Lifespan Development Canadian 5th Edition Boyd Solutions Manual

Lifespan Development Canadian 5th
Edition Boyd Solutions Manual

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CHAPTER 7
PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
WHAT’S NEW IN CHAPTER 7?

 Updated material on brain development and infantile amnesia
 New research on the impact of obesogenic environments on the unhealthy weight gain in
Canadian children
 Revised coverage of unintentional injuries and child maltreatment in Canada
 Revised coverage of information-processing theories
 New Section on language and numeracy
Additional Material
 Canadian statistics and reports: Child maltreatment, Canadian Incidence Study of Reported
Child Abuse and Neglect, Canadian programs that target high-risk children, and WISC-IV testing
in Canada
 Canadian theory and research: behavioural self-control—Eaton, Campbell & McKeen;
accident risk –Morrongiello; childhood trauma and neurobiological changes—Perry—Lanius;
false belief principle –Zelazo; non-verbal arithmetic –Bisanz; theories of mind –Peskin;
information-processing theory –Case; the Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST)—Jacques &
Zelazo; early long-term memories –Peterson; preschool language skill –Sénéchal; and language
and cognition –Lacroix, Pomerleau, Malcuit, et al.
 Teaching Kindergarten: applying developmental knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Special Features
 Research Report: Unintentional Injuries in Canadian Preschoolers
 Research Report: Traumatic Events and Neurobiological and Functional Changes in The Brain
 Research Report: Early Long-term Memories in Children
 Development in the Real World: Parenting: Strengthening Language Skills in Preschoolers
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2 Lifespan Development, 5th Canadian Edition
LEARNING GOALS
The following topics about physical and cognitive development in early childhood are included. After
completing Chapter 7, students should be able to:
I. Physical Changes (page 181).

Describe the physical changes in early childhood.
II. Cognitive Changes (page 190).

Summarize the cognitive changes in preschoolers.
III. Changes in Language (page 200).

Trace the changes in language development in young children.
IV. Differences in Intelligence (page 205).

Summarize the issues surrounding the use of intelligence testing in early childhood.
TEACHING NOTES
I. PHYSICAL CHANGES
A. Growth and Motor Development
7.1 Learning Objective: Summarize the major milestones of growth and motor development
between 2 and 6. (pages 181-182)
The physical changes in a preschooler’s body occur more slowly than they did in infancy. In the
nervous system, new synapses are still being formed, and some myelinization still continues. Changes
in height and weight are far slower than in infancy. Each year from about age two to adolescence,
children add about two to three inches in height and about six pounds in weight.
Eaton and others have discovered that children who exhibited higher motor activity levels
demonstrated a significantly better ability to control or inhibit their behaviour allowing for successful
task achievement. They also found that children’s motor activity levels increase linearly with age and
tend to peak between 7 and 9 years of age.
The preschool child makes steady progress in motor development. The most impressive gains are in
large muscle skills. By the age of six, the child has confidence in using her or his body, especially
when contrasted with the unsteady movement of the 18-month-old. Small-muscle, or “fine motor”
abilities also improve, but not to the same level of confidence as large-muscle skills.
Discussion Question: Give examples of large-muscle skills and fine-muscle skills.

Chapter 7: Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood 3
B. The Brain and Nervous System
7.2 Learning Objective: Highlight the important changes that happen in the brain during these
years. (pages 182-184)
Brain growth, synapse formation, and myelinization continue in early childhood, although at a pace
slower than in infancy. There are, however, a number of important neurological milestones that
happen between ages two and six. It is likely that these milestones represent the neurological
underpinnings of the remarkable advances in thinking and language that occur during this period.
Lateralization: The corpus callosum, the brain structure through which the left and right sides of the
cerebral cortex communicate, grows and matures more during the early childhood years than in any
other period of life. The growth of this structure accompanies the functional specialization of the left
and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex called lateralization.
Critical-thinking Question: Ask your friends, relatives, and fellow students to estimate
the age at which brain development is complete. How do you think people’s assumptions
about the completeness or incompleteness of brain development affect their attitudes and
behaviour towards children?
Lateralization in 95 percent of humans develops in a pattern known as left-brain dominance. In a

small proportion of the remaining five percent the functions are reversed, a pattern called right-brain
dominance. Most people who are not left-brain dominant have a pattern of mixed dominance, with
some functions following the typical pattern and other functions reversed. Neuroscientists suspect that
our genes dictate which functions will be lateralized and which will not because some degree of
lateralization is already present in the human fetus.
Key Terms
 corpus callosum
 lateralization
The Reticular Formation and Hippocampus: Myelinization of the reticular formation, the brain
structure that regulates attention and concentration, is another important milestone of early childhood
brain development. Neurons in other parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, are also myelinized
during this period. The hippocampus is involved in the transfer of information to long-term memory.
Maturation of this brain structure probably accounts for improvements in memory function across the
preschool years.
Moreover, maturation of the connections between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex are
probably responsible for our inability to remember much about the first three years of life, a
phenomenon called infantile amnesia (Zola & Squire, 2003). Note that infantile amnesia does not
involve a complete absence of early memories; thus, some people do have legitimate memories of
very early experiences. Typically, though, memories of events that were laid down in the brain prior
to age 3 are small in number and fragmentary in character. And, as Piaget’s early memory experience
suggests, children’s early memories are strongly influenced by the verbal recollections of adults that
children hear later in their lives, even when those “recollections” turn out to be entirely false.
Discussion Question: What might happen if the hippocampus was not myelinized?

