PSYC 4070 Chapter : Psych 4070 Test 2 Book Notes
Chapter 8
• Body Changes
o Children continue to gain weight and height during early childhood. Many
become quite picky eaters.
o Culture, income, and family customs all affect children’s growth. Worldwide,
an increasing number of children have unbalanced diets, eating more fat and
sugar and less iron and calcium than they need. Childhood obesity is
increasingly common, because children exercise less and snack more than
children once did, laying the foundation for chronic adult illness.
• Brain Development
o Myelination is substantial during early childhood, speeding messages from
one part of the brain to another. The corpus callosum becomes thicker and
functions much better. The prefrontal cortex, known as the executive of the
brain, is strengthened as well.
o Brain changes enable more reflective, coordinated thought and memory;
better planning; and quicker responses.
o The expression and regulation of emotions are fostered by several brain
areas, including the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the hypothalamus.
Abuse in childhood may cause an overactive amygdala and hippocampus,
creating a flood of stress hormones that interfere with learning.
o Gross motor skills continue to develop; so that clumsy 2-year-olds become 6-
year-olds able to move their bodies in whatever ways their culture values
and themselves have practiced, as long as height and judgment are not
impaired.
o Muscle control, practice, and brain maturation are also involved in the
development of fine motor skills. Young children enjoy expressing
themselves artistically, developing their motor skills as well as their self-
expression.
• Injuries and Abuse
o Accidents are by far the leading cause of death for children with 1 to 4-year-
olds more likely to suffer a serious injury or pre-mature death than older
children. Biology, culture, and community conditions combine to make some
children more vulnerable.
o Injury control occurs on many levels, including long before and immediately
after each harmful incident, with primary, secondary, and tertiary
prevention. Laws seem more effective than educational campaigns. Close
supervision is required to protect young children from their own eager,
impulsive curiosity.
o Child maltreatment typically results from ongoing abuse and neglect by a
child’s own parents. Each year almost 3 million cases of child maltreatment
are reported in the United States, almost 1 million of which are substantiated.
o Health, learning, and social skills are all impeded by ongoing child abuse and
neglect. Physical abuse is the most obvious form of maltreatment, but
neglect is common and probably more harmful.
o Foster care, including kinship care, is sometimes necessary. Permanency
planning is needed because frequent changes are harmful to children.
Primary and secondary prevention helps parents care for their children and
reduces the need for tertiary prevention.
• Key Terms
o Myelination – the process by which axons become coated with myelin, a fatty
substance that speeds the transmission of nerve impulses from neuron to
neuron
o Corpus callosum – a long band of nerve fibers that connect the left and right
hemispheres of the brain
o Lateralization – literally, sideness. The specialization in certain functions by
each side of the brain, with one side dominant for each activity. The left side
of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa.
o Perseveration – the tendency to persevere in, or stick to, one thought or
action for a long time
o Amygdala – a tiny brain structure that registers emotions, particularly fear or
anxiety
o Hippocampus – a brain structure that is a central processor of memory,
especially the memory of locations
o Hypothalamus – a brain area that responds to the amygdala and the
hippocampus to produce hormones that activate other parts of the brain and
body
o Injury control/harm reduction – practices that are aimed at anticipating,
controlling, and preventing dangerous activities; these practices reflect the
beliefs that accidents are not random and that injuries can be made less
harmful if proper controls are in place
o Primary prevention – actions that change overall background conditions to
prevent some unwanted event or circumstance, such as injury, disease, or
abuse
o Secondary prevention – actions that avert harm in a high-risk situation, such
as stopping a car before it hits a pedestrian
o Tertiary prevention – actions, such as immediate and effective medical
treatment, that are taken after an adverse event such as illness or injury
occurs, that are aimed at reducing the harm or preventing disability
o Child maltreatment – intentional harm to or avoidable endangerment of
anyone under 18 years of age
o Child abuse – deliberate action that is harmful to a child’s physical,
emotional, or sexual well-being.
o Child neglect – failure to meet a child’s basic physical, educational, or
emotional needs
o Reported maltreatment – harm or endangerment about which someone has
notified the authorities
o Substantiated maltreatment – harm or endangerment that has been reported,
investigated, and verified
o Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – a delayed reaction to a trauma or
shock, which may include hyperactivity and hypervigilance, displaced anger,
sleeplessness, sudden terror or anxiety, and confusion between fantasy and
reality
o Permanency planning – an effort by authorities to find a long-term living
situation that will provide stability and support for a maltreated child. A goal
is to avoid repeated changes of caregiver or school, which can be particularly
harmful for the child.
o Foster care – a legal, publicly supported plan in which a maltreated child is
removed from the parents’ custody and entrusted to another adult, who is
paid to be the child’s caregiver
o Kinship care – a form of foster care in which a relative of a maltreated child
becomes the approved caregiver
Chapter 9
• Piaget and Vygotsky
o Piaget stressed the egocentric and illogical aspects of thought during the play
years. He called this stage preoperational thought because young children
often cannot yet use logical operations to think about their observations and
experiences.
o Young children, according to Piaget, sometimes focus on only one thing
(centration) and see things from only their own viewpoint (egocentrism),
remaining stuck on appearances and on current reality. They cannot
understand that things change, actions can be reversed, and other people
have other perspectives.
o Vygotsky stressed the social aspects of childhood cognition, noting that
children learn by participating in various experiences, guided by more
knowledgeable adults or peers. That guidance assists learning within the
zone of proximal development, which encompasses the knowledge and skills
that the child has the potential to learn.
o According to Vygotsky, the best teachers use various hints, guidelines, and
other tools to provide the child with a scaffold for new learning. Language is
a bridge of social mediation between the knowledge that the child already
has and the learning that the society hopes to impart. For Vygotsky, words
are a tool for learning that both the mentor and child use.
• Children’s Theories
o Children develop theories, especially to explain the purpose of life and their
role in it. Among these theories is the theory of the mind—an understanding
of what others may be thinking. Notable advances in theory of mind occur at
around age 4. Theory of mind is partly the result of brain maturation, but a
child’s language and experiences (in the family and community) also have an
impact.
• Language
o Language develops rapidly during early childhood, which is a sensitive
period but not a critical one for language learning. Vocabulary increases
dramatically, with thousands of words added between ages 2 and 6. In
addition, basic grammar is mastered.
Document Summary
Chapter 8: body changes become quite picky eaters, children continue to gain weight and height during early childhood. Many: culture, income, and family customs all affect children"s growth. Worldwide, an increasing number of children have unbalanced diets, eating more fat and sugar and less iron and calcium than they need. The corpus callosum becomes thicker and functions much better. Young children enjoy expressing themselves artistically, developing their motor skills as well as their self- expression. Injuries and abuse: accidents are by far the leading cause of death for children with 1 to 4-year- olds more likely to suffer a serious injury or pre-mature death than older children. Biology, culture, and community conditions combine to make some children more vulnerable: injury control occurs on many levels, including long before and immediately after each harmful incident, with primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Close supervision is required to protect young children from their own eager, impulsive curiosity. child"s own parents.
