which it is located. - **Private school:** a school funded by tuition charges, endowments, and often religious or other non-profit sponsors. - **Home school:** education in which children are taught at home, usually by their parents. 13. **Identify factors that determine what curriculum children should receive.** - Age, development, state/local educational standards, community values, subject matter relevance, and goals of education. ## Chapter 13 1. **Discuss how Erikson's stages of cognition for preschool and school-age children differ.** - School-age children: conflict between industry and inferiority, enjoys practicing skills, no longer have protective optimism. - Preschool: conflict between initiative and guilt, less sensitive to criticism. 2. **Explain why social comparison is particularly powerful during middle childhood.** - In preadolescence the peer group becomes especially powerful because children compare themselves to others in order to form a realistic self-concept, incorporating comparison to peers and judgments from the overall society. 3. **Describe the differences between high self-esteem and narcissism.** - Self-esteem allows people to try new tasks, meet strangers, and take on challenges. - Narcissism reduces such efforts and devalues others. 4. **Identify factors that are particularly important for self-esteem in middle childhood.** - Positive peer relationships, academic achievement, physical competence, family support, positive self-perception, and the ability to cope with challenges. 5. **Identify factors that make resilience more likely.** - A child's problem solving-ability, family consistency and care, and the presence of good schools and welcoming religious institutions. - Child's interpretation of events and personal strength. 6. **Identify the differences between family structure and family function.** - **Family structure**: legal and genetic relationships among relatives living in the same home (includes nuclear family, extended family, stepfamily, and others). - **Family function**: the way family works to meet the needs of its members. 7. **Explain the family-stress model and what it tells us.** - **Family stress model**: shows us how poverty and economic pressure affects the quality of interparental relationships, which in turn impacts child outcomes. - Longitudinal evidence shows that poverty or economic pressure negatively impacts families. 8. **Describe the different kinds of popular and unpopular children.** - **Popular children**: friendly, cooperative, well-liked, aggressive, biting remarks. - **Unpopular children**: neglected, aggressive-rejected, withdrawn-rejected. 9. **Identify the commonalities between victims and bullies.** - **Causes**: caregiving environment, peers, lack of empathy. - **Consequences**: lower school achievement for all involved, depression for victims. 10. **Describe the role of bystanders in a bully situation.** - Children bully for the attention of the bystanders. - Bystanders watch bullying with interfering. 11. **Identify ways bullying can be reduced by school interventions.** - Whole school involvement, not just bullies identified. - Encouragement of multicultural sensitivity. - Knowledge for peers on protecting victims. 12. **Discuss how empathy increases.** - Personal experience. - Close friendships. - Reading about other children. 13. **Discuss how talking about a moral issue might advance morality.** - When parents and teachers raise moral issues and let children discuss them, a process of individual reflection is stimulated that eventually advance morality. 14. **Explain Kohlberg's theory of moral development and identify the different stages.** - **Preconventional moral reasoning** emphasizes reward and punishments. - **Conventional moral reasoning** emphasizes social rules, relates to current, observable practices. - **Postconventional moral reasoning** emphasizes moral principles. - During middle childhood, children's answers shift from being primarily preconventional to being more conventional. 15. **Describe the role adults play in the development of morality in children.** - Providing a foundation of values, modeling ethical behavior, setting rules and expectations, explaining consequences, fostering empathy, and actively discussing moral dilemmas.