Key Terms
 hippocampus
 infantile amnesia
Handedness: Handedness, the tendency to rely primarily on the right or left hand, is another
neurological milestone of the two-to six-year-old period. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of
right-handedness is likely to be the result of genetic inheritance. Studies relating brain lateralization to
handedness suggest that a common neurological process may be involved in both processes. About 96
percent of right-handers possess the typical pattern of language-on-the-left side of the brain. Only 75
percent of left-handers are left-brain dominant, however. About one percent have complete right-
brain language specialization, and the rest have a mixed pattern of dominance. The prevalence of
mixed dominance among left-handers may explain the frequent finding that they have higher rates of
learning disabilities and mental disorders than do right-handers.
Classroom Discussion: Parents and teachers have often encouraged a young child who
tends to use his left hand to become right handed. What do you think? Based on this
evidence, should children be strongly encouraged to be right handed? How strong should
the encouragement be? Debate the issue in class.
Key Term
 handedness
C. Health Promotion and Wellness
Weblink: Electronic Child Health Network:

http://healthychild.org/?gclid=CLb9hrT357sCFQISMwodOUQAiw
7.3 Learning Objective: Highlight the nutritional and health care needs of young children. (pages
184-187)
There are several health issues for children in early childhood.
 Young children continue to require periodic medical check-ups as well as a variety of

immunizations.
 Because children grow more slowly during the early childhood years, they many seem to eat less
than when they were babies. Food aversions may develop during the preschool years that can
cause conflict between young children and their parents. Most children eat sufficient quantities of
food, but they do not consume the majority of their daily calories at regular meals.
 In Canada, we have seen an uhealthy rise in weight gain over the last quarter century, and roughly
22% of children aged 2 to 5 are now overweight or obese (Shields, 2008). A part of the problem
is our increasingly obesogenic environments which foster an overconsumption of high fat and
sugar foods (e.g., fast foods and junk food snacks), inadequate amounts of nutritious foods (e.g.,
fruits and vegitables) and sedentatry lifestyles--even in youngsters. A case in point; recent
findings from the Longitudinal Study of Child Development in Que´bec (LSCDQ) found that
preschoolers who watched more hours of television than their peers also ate more snacks on a
daily basis while watching television (Dubois, Farmer, Girard & Peterson, 2008). And,
preschoolers who ate more snacks had higher BMIs than children who never or seldom ate snacks
in front of the television.

 Accidents are another danger for children. Each year about 9% of Canadian children under age
five have at least one accident that requires some kind of medical attention, and accidents are the
major cause of death in preschool and school-aged children. Accidents are more common among
boys than girls, and the majority of accidents occur at home. Automobile accidents are the second
leading source of injuries among preschoolers. Urban planners also need to be involved in design
and construction of safe environments, where, for example, walking and cycling venues can be
engineered to reduce injury while promoting healthy activity (Howard, 2009).
Discussion Question: Children who are sick a lot in early childhood have a higher risk
of having health problems in adolescence or adulthood. How many different
explanations can you think of for such a link between childhood illness and adult health?
Research Report: Unintentional Injuries in Canadian Preschoolers
In a study of 4- to 6-year-olds and their parents, Morrongiello and colleagues, found that a child’s
knowledge of home safety rules was not significantly related to the incidence of injuries. Parents need
to ensure that their children can demonstrate that they can act in ways that are consistent with the
rules. For instance, maintaining close physical proximity was the only technique that lowered risk-
taking behaviour and resulted in fewer injuries.
Boys attribute injuries to bad luck rather than a dangerous choice of activity. Parents expect that boys
are more likely to be injured than girls, yet they are less likely to intervene in their son’s activities
with safety precautions. Conversely, parents see girls as more vulnerable than boys and therefore
make their daughters more aware of the potential for harm, although their risk of injury is lower than
its is for boys.
Burns, cuts, and falls were considered less severe and therefore resulted in lower levels of
precautionary behaviours by mothers than other more severe injuries such as drowning, poisoning,
and suffocation/strangulation/choking. In line with these expectations, mothers were less motivated to
engage in precautionary measures for less severe types of potential injuries.
Both parents put more pressure on their sons, beginning as young as 3 years, to play independently
with less supervision and more freedom to roam. By contrast, parents will intervene and support their
daughters when they are using play equipment. Furthermore, boys receive more encouragement and
direct instructions while girls receive more verbal cautions about safety and possible injury.
D. Child Maltreatment in Canada
Weblink: Take a look and examine the International perspective on child maltreatment
Public Service Announcement: UNICEF: Help us stop child exploitation, now.
http://www.unicef.ca/en/discover/child-
protection?gclid=CIOk0pz457sCFcVFMgodRDEAHw
7.4 Learning Objective: Describe the factors surrounding child maltreatment, and how
traumatic events affect children’s development. (pages 187-190)
Patterns of Maltreatment: Child maltreatment is defined as physical or psychological injury that
results from an adult’s intentional exposure of a child to potentially harmful stimuli, sexual acts, or
neglect. A nationwide investigation revealed an annual rate of slightly more than 14 in 1000
substantiated cases of child maltreatment in Canada. The most common forms of substantiated cases
were:

