CFD 1450 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Episodic Memory, Lev Vygotsky, Executive Functions
Vygotsky and Early Childhood Education
• Vygotskian classrooms promote assisted discovery:
o Teachers guide children’s learning with explanations, demonstrations, and
verbal prompts.
o Children with varying abilities engage in peer collaboration, working together
in groups.
• Challenges to Vygotsky’s theory:
o Verbal dialogues are not the only means through which children learn.
o Vygotsky says little about how basic motor, perception, attention, memory,
and problem-solving skills contribute to higher cognitive processes.
Information Processing: Attention
• Sustained attention improves in toddlerhood and early childhood.
• Children gain in ability to inhibit impulses and focus on a competing goal.
• Gains in working memory permit more complex play and problem-solving goals.
• Adult scaffolding of attention supports gains in language and executive function
Information Processing: Planning
• In early childhood, children become better at planning.
• Effective planning is mastered around age 5, with gains in inhibition and working
memory.
• Children learn from parental encouragement and cultural tools that support planning.
Information Processing: Memory
• Recognition:
o Easier for young children and adults
o Nearly perfected by age 4 or 5
• Recall:
o Much poorer than recognition in young children
o Associated with language development
o Hindered by limited working memory, lack of skill at using memory strategies
Memory for Everyday Experiences
• Episodic memory:
o Memory of everyday experiences
• Scripts:
o Memory of familiar, repeated events
▪ Become more elaborate and spontaneous with age.
▪ Help children interpret and predict everyday experiences.
▪ Assist children in recall, make-believe play, and planning.
Autobiographical Memory
• Two styles of caregiver–child communication:
o Elaborative style
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Document Summary
In early childhood, children become better at planning: effective planning is mastered around age 5, with gains in inhibition and working memory, children learn from parental encouragement and cultural tools that support planning. Memory for everyday experiences: episodic memory, memory of everyday experiences, scripts, memory of familiar, repeated events, become more elaborate and spontaneous with age, help children interpret and predict everyday experiences, assist children in recall, make-believe play, and planning. Autobiographical memory: two styles of caregiver child communication, elaborative style, follows child"s lead, asks varied questions, adds information, volunteers own recollections, repetitive style, provides little information, keeps repeating same questions. Ignores child"s interest: elaborative style leads to better recall and more organized, detailed personal stories one to two years later. Individual differences in mental development: early childhood intelligence tests, verbal questions and nonverbal tasks, effects of cultural bias, environmental factors, home environment, quality of preschool or kindergarten (child-centered vs.
