Belsky's Chapter 5 Physical and Cognitive Development Powerpoint

1. Janet Belsky’s
Experiencing The Lifespan
Chapter 5:
Physical and Cognitive Development
Early and Middle Childhood
Meredyth Fellows, West Chester University of PA

2. Setting the Context: Special
Social Learning Tasks
 What sets us apart from other animals?
 _____________________________
 Learn norms of our culture
 Ability to take another person’s perspective
 Mind-reading skill (begins with joint attention)
 Language

3. Slow-growing Frontal Lobes
 Compared to other parts of the brain,
__________________development is on a delayed
timetable.
 https://youtu.be/3cOaw_Rc0dA
 As frontal lobes mature throughout childhood and
adolescence, our ability to think through, inhibit, and
plan our actions gradually improves.

4. Growth and Motor Skills- PART 1
Basic Facts
 Cephalocaudal sequence
 Bodies elongate and lengthen
 Mass-to-specific sequence
 physical abilities become more coordinated and precise
 Two types of physical skills
 ________________: large muscle movement
Gross Motor Video
 _______________: small coordinated movement
Fine Motor Video

5. Physical Development Part 2

6. Physical Development (part 3)
Threats to preschool physical skills
Lack of outdoor play
Internet access
High-tech educational toys
Lack of food; undernutrition
Severe case called______
Impairment of fine and/or
gross motor skills
Fatigue that limits engagement

7. Obesity
 Monitored in U.S. by National Health
and Nutrition Study (NHANES), a
National Poll
 BMI
 =ratio weight to height
 Obesity: BMI at or above the 95th %
compared to U.S. norms established for
children in the 1970s

8. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/bmi/calculator.html
BMI CALCULATOR

9. % of U.S. Children Aged 6-11
who are classified as Obese

10. Childhood Obesity
 Global Epidemic
 Demographics differ in developed and
developing worlds
 Obesity in the developed world
 Children from low income families
 In U.S., highest among
____________________________children
 Developing world: disease of the “well-off”

11. Factors Promoting Obesity
Primary Culprit
 lack of physical activity
 Internet, TV
 Research shows that time spent watching TV predicts
obesity
Other Culprits
 _________________of food
 Restaurant foods, large servings, and caloric content
 Negative attitudes toward the obese
 Teasing; Stereotyping
 Studies show gym teachers display negative attitude
(obese children judged slow and clumsy)

12. Cognitive Development

13. Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
 Spans ages 2-3 to elementary school (7, 8)
 Preoperational Thinking
 Type of cognition marked by an inability to step back from
one’s immediate perceptions and to think conceptually.
 Centration (Centering) tendency to focus on one feature of
experience or event at a time (they learn decentering later)
 Thinking is qualitatively unlike that of an adult.
 Cannot reason logically; cannot look beyond appearance of
objects
 Young children understand only what they can __________

14. Assessing Preoperational
Thought
 Piaget’s Tasks
 ____________: our knowledge that the amount of a
given substance remains the same despite changes in
its shape or form. Video
 Preoperational children do not understand:
 The laws of conservation!
 The concept of reversibility!
 Children center only on what they can see!
 Preoperational children learn through pretend play
 Video Pretend Play
 Video Stars Wars Revealed

15. Preoperational Thinking:
Peculiar Perceptions About People
 Preoperational children
have an inability to
understand
________________—
a person’s core self stays
the same despite
changes in appearance

16. Other Peculiarities in Thinking
 Animism
 Belief that inanimate
objects are alive
 Artificialism
 Belief that humans make
everything in nature
 ________________
 Inability to understand
another’s perspective

17. Piaget’s Concrete
Operational Stage: Ages 8 - 12
 Skills develop gradually (5-
7) but by age 8 children are
firmly in this stage.
 Understand conservation
tasks-Video
 Give up animism
 Understand identity
constancy
 Look beyond the way
things appear
 Begin to understand
principles of basic math

18. Piaget’s Cognitive Development –
COMPARISON
Preoperational thinking
2-3 to 7 years
Locked into immediate
appearances and inability to
step back and think
conceptually
Children’s thinking focuses
on the way objects and
substances and people
appear
Concrete operational thinking
8 to 11-12 years
Marked by ability to logically reason
Children step back from their visual
perceptions and reason on amore
conceptual level

19. Evaluating Piaget
 Minimizes what young children
know
 Should we classify pre-
operational and concrete
operational thinking as
belonging to different stages?
 Skills appear gradually!
 Children are less egocentric
than Piaget believed.
 Lack of attention to cultural
variations in certain tasks
 Piaget did not believe in active
teaching; believed children
would automatically grow out
of their preoperational
worldview.