 neglect (34%), which involves a failure to supervise, leading to harm or the risk of harm to a
child’s safety or development;
 exposure to intimate partner violence (34%), where the child witnessed, overheard, or saw the
physical injuries from violence occurring between the caregivers and/or their partners; physical
abuse (20%), including hitting, shaking, choking, or burning;
 emotional maltreatment (9%), where the child has suffered or is at high risk of suffering from
mental, emotional, or developmental problems caused by exposure to family violence, overtly
punitive treatment, habitual or extreme verbal abuse, or inadequate affection; and
 sexual abuse (3%), involving a child who has been or is at substantial risk of being sexual
molested or sexual exploited. Of all the substantiated cases of child maltreatment, about 18%
involved more than one category, with the most prevalent combinations involving a mixture of
either neglect, exposure to intimate partner violence, emotional maltreatment, or physical abuse.
 Biological parents accounted for the largest portion of alleged maltreatment.
o Mothers (86%), followed by fathers (8%), were implicated most often.
o A small percentage of cases involved grandparents (2%) or a parent’s partner or adoptive
parent (1% each). About 1% of alleged maltreatment involved children living with
nonrelative caregivers.
Risk Factors: One useful model for explaining abuse classifies its causes into four broad categories:
sociocultural factors, characteristics of the child, characteristics of the abuser, and household stresses.
The main idea of this model is that episodes of abuse are typically precipitated by everyday
interactions between parents and children—for example, when a parent reprimands a young child for
spilling a glass of milk. At the time of the episode, several causal factors work together to produce
abusive responses in parents. Thus, what differentiates abusive from nonabusive parents, according to
this model, is the presence of a number of risk factors that shape how they respond to the ordinary
stresses of parenting.
Sociocultural factors include personal or cultural values that regard physical abuse of children as
morally acceptable. Parents are more likely to be abusive if they believe that there are few, if any,
moral limits on what they can do to their children physically. Sociologists suggest that such beliefs
stem from cultural traditions that regard children as property rather than human beings with
individual rights. Moreover, parents who live in communities where others share and act on these
beliefs are more likely to be abusive.
Classroom Activity: Ask students to explore Canadian news reports to determine the
types of child maltreatment cases are being discussed in the public today. What are the
circumstances of these crimes, and how are they different?
Several characteristics of children or parents may set the stage for child abuse. For example, children
with academic difficulties, mental health and intellectual issues (e.g., depression, anxiety, attention
deficit disorders, or developmental delay/disability), aggressive behaviour, or who have attachment
issues are more likely to be abused than others. Parents who have been victims of abuse in the last six
months, have few social supports, are alcohol or substance abusers, or have mental health issues are at
a higher risk to abuse or neglect their children. Household stressors include factors linked to living on
social assistance/employment insurance, one or more moves in the past year, and household hazards
(e.g., the presence of accessible weapons, drugs and drug paraphernalia, and/or insufficient heat or
unhygienic conditions). Keep in mind that no single factor produces abuse; the presence of several of
these variables in a particular family significantly increases the chances that the children will
experience abuse.

Outcomes: Some children who are frequently or severely abused develop post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD). This disorder involves extreme levels of anxiety, flashback memories of episodes of
abuse, nightmares, and other sleep disturbances. Abused children are also more likely than nonabused
peers to exhibit poor school performance in middle childhood, to develop substance abuse problems
in adolescence, and to exhibit slower rates of brain growth.
More broadly, though, developmentalists now believe that children who endure a toxic stress
response persistently elevated physiological arousal caused by strong, recurring and/or unabated
adversity—early in their development experience chronically high levels of stress hormones that can
disrupt and alter normal development and functioning of the brain and other body systems. Whether it
be due to maltreatment, poor/dysfunctional parenting, or the accumulated burdens of family economic
hardship, adversity, without the buffering protection afforded by supportive, caring adults, can lead to
lifelong impairments in learning, behaviour, and intellect, as well as emotional, physical, and social
problems.
Preventive Measures: Preventing abuse begins with education. Informing parents about the potential
consequences of some physical acts, such as the link between shaking an infant and brain damage,
may help. In addition, parents need to know that injuring children is a crime, even if the intention is to
discipline them. Parenting classes, perhaps as a required part of high school curricula, can help inform
parents or future parents about principles of child development and appropriate methods of discipline.
Discussion Question: Discuss some of the reasons for increased abuse in each of the
categories of families at risk listed above. Discuss some possible solutions to the
problems.
Explore MyPsychLab.com
Watch the video Child Abuse: Mandatory Reporting on mypsychlab.com
Classroom Activity: In teams, create an action plan for educating parents about the
potential consequences of child abuse. Share each team’s plan with the class.
Research Report: Traumatic Events and Neurobiological and Functional

Changes in the Brain
Perry contends traumatic experiences from early childhood affect long-term behaviour His ideas are
supported by recent neurological studies that have found that severe maltreatment during childhood
(physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse) is related to molecular and neurobiological damage, such
as reductions in the size of the hippocampus and the amygdala. Atypical left/right cerebral
hemisphere functioning was also found.
Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Lanius compared the brain functioning of
people who developed PTSD, to those who did not, in the aftermath of comparably traumatic events.
When subjects were prompted to recall their traumatic event, e.g., a horrific auto accident or sexual
assault, those with PTSD showed arousal in the right brain areas whereas those who did not develop
PTSD experienced heightened activation in the left brain.
Key Terms
 amygdala
 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

II. COGNITIVE CHANGES

The changes in thinking that happen during the early childhood years are indeed staggering. At the
beginning of the period, children are just beginning to learn how to accomplish goals, but by the end,
they are manipulating symbols and can make accurate judgements about others’ thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours.
A. Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

7.5 Learning Objective: Summarize the characteristics of children’s thought during
Piaget’s preoperational stage. (pages 190-192)
According to Piaget, children acquire the semiotic (symbolic) function between the ages of 18 and
24 months. The semiotic function is the understanding that one object or behaviour can represent
another—a picture of a chair represents a real chair, a child’s pretending to feed a doll stands for a
parent’s feeding a baby, and so on. Once this understanding has been achieved, children are in
Piaget’s preoperational stage. Children become proficient in the use of symbols to think and
communicate, but still have difficulty thinking logically. They also begin to pretend in their play.
Observing children at play can provide parents or teachers with a good idea about their levels of
cognitive development.
Watch the video The Preschool Years: Egocentricism
Beyond the accomplishment of symbol use, Piaget focused mostly on all of the things the child still
cannot do. Piaget described preoperational children as ones who look at things entirely from their
own perspective or frame of reference. He called this egocentrism. The child is not being selfish,
rather, she simply assumes that everyone sees the world as she does.
Watch the video Conservation of Liquids
Critical-thinking Question: Overcoming egocentrism is the foundation of many

cognitive tasks later in life. For example, the textbook authors must be able to evaluate
what they write from the student’s point of view. Can you think of other examples?
Piaget also pointed out that preschoolers were captured by the appearance of objects and described
this as conservation. Children rarely show any sign of conservation before age five. Piaget took this
as a sign that they focus on the appearance of change, not the underlying, unchanging aspect.
Explore icon next to Piaget's Preoperational Stage heading
Key Terms
 semiotic (symbolic) function
 preoperational stage
 egocentrism
 centration
 conservation

