Personal Stories

We shared our personal stories in small groups, then discussed how they might connect to a concept from childhood development.

Cognitive & Moral Development

Cognitive Development: Details of Stage Progression:
I went through the steps of development within each of the stages of cognitive development and had students summarize the progression in one or two sentences, looking for an “organizing principle” that described what was developing in each stage. This is an oral activity. If you missed it, please see me to make it up.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages
Of Moral Development

Pre-conventional Stage
Motivation 1: Avoid Punishment
Motivation 2: Seek Reward

Cognitive Development

Preoperational Stage (continued)

• Imagination & Play.


• Internal representation - the ability of a child to make herself represent someone or something else.


• External representation - the ability of a child to make something outside of herself represent something else.


• Egocentrism - children assume the world is the same for everyone else as it is for them.


• Supernatural egocentrism - children believe that all of nature does their bidding.

Concrete Operations:
Mastery of logical and conceptual thinking.  Operations = functions that take place totally in the mind, which help us categorize and understand the world.

• Pattern Recognition.


• Mathematical Operations


• Conservation = the realization that the quantity of something doesn’t change even when other properties (like size or shape) do.


• Reversibility = the realization that any operation can be done in reverse (or undone).


• Causality = the realization that every effect has a cause.

Cognitive Development

• When does learning start?
• Learning
• Babies begin learning in the womb!
• Voice of Parents
• Music associations
• Reflexes (overhead)

Learning

• Learning as Infants
• Recognize form of human face shortly after birth
• After one month can identify parents.
• Pacifier study.

Sensorimotor Stage

Exploration of the environment through the senses and bodily movements.

• Conscious control of reflexes
• Sucking & grasping = first schemes.

Preoperational Stage

Representational thought = objects in the real world are represented in the mind by symbols, words, images and ideas.

• Language.
• Object permanence = the realization that things exist even when they are not directly sensed.
• Means-End = the ability to create a goal and take steps to meet it.

Reflexes

We finished our "play" skits and social development discussion. We then began discussing cognitive development by talking about reflexes. I'll post the reflexes list tomorrow.

Social Development: Play

Social Development – Importance of Play
Self Concept: the perception a person has of who he or she is.
How can adults foster an accurate self concept?

• Allow children to explore experiences on their own.


• Respect Children’s decisions, correcting them when they are inappropriate.


• Avoid humiliating children, especially in front of others.

Identification: Learning what it means to be an adult through the process of modeling.
Modeling = observing the behavior of others and imitating it.

• Influences a child’s values, beliefs, and choices.


• Gender identity is learned in part through identification = what it means to be male or female.

Play is extremely important in social development.
Four kinds (stages) of play.

• Solitary play: children play alone.


• Parallel play: children play near each other, but interact only outside of their play.


• Cooperative play: children interact with each other within their play.


• Dramatic play a type of cooperative play in which children engage in adult roles (house, school, fireman, Church, etc.).

Self Discipline
Self discipline helps students to consider the needs and point of view of others.  It helps them to learn delayed gratification.  It also helps them to achieve autonomy, initiative, and industry.

How can adults promote self discipline?

• Set meaningful and reasonable limits.


• Consistently model desired behavior.


• Discipline by removal from the situation immediately and an age-appropriate explanation of incorrect behavior.


• Use age-appropriate discipline, stressing natural consequences for older children.

Children learn how to handle frustration in the future by the way they are disciplined.

Other important social skills learned during childhood
These skills help children become less egocentric.

• Sharing


• Turn taking


• Helping others


• Respect for property


• Respect for privacy.


• Self-esteem.

Harry Harlowe

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Monkeys given choice of surrogate mothers chose comfort and security over food.
Monkeys not given the choice of a cloth mother became terrified of
Strange situations
Monkeys with no mother at all often bonded together in this “choo-choo” fashion and never strayed from each other. They showed a total lack of Ability to cope with the world.

Konrad Lorenz

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Imprinting = A process that occurs at a preset time in development, when the brain is ready to receive and respond to a specific stimulus.
When imprinting studies go awry...
Critical period = A specific time of development that is the only time when a particular skill can begin to develop or an association can occur.

Emotional Development

Emotional Development

• Naturally active sense appetite = mainly emotional interaction with the world.


• Maturity = emotions under control of intellect & will.  Interaction with the world = rational and emotional.

Emotional Development in Children

• Infancy:  Child needs to feel affirmation & acceptance through the senses.


• Childhood:  Emotions are primary way of interpreting & interacting with the world.  Children need to feel love and affirmation through relationships.