20. Lev Vygotsky: A Different View of
Cognitive Growth – Part 1
 Sociocultural emphasis of human cognitive growth
 Critical role of culture/society in transmitting knowledge
 Zone of ________________________
 Skill level at which children can succeed only with help of
adult or advanced other
 Mediated learning
 cognitive development is largely socially mediated through
language and other tools
 Learning is bidirectional
 Scaffolding
https://youtu.be/0BX2ynEqLL4
https://youtu.be/5hWDbSx_kdo

21. Vygotsky Cognitive Development Part 2
Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development
Child learning occurs best when adult creates
instruction that matches child’s capacities
Scaffolding
Adult uses scaffolding to promote independent
performance
Education
Education viewed as collaborative, bidirectional
learning experience

22. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Egocentric or private speech
Talking and repeating information silently or “out loud” to self in order
to regulate behavior or to master cognitive challenges – this becomes
internalized
Called:
INNER SPEECH is viewed as precursor to problem solving,
planning ability, and self-regulation
INNER SPEECH benefits self-regulatory
functioning
1. Enhances children’s attention and functioning when faced with
challenging tasks
2. Improves working memory
Emphasized language as being front and center
of everything we learn

23. TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE
SCAFFOLDING
 Vygotsky believes
 Language scaffolds through learning (as
opposed to Piaget)
 Everything is learned using inner speech
To become an effective scaffolder:
1. Foster a secure attachment
2. Break larger cognitive challenges into
manageable steps
3. Continue support until concept is
mastered before moving on

25. Cognitive Development
Language
Developing Speech
 Phenomes – SOUNDS
i.e. ba – baba – articulation problems like pisgetti change early in elementary
school
 Morphemes – SMALL UNITS OF MEANING
 MLU’s – Mean length of utterance
i.e. Me juice - Me want juice - Please give me the juice
 Syntax – GRAMMAR
i.e. I have drink Daddy to Can I have a drink Daddy
 Semantics – WORD MEANINGS
 Overregulation – IRREGULAR PASTS AND PLURALS
i.e. Foots, Runned
 Over/Underextension LABELS TOO BROAD OR TOO NARROW
Every old man is Grandpa OR no one else can have a Grandpa because that is
the name for his grandfather alone

26. 26
Definition
Phonemes
Morphemes
Syntax
Semantics
Overregulation
The sound units that convey meaning in language
The smallest unit of meaning in a language
The grammatical rules of a language
The meaning system of a language
A common mistake while learning language where the
general rules for plurals or past tense forms are
misapplied
Language Development
Type of Challenge
Over/underextension
A common mistake while learning language where
verbal labels are applied either too broadly
(overextension) or too narrowly (underextension)

27. Play and Social Development
Play: the work of early childhood
• Exercise play
Running and chasing behavior
Exercises physical skills
• Rough-and-tumble play
Excited shoving and wrestling
Biologically built into being male

28. Play and Social Development
Pretending (fantasy play)
 Beginning pretending
Emerges in later infancy
Facilitated by mothers
• Collaborative pretend play
Starts around age 4
Involves fantasizing together with
other child
Can continue until early
adolescence

29. Play and Social Development
Purposes of pretending
Vygotsky believed that
• Helps children understand and
master norms
• Allows adult role practice
• Allows sense of control
• Furthers social norm understanding
which is _______________________

30. Gender Development
Girls’ and boys’ play worlds
 Gender-segregated play development
 Gender Constancy
 Toddlers: limited
 Preschoolers: beginning sex-segregated
groups
 Age 5 or 6: entrenched gender-segregated
play and friendships
 Gender-segregated play differences
 Boys compete in groups and live in more
exclusionary, separate, and more rigid world.
 Girls play collaboratively in smaller, more
intimate groups.

31. Gender and Play
Causes of gender-stereotyped play
 Biology
In utero testosterone levels
epigenetically affect DNA to program
brain
 Socialization
Gender-role displays, social
sanctions, and attitudes in wider
world
Peer play
 Cognitions
Gender schema theory
https://youtu.be/scZ_Ys4AY2g

32. Cognitive Development:
Information-Processing Theorists
They look at specific skills
Development of memory
Concentration
Ability to inhibit and control our actions
(what does this sound like?)
They Believe:
Mental growth occurs gradually, not in stages
They attempt to decode the “processing
steps” involved in thinking
They explore the development of memory and
executive functions

33. Information Processing:
Making Sense of Memory
Information Theorists believe we break cognitive
processes into _______and divide into________
We hold it in an important storage called:______
What is Working Memory:
Where the cognitive action takes place
Where we
1. Keep information in awareness and
2. Process it or discard it
Basic structure of working memory swings into
operation at about age 6

34. Information Processing:
Exploring Executive Functions
WORKING MEMORY
Executive Processor
Manages our MEMORY
Controls our cognitions (another word for)
Plans our behavior
Inhibits our responses (again ?)
It allows us to focus on important material to
prepare for permanent storage
It depends on the brain’s “Master Planner” –
________________

35. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder
 Characteristics:
 Excessive restlessness
 Easily distracted
 Difficulties focusing
 Usually diagnosed in elementary school
 Most often diagnosed in boys
 More often diagnosed in the U.S.

36. Information Processing:
Helping Children with ADHD
 Standard Treatment
psycho-stimulant medications
 Best when used with reinforcement for
appropriate behavior
 Foster best person-environment fit
 Provide non-distracting environment that
demands selective attention (e.g.
homework)

37. Interventions for ADHD
 Reduce distractions.
 Allow special time for exercise.
 Give the child special time and help with
activities that demand several steps.
 Minimize the need to multitask.
 Consider psycho-stimulant medication.
 Avoid power-assertion. Do not define your
child as a “bad kid.”

38. Social Development HOT in
Developmental Science
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs)
Impairment in theory of mind
Persistent, severe, widespread social and conversational
deficits
Lack of interest in people and their feelings
Repetitive, restricted behavior patterns
Ritualized behavior
Hypersensitivity to sensory input
Fixation on inanimate objects

39. Theory of Mind
 The understanding that
people have different
beliefs and perspectives
from one’s own
 Begins at about age 4-5
 Researchers use
“____________test”
 Video
 Where will Mrs. X look for
the toy? What will child
say?