B. Challenges to Piaget’s View
7.6 Learning Objective: Describe how recent research has challenged Piaget’s view of
this period. (pages 192-194)
Studies of conservation have generally confirmed Piaget’s observations. Evidence suggests, however,
that preschoolers are a great deal more cognitively sophisticated than Piaget thought.
Egocentrism and Perspective Taking: Children as young as 14.5 months appear to have at least some
ability to understand that another person sees things or experiences things differently from the way
they do. John Flavell suggests two levels of perspective-taking ability. At level 1, the child knows
that some other person experiences something differently. At level 2, the child develops a whole
series of complex rules for figuring out precisely what the other person sees or experiences. Two- and
three-year-olds have level 1 knowledge; four- and five-year-olds display some level 2 knowledge.
Studies of preschoolers’ understanding of emotion have also challenged Piaget’s description of the
young child’s egocentrism. Between ages two and six, children learn to regulate or modulate their
expressions of emotion to conform to others’ expectations. Additionally, they use emotional
expressions to get things they want, by crying or smiling as needed. These behaviours are obviously
based at least in part on a growing awareness that other people judge children’s feelings by what they
see them expressing. Neither would happen if children were completely incapable of looking at their
own behaviour from another person’s perspective.
Appearance and Reality: The child’s movement away from egocentrism seems to be part of a much
broader change in her understanding of appearance and reality. Older children can understand that the
same object can be represented differently, depending on one’s point of view. Individuals who
understand the false belief principle can look at a problem or situation from another person’s point of
view in order to discern what kind of information can cause him to believe something that isn’t true.
Discussion Question: Give examples of the research on the false belief principle.
Key Term
 false belief principle
C. Theories of Mind
7.7 Learning Objective: Describe theory of mind and how it develops. (pages 194-195)
Several theorists propose that the four-to-five-year-old has developed a new and quite sophisticated
theory of mind, or set of ideas that explains other people’s ideas, beliefs, desires, and behaviour.
Critical-thinking Question: Consider your own theory of mind. What assumptions do

you make about the way other people’s behaviour is affected by their beliefs, or feelings,
or ideas? You operate on the basis of such a theory all the time, but can you articulate it?
Key Term
 theory of mind

Understanding Thoughts, Desires, and Beliefs: The child this age has begun to understand that one
cannot predict what other people will do solely from observing the situation itself; the other person’s
desires and beliefs also enter into the equation. So the child develops various theories about other
people’s ideas, beliefs, and desires, and about how those ideas or beliefs will affect the other person’s
behaviours. People act on the basis of what they believe or feel, even if what they believe is incorrect
or what they feel is unexpected or apparently inconsistent in a given situation.
Understanding the reciprocal nature of thought seems to develop between age five and seven for most
children. This would seem to be a particularly important development, because it is probably
necessary for the creation of the genuinely reciprocal friendships that begin in the elementary school
years. An individual preschooler’s rate of theory of mind development is a good predictor of her
social skills later in early childhood and during the school years.
Discussion Question: Why is a child’s development of the theory of mind a good

predictor of social skills during the school years?
Influences on the Development of a Mind Theory: Developmentalists have found that a child’s
theory of mind is correlated with the following activities or behaviours:
 Performance on Piaget’s tasks as well as more recently developed egocentrism and appearance
reality problems.
 Pretend play, particularly shared pretence with other children.
 Children whose parents discuss emotion-provoking past events with them.
 Language skills, such as a knowledge of words for feelings, desires, and thoughts.
Some level of language facility may be a necessary condition for the development of a
theory of mind.
Discussion Question: Discuss the advantages a child who develops a theory of mind
earlier than her peers might have. Make suggestions for activities and behaviours to
assist a child in developing a theory of mind.
D. Alternative Theories of Early Childhood Thinking
7.8 Learning Objective: Describe how information-processing and sociocultural

theorists explain changes in young children’s thinking. (pages 195-199)
Information-Processing Theories: One set of alternative proposals is based on the information-

processing model, called a Neo-Piagetian theory. Robbie Case explained age differences in children’s
use of their short-term memories, using the term short-term storage space (STSS) to refer to the
child’s limited capacity for handling information. Case believed that there is a limit on how many
schemes can be attended to in STSS. He referred to the maximum number of schemes that may be put
forth into STSS at one time as operational efficiency. Improvements in operational efficiency occur
through both practice (tasks that require memory use such as learning the alphabet) and brain
maturation as the child gets older.
A good example of the function of STSS may be found by examining the matrix classification that
requires the child to place a given stimulus in two categories at the same time. Training children to
classify according to one category before reclassifying according to the other category has been

successful. Case pointed out, however, that the children’s failures prior to instruction and the intensity
of the training itself illustrate the constraints imposed on problem-solving by the limited operational
efficiency of the younger child’s STSS.
Young children run into difficulty when they are instructed to solve problems that require higher-
level abstract flexible thinking. Jacques, and her colleagues developed the Flexible Item Selection
Task (FIST) to measure abstraction and cognitive flexibility. The FIST involves a card sorting
technique to measure if a child can match objects on cards that vary on two of four dimensions
(shape, colour, size, and number). A child is presented with three cards at once and first instructed to
pick two cards that match on one of the four dimensions, e.g., size (a measure of abstract mental
ability) and then to pick two cards that match on a different dimension, e.g., shape (a measure of
cognitive flexibility—a child has to be able to consider each object on multiple categories). It seems
that even though children as young as 3-years-of-age can match objects based on concrete perceptual
categories such, they have a hard time matching objects based on abstract categories required on the
FIST. Moreover, it isn’t until a child reaches the age of five that they demonstrate the ability to show
both cognitive abstraction and flexibility.
Jeffrey Bisanz and his colleagues at the University of Alberta have been studying the development of
arithmetic skills in preschoolers. These researchers have been trying to understand what children
know about arithmetic prior to formal schooling in terms of the cognitive interplay between
arithmetic procedures, concepts, and facts. The researchers observed some interesting outcomes.
Firstly, the maximum number of units of information that must be held in working memory at the
same time during problem solution, is a major constraint on the preschooler’s success in solving non-
verbal addition subtraction problems. Secondly, 4-year-olds demonstrated that they are capable of
applying arithmetic principles to solve non-verbal tasks. These findings may lead to new methods of
assessment, early identification, and instruction in the early years.
Information-processing theorists also maintain that children’s ability to make efficient use of their
memory system is influenced by other cognitive processes. Metamemory is knowledge about and
control of memory processes; metacognition is knowledge about and control of thought. Both skills
improve during the childhood period, but they still have a long way to go. As a result, their ability to
solve complex problems such as those Piaget used is limited when compared to other children.
Key Terms
 short-term storage space (STSS)
 operational efficiency
 metamemory
 metacognition
Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory: Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the role of social factors in
cognitive development. He suggested that solutions to problems are socially generated and learned,
and that group learning processes are central to cognitive development. When two preschoolers
working together on a puzzle discuss where the pieces belong, they later internalize the dialogues.
The discussion then become a model for an internal conversation the child uses to guide himself
through the puzzle-solution process. Consequently, from Vygotsky’s perspective, social interaction is
required.
Vygotsky proposed specific stages of cognitive development from birth to age seven. Each stage
represents a step towards the child’s internalization of the ways of thinking used by adults in her
society.

