cognetive language moral development in pre-school years

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE
PRESCHOOL YEARS
Growing Body
By age 2, 25 to 30 pounds and close to 36 inches tall
B y 6 years old, about 46 pounds and 46 inches tall
Changes in Body Shape and Structure
Bodies vary in height, weight, and shape
Toddler fat burns off
Internal physical changes occur
Nutrition: Eating the Right Foods
Slower growth = less caloric requirements
Children can maintain appropriate intake of food, if provided with nutritious meals
Inappropriate encouragement to increase food intake beyond an appropriate level may cause obesity

Health and Illness and Good nutrition
Providing a variety of foods, low in fat and high in nutritional and iron content. Allowing development of natural preferences
7 to 10 colds and other minor respiratory illnesses in each of years from age three to five
Runny nose due to common cold is most frequent
Injury During the Preschool Years
Accidents are greatest risk
Danger of injuries– High levels of physical activity– Curiosity
Falls
Burns
Drowning
Suffocation
Auto accidents
Poisons

Cognitive development in pre-school years
Summary of the stages.

Preoperational Thought
Period ( 2-7)
The main goals are to learn
1) Language and use symbols and mental representations of the world. (play with stuffed animals and dolls – friends, real – animism).
Is the sun sleeping?
Barbie wants to eat.
2) See themselves as center of universe – egocentric – see the world from one perspective. (focus on their pleasures, pains, and desires)
3) Can group objects into classes according to similarities (showing good intuition but can’t think back)

Language development
in pre-school years
A small number of individually meaningless symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be combined according to agreed – on rules to produce an infinite number of messages (Shaffer, 1999)

4 key components of verbal language:

5 stages of Language Development
Preverbal communication
Phonological development
Semantic development
Syntax and grammar development
Pragmatics development
First, you develop an ability to create sounds (phonology).
Next, start to understand that the sounds have meanings (semantic development). Following on, start to put sounds together to form small sentences (syntax/grammar). Finally, much later you begin to understand that words can be used to different effect, (pragmatics)

Preverbal Component
The infant begins to make movements when people draw near and starts to form different facial expressions (joy, sadness, surprise)
By 12 months, he responds to others by making most of the sounds and movements and begins to control the length of interaction.
He learns to communicate with others but is not ready to engage in verbal behavior.
The main outlet for communication is the use of facial expressions to reveal emotions and reaching the objects.

Phonological development
(occurs alongside the preverbal stage and extends up to the 4th year of life)
The child has to separate out the sounds he hears and learn to recite them and to allocate them meaning.
When you speak to a child, he first hears a babble of sound. Then he acquires the ability to locate certain words within that babble – usually meaningful (mummy, daddy, lunch, sleep)

Semantic development
(language acquisition)
The child is learning to identify words from strings of sounds and is starting to make their own sounds
He needs to learn the meaning of these sounds
First words at 10-13 months: important people, familiar actions/objects;
By 18 months, infants know app 22 words and then a ‘naming explosion’ occurs and they acquire 10-20 words per week;
By 6 years old their vocabulary is app 10,000 words and learning rate is app 5 new words a day.

Whole-object constraint: (overextension)
When an adult points to something and names it, the child assumes the word applies to the whole object, not just part of it (‘look at his tail!’/ tail ? the whole animal)
Taxonomic constraint (under extension): the new word applies for the whole range of things, e.g. ‘dog’ applies to all things hairy with four legs.

Mutual-exclusivity constraint strategy.
Children are good at inferring the meaning of a word.
Ask them for the ‘microscope’ and they will always identify the object that they have no name for.
Syntactic boot-strapping:
This refers to the notion that children gain information about a word by how it is used in a sentence.
Children learn the meaning of verbs by being observers of the use of language and being encouraged to see the link between the words and an action.

Syntax and grammatical development.
First sentences are spoken when we are between 18 and 27 months.
The sentences convey meaning but have sparse grammatical structure. (telegraphic speech: Daddy read; me; you)
By 27-36 months – rapid expansion in the use of grammar in speech. (3 words long) Then use modal verbs, not, grammar morphemes.
By 30-48 months – free-flowing speech. They learn that sentences can be constructed in different ways to offer the same meaning.

Pragmatics development.
Refers to the ability to identify a social situation and to use the language style considered appropriate in that situation.
The child learns that some words sound the same but have different meanings and can use this humorous effect.
Learns to use active and passive voice
Reads a social situation.

Moral development in pre-school years
Development of reasoning and problem solving.
Kohlberg theory of Moral Development
a. Pre-conventional morality
( 1-10)
b. Conventional morality
(10-16)
a. Post-conventional morality
( from 16 )

Reasoning and Problem-solving
Reasoning – capacity for cognitively combining or reorganizing information to produce additional information: a conclusion or solution.
Problem-solving – when reasoning is used to reach a particular desired output.

Can children reason?

Moral Reasoning
The way a child reasons about right and wrong, his awareness of ethical behavior.
Cognitive processes by which individually make decisions about moral issues and justify these decisions

Kohlberg’s theory
of Moral Development
Level I Preconventional
Morality
(children under 10)
Stage 1. Children are afraid of punishment and obey the rules.
Stage 2. Children want rewards and conform to rules.