 In the first period, called the primitive stage, the infant possesses mental processes that are similar
to those of lower animals. He learns primarily through conditioning until language begins to
develop in the second year.
 At that point, he enters the naive psychology stage in which he learns to use language to
communicate but still does not understand its symbolic character.
 Once the child begins to appreciate the symbolic function of language, near the end of the third
year, he enters the egocentric speech stage. In this stage, he uses language as a guide to solving
problems—in effect, he tells himself how to do things.
 Piaget also recognized the existence and importance of egocentric speech, but he believed that it
disappeared as the child approached the end of the preoperational stage. In contrast, Vygotsky
claimed that egocentric speech becomes completely internalized at age six or seven when
children enter the final period of cognitive development, the ingrowth stage.
Vygotsky suggested that the logical thinking Piaget ascribed to older children resulted from their
internalization of speech routines they had acquired from older children and adults in the social
world, rather than from schemes children constructed for themselves through interaction with the
physical world.
Discussion Question: What do you think? How important are social factors in cognitive
development?
Evidence suggests that children in dyads and groups produce more sophisticated theory of mind ideas
than do individual children who work problems alone. The sophistication of the groups' ideas,
however, appears to depend on the presence of at least one fairly advanced individual child in the
group. Thus, Vygotsky’s theory may ignore the important contributions of individual thought to
group interaction. However, studies strongly support Vygotsky’s hypothesis that private speech helps
children solve problems (Montero & De Dios, 2006).
By integrating the individualistic “theory of mind” approach with Vygotskys’ “social interaction”
approach, Carpendale and Lewis are attempting to overcome some serious theoretical dilemmas such
as which approach develops first and which is foremost. They suggest that both processes work
together—the child’s emerging understanding of the mind helps him interact better with others and in
turn his social interactions reinforce his understanding of thoughts, desires, and beliefs. It is only
through his interactions with others that a child develops a personal understanding of mind that is
distinct from his understanding of the minds of others and which is separate from his understanding
of objects in the real world.
III. CHANGES IN LANGUAGE
By age two and a half, most children have a vocabulary of about 600 words, and by age five or six,
that number has risen to roughly 15,000 words. Most three-year-olds have acquired all the basic tools
needed to form sentences and make conversation.
A. Fast-Mapping
7.9 Learning Objective: Describe how fast-mapping helps children learn new words. (pages
199-200)
By age two and a half, most children have a vocabulary of about 600 words, and by age five or six,
that number has risen to roughly 15,000 words—an astonishing increase of ten words per day.
Moreover, word learning appears to be the engine that drives the whole process of language
development. That is, the more words a child knows, the more advanced she is with regard to

grammar and other aspects of language (McGregor, Sheng, & Smith, 2005). A momentous shift in the
way children approach new words happens around age three. Children begin to pay attention to words
in whole groups. Understanding of the categorical nature of words helps them develop what we might
think of a mental “slots” for new words. Once the slots are in place, they seem to automatically
organize the linguistic input children receive from parents, teachers, peers, books, television
programs, advertisements, and every other source of language to extract new words and fill the slots
as quickly as possible.
The term fast-mapping refers to this ability to categorically link new words to real-world referents.
Referents are the real objects and events to which words refer. At the core of fast-mapping is a rapidly
formed hypothesis about a new word’s meaning. The hypothesis is tested through use of the word in
the child’s own speech, often immediately after learning it. The feedback children receive in response
to use of the word helps them judge the accuracy of the hypothesis and the appropriateness of the
category to which they have assumed that the word belongs. Perhaps this explain why preschoolers
do so much talking and why they are so persistent at getting their listeners to actively respond to
them.
Discussion Question: Speculate as to what would happen if preschoolers did not receive
feedback about their newly found words. What conclusion should be drawn about adults’
interaction with preschoolers?
Key Term
 fast-mapping
B. The Grammar Explosion
7.10 Learning Objective: Highlight what happens during the grammar explosion. (pages
200-201)
Just as a vocabulary explosion follows an early, slow beginning, so a grammar explosion follows
several months of simple sentences.
Inflections: The first spoken sentences typically consist of simple two-word utterances that lack
inflections. If a child was to say “Mommy sock” for example, additions such as ’s that would tell a
child’s listeners that she is trying to say that the sock belongs to Mommy. Within each language
community, children seem to add inflections and more complex word orders in fairly predictable
sequences (Legendre, 2006). In a classic early study, Roger Brown found that the earliest inflection
used among children learning English is typically -ing added to a verb, as in “I playing” or “Doggie
running,” expressions that are common in the speech of 21/2- to 3-year-olds (Brown, 1973). Over the
next year or so come (in order) prepositions such as “on” and “in,” the plural -s on nouns, irregular
past tenses (such as “broke” or “ran”), possessives, articles (“a” and “the” in English), the -s added to
third-person verbs such as “He wants,” regular past tenses such as “played” and “wanted,” and
various forms of auxiliary verbs, as in “I am going.”
Key Term
 inflections

Questions and Negatives: The pattern of development of questions and negatives also follows a
predictable pattern. Children create types of sentences that they have not heard adults use, but are
consistent with the set of rules they are using.
Overregularization: Children in this age group learn the grammar rules and then use them in all
cases, regardless of the fact that there are many exceptions to the rules. This is called
overregularization. They learn the rules quickly, then learn the exceptions one at a time.
Key Term
 overregularization
Complex Sentences: After children have figured out the inflections and basic sentence forms like
negation and questions, they soon begin to create remarkably complex sentences, using conjunctions
to combine two ideas or using embedded clauses.
Classroom Activity: Give examples of inflections, questions and negatives,

overregularization, and complex sentences.
C. Phonological Awareness
7.11 Learning Objective: Describe what phonological awareness is, and why is it
important. (pages 201-204)
Phonological awareness: is a child’s sensitivity to the sound patterns that are specific to her own
language, and it includes the child’s knowledge of a particular language’s system for representing
sounds with letters. Numerous studies have shown that the greater a child’s phonological awareness
before she enters school, the faster she learns to read. In addition, phonological awareness in the early
childhood years is related to the rate of literacy learning in languages as varied as English, Punjabi,
and Chinese. It appears to develop primarily through word play, such as nursery rhymes. It can also
be learned by more formal methods such as flash cards and worksheets. Shared or dialogic reading
has also been found to contribute to growth in phonological awareness.
Young children with good phonological awareness often use a strategy called invented spelling when
they attempt to write. In spite of the many errors they make, children who use invented spelling
strategies before receiving formal instruction in reading and writing are more likely to become good
spellers and readers later in childhood. Thus, it seems that one of the best ways parents and preschool
teachers can help young children prepare for formal instruction in reading is to engage them in
activities that encourage word play and invented spelling.
Classroom Activity: Give examples of activities that encourage word play and invented
spelling.
Key Terms
 phonological awareness
 invented spelling

Development in the Real World:

Strengthening Language Skills in Preschoolers
Monique Sénéchal’s and her colleagues at Carlton University have been investigating how young
children develop language skills, especially in relation to such natural experiences as storybook
reading. Preschool children were placed in a dialogic-reading situation that made use of the following
techniques: asking “wh” questions (i.e., what, where, when, why, who, which, and how questions),
asking open-ended questions, and expanding upon what the child said. These techniques were
designed to teach vocabulary and to encourage children to tell provide more complete descriptions of
what they see. It appears that children who actively participate in story-reading by answering
questions comprehend and produce more words than do children who passively listen. Moreover,
children exposed to dialogic-reading improved both their receptive and expressive vocabularies.
Tips for Dialogic-Reading:

 Repeat what a child says.
 Follow answers with questions.
 Help a child as needed.
 Expand what a child says.
 Follow a child’s interests.
 Adapt to a child’s “growing linguistic abilities.”
 Praise and encourage.
 Have fun.
 Try to read with a child once a day.
Discussion Question: As a youngster, how did your primary caregivers read to you?
How do you think it has affected your receptive and expressive vocabulary?
Key Terms
 receptive vocabulary
 expressive vocabulary
D. Language and Numeracy
7.12 Learning Objective: Describe the similarities and differences in language and
numeracy development. (pages 204-206)
In a chapter from his book, “Outliers’” Canadian author, Malcolm Gladwell, put forth the idea that
language plays a role in our ability to master numbers. To illustrate his point, he compares number
words in Chinese to those in English. He contends that they differ in at least notable two ways. For
one, Chinese number words are shorter and take less time to pronounce than their English equivalents
and thus they use up less short term memory capacity. “Most of them can be uttered in less than one-
quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is 'si' and 7 'qi'). Their English equivalents—"four," "seven"—are
longer: pronouncing them takes about one-third of a second (Dehaene, 1997 quoted in Gladwell,
2008). Consequently, the ability to remember a larger quantity of numbers in Chinese is entirely due
to this difference in length. Add to this the extra challenge of having to learn more English number
words for the same numerals in Chinese. For example, in either language counting from one to ten
means a child needs to learn ten numeral words (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10), but after that, the
Chinese numbering system, unlike the English system, doesn’t require a child to learn any new words
until he reaches the numeral 100 (e.g., 11 is "eleven: in English [a new word], but simply, “ten-one”

in Chinese, and 12 is "twelve" [another new word] vs “ten-two”, and so on). Similarly, going from 20
to 99 will require learning eight more numeral words in English, but none in Chinese (30 is "thirty" in
English [a new word], but simply, “three-ten” in Chinese, and 40 is forty vs “four-ten” and so on to
99 (which incidentally, is "nine-ten-nine" in Chinese). Only one new word would need to be learned
in Chinese–100 which is “one hundred”. In sum, here’s the difference; to count from 1–100 in
English, a child needs to learn 28 words, whereas in Chinese, a child only needs to learn 11 new
words (Cheng, 2009). This gives children who learn numbers in Chinese quite an early advantage.
For example, a 4-year-old Chinese child can count to 40 on average, whereas, their same-age
American peers can count only to 15 (Gladwell, 2008).
Although numeracy--the ability to use numbers--is a very different skill set from literacy, there are
some parallels, e.g., the ability to learn both literacy and numeracy can be enhanced through early
parental or caregiver influences. In the case of numeracy, Concordia University developmentalists
suggest that young children are capable of, and interested in, number concepts and parents can
encourage children to think about mathematics in everyday situations (Osana & Rayner, 2010). They
emphasize that it is critical to take advantage of the preschooler’s eagerness, as the more they are
engaged in thinking mathematically in the early years, the more they will be prepared for the
mathematics they will encounter in school. Moreover, the development of numeracy abilities in
preschoolers helps to facilitate the learning of more advanced mathematical concepts in school
(Jordan, Kaplan, Locuniak, & Ramineni, 2007; LeFevre, Skwarchuk, Smith-Chant, Fast, Kamawar, &
Bisanz, 2009). In one Canadian study, researchers found that children who experience more
numeracy-related activities at home show greater proficiency at school-based mathematical tasks
(LeFevre, et al., 2009). Some of these experiences target numeracy skill development directly (e.g.,
counting objects, sorting objects by category, practicing number names, printing numbers). Other
experiences involve informal numeracy activities that have quantitative components, such as board
games with dice, card games, measuring quantities while cooking, or setting the table at home,
Although both direct and indirect activities in the home are important in promoting numeracy
proficiency, these researchers were the first to show a robust relationship between the frequency with
which children participate in indirect numeracy activities at home and mathematical proficiency.
Discussion Question: What are some science activities that can promote problem
solving skills?
IV. DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE
Thanks to advances in language skills, intelligence testing is far more reliable among preschoolers
than among infants. Psychologists have constructed standardized tests of intelligence for preschoolers
to measure their vocabulary, reasoning skills, and other cognitive processes that depend on language.
However, widespread use of these tests has led to an ongoing debate about the origins of score
differences and the degree to which scores can be modified.
A. Measuring Intelligence
7.13 Learning Objective: Describe the strengths and weaknesses of IQ tests. (pages 206-
208)
An important assumption in studying the differences in intelligence is that these differences can be
measured. Thus, it is important to understand something about the tests psychologists use to measure
intelligence as well as the meaning and stability of the scores generated by them.

Watch the video Robert Stenberg on Intelligence
The First Tests: The first modern intelligence test was published in 1905 by two Frenchmen, Alfred
Binet and Theodore Simon. The test’s purpose was to identify children who might have difficulty in
school, and it included measures of vocabulary, comprehension of facts and relationships, and
mathematical and verbal reasoning.
Lewis Terman and his associates at Stanford University modified and extended the test for use in the
U.S. The Stanford-Binet, as it is now called, initially described a child’s performance in terms of a
score called an intelligence quotient, later shortened to IQ. This score was computed by comparing
the child’s chronological age (in years and months) with his mental age, defined as the level of
questions he could answer correctly. The formula used to calculate the IQ was: Mental
age/Chronological age X 100 = IQ. This formula results in an IQ of about 100 for children whose
mental age is higher than their chronological age and an IQ below 100 for children whose mental age
is below their chronological age.
This system for calculating the IQ is no longer is use. Instead, IQ scores’ calculations for the
Stanford-Binet and all other intelligence tests are now based on a direct comparison of a child’s
performance with the average performance of a large group of other children his own age. The
scoring is still arranged so that an IQ of 100 is still average. Children who score above 130 are often
called gifted; those who score below 70 are normally referred to as retarded. Such a label should not
be applied unless the child also has problems with “adaptive behaviour,” such as an inability to dress
or eat alone, a problem getting along with others, or a significant problem adapting to the demands of
a regular school classroom.
Key Term
 intelligence quotient (IQ)
Modern Intelligence Tests: The test most frequently used by psychologists today is the forth version
of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children, called the WISC-IV. Children tested with ten core
and five supplemental subtests of different types of problems, each ranging from very easy to very
hard. The 15 subtests are categorized into four new indices that make up the Full Scale IQ. The verbal
comprehension index contains measures for verbal reasoning, comprehension, and the ability to
express ideas in words; the perceptual reasoning index involves visual non-verbal tasks in the
measurement of fluid reasoning—the ability to manipulate and use information in a reasoning
process; the working memory index taps into short term memory processes such as the ability to
briefly hold onto and pay attention to information in the mind long enough to accurately perform
some kind of mental operation or manipulation; and the processing speed index –a measure of visual
selective attention and speed of mental processing. An updated supplement is available that provides
norms for Canadian children.
Discussion Question: Why might the unevenness in a child’s test skills indicate
particular kinds of learning problems?
Key Term
 fluid reasoning

Stability and Predictive Value of IQ Scores: The correlation between a child’s IQ test score and her
scores on tests that measure pre-academic skills such as letter knowledge is about 0.70. The
correlation with her current or future grades in school is about 0.50–0.60. This is a strong, but by no
means perfect, correlation. It indicates that, on the whole, children with high IQ scores will be among
the high achievers in school, and those who score low will be among the low achievers. But success
in school also depends on many factors other than IQ, including motivation, interest, and persistence.
For this reason, some children with high IQ scores don’t excel in school, while some lower-IQ
children do.
IQ scores are also quite stable. If two tests are given a few months or a few years apart, the scores are
likely to be very similar. The correlations between IQ scores from adjacent years in middle childhood,
for example, are typically in the range of 0.80. Yet, this high level of predictability masks an
interesting fact: Many children show quite wide fluctuations in their scores. In fact, about half of all
children show noticeable changes from one testing to another and over time. Some show steadily
rising scores, and some have declining ones; some show a peak in middle childhood and then a
decline in adolescence. In rare cases, the shifts may cover a range as large as 40 points.
Critical-thinking Question: In your opinion, how does having a higher IQ make the
child more resilient? For example, in what specific ways might the life of a brighter
child living in a slum be different from the life of a less-bright child in the same
environment?
IQ scores are quite stable across time. There are, however, quite wide fluctuations in an individual’s
scores, especially among young children. The general rule of thumb is that the older the child, the
more stable the IQ score, although even in older children, scores may still show fluctuations in
response to major stresses such as parental divorce, changing schools, or the birth of a sibling.
Discussion Question: What direction would you predict a child’s scores would move if
there was a major stress in her life, up or down? Why?
Watch the video Demographics and Intelligence Testing: Robert Guthrie
Limitations of IQ Tests: Originally, IQ tests were designed to measure only the specific range of
skills that are needed for success in school; they do this quite well. There are, however, a few key
limitations of IQ tests and the scores derived from them.
 IQ tests do not measure underlying competence. An IQ score cannot tell us if a child has some
specific, fixed, underlying capacity.
 Traditional IQ tests do not measure a whole host of skills that are likely to be highly significant
for getting along in the world.
 IQ tests do not tell us how good a particular person may be at cognitive tasks such as creativity,
insight, street-smarts, reading social cues, or understanding spatial relationships.
Discussion Question: Given the information mentioned so far, do you think it would be
worthwhile to have every preschool child tested? How would you use such scores? What
would be the drawbacks of such universal testing?

B. Origins of Individual Differences in Intelligence
7.14 Learning Objective: Identify what kinds of evidence support the nature and nurture
explanations for individual differences in IQ. (pages 208-211)
If a couple whom you perceive to be smart conceive a child, what would you predict about their
offspring’s IQ scores? Most people know that differences in intelligence run in families. But why do
related people seem to be alike in this regard? Is it nature or nurture that is responsible?
Evidence for Heredity: Both twin studies and studies of adopted children show strong heredity
influences on IQ. This is precisely the finding we would expect if a strong genetic element were at
work.
Evidence for Family Influence: Adopting studies also provide some strong support for an
environmental influence on IQ scores because the actual level of the IQ scores of adopted children is
clearly affected by the environment in which they have grown up. At least five dimensions of family
interaction or stimulation seem to make a difference in a child’s IQ. Families with higher-IQ children
tend to do the following:
 They provide an interesting and complex physical environment for the child.
 They are emotionally responsive to and involved with their child.
 They talk to their child often, using language that is descriptively rich and accurate. They
operate in what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development to encourage the child to
master new skills.
 They avoid excessive restrictions, punitiveness, or control, instead giving the child room to
explore and even opportunities to make mistakes.
 They expect their child to do well and to develop rapidly.
Discussion Question: What do you suppose is the relationship between the development
of a child’s self-esteem and the behaviour of the parents listed above? Why might the
relationship exist?
Evidence of intergenerational influences comes from a recent analysis of the Concordia Longitudinal
Risk Project that looked at the intellectual functioning of offspring of mothers who were themselves
high risk children. Saltaris and her colleagues found that mothers who had a history of aggression in
childhood were less likely to provide effective intellectual stimulation for their own pre-school-age
children. These mothers displayed less constructive feedback during problem-solving activities and
less effective teaching strategies. This in turn puts the early cognitive development of their offspring
at-risk.
Evidence for Preschool Influences: Home environments and family interactions are not the only
sources of environmental influence. Programs such as Head Start are based squarely on the
assumption that it is possible to modify the trajectory of a child’s intellectual development, especially
if the intervention occurs early enough. Children in enriched preschool programs normally show a
gain of about 10 IQ points after they are enrolled in them, but this IQ gain typically fades and then
disappears within the first few years of school.

When the enrichment program begins in infancy rather than at age 3 or 4, IQ scores remain elevated
into adulthood. One very well-designed and meticulously reported infancy intervention was called the
Abecedarian project. Infants from poverty-level families whose mothers had low IQs were randomly
assigned either to a special daycare program or to a control group that received nutritional
supplements and medical care but no special enriched daycare. The special daycare program that
began when the infants were 6- to 12-weeks-old and lasted until they began kindergarten.
Discussion Question: Why might the gain in IQ scores fade over time? List as many
factors as possible that could contribute to the decline.
Discussion Question: List reasons why beginning the program in infancy rather than in
preschool increases the likelihood of long-term effects on IQ. What would have to
happen to make this program available to all infants who need it?
Readiness To Learn at School: How ready for school is the typical Canadian 3- to 5-year-old? A
major Statistics Canada study by Eleanor Thomas provides an interesting snapshot. Using National
Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY–cycle 5) data, she measured five domains of
readiness:
1. Language and communication skill
2. Academic skill
3. Self-regulation of learning
4. Self-control of behaviour
5. Social competence and independence
Girls, she found, enter school with better communication skills, stronger abilities in copying and
symbol use, higher scores in attention and in self-control of impulsive behaviour, and higher
independence in dressing. Boys were rated above girls on just one measure—curiosity. Although
children from lower income households were generally less ready to learn than children from more
affluent households, some aspects of the child’s home environment were linked with higher levels of
readiness regardless of household income. These activities include daily reading, high positive
parent–child interaction, participation in organized sports, lessons in physical activities, and lessons in
the arts. But the reality is that children from lower income households are less likely to have these
experiences.
A recent investigation from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project indicates that there can also be
intergenerational transfer of risk—that is, mothers with a childhood history of social withdrawal can,
in turn, put their children’s expressive language and language-related academic performance at risk.
Two programs in Canada that target high-risk children are Aboriginal Head Start and HighScope,
sponsors several hundred Aboriginal Head Start programs for First Nations, Inuit, Metis, and other
Aboriginal children.
This early intervention program provides young Aboriginal children with a half-day preschool
experience that prepares them for their school years by focusing on education and school readiness,
Aboriginal culture and language, parental involvement, health promotion, nutrition, and social
support. HighScope, a preschool program that has shown long-term success in high-risk children in
the United States, now has three centres across Canada. One HighScope study followed children of
poverty into adulthood. The results showed significant differences between those at-risk children who
were in the program and those who were not. Children who went through the program had better
school readiness skills, spent less time in special education programs, had superior high-school
graduation rates, had higher employment income, and had lower rates of criminal arrests.

Combining the Information: A reaction range presents the notion that genes establish some range of
possible reactions, some upper and lower boundary of functioning. Exactly where a child will fall
within those boundaries will be determined by environment. Some developmental psychologists
estimate that the reaction range for IQ is about 20 to 25 points, depending on the richness or poverty
of the environment in which he grows up. Even though intelligence as measured on an IQ test is
highly heritable, the absolute score within the reaction range is determined by environment.
Key Term
 reaction range
FOR HYBRID COURSES

Any of the content, lecture material, learning activities or assignments can be adapted to an online
format to create a blended or hybrid combination of in- person and online teaching delivery. A simple
but effective online delivery method is the use of voice-over added to PowerPoint to deliver lecture
material, discussion topics, assignment information, etc. On campus IT departments likely offer
assistance to set-up the voice-over format. Several free online sources offer set-up instructions and
tips. An example is http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/12/add-voice-over-to-powerpoint-
presentations-in-5-easy-steps/.
The text supplies multiple resources for use in online delivery. Features like Class Prep provide a
plethora of videos, articles, activities, and assignments about specific chapter content that are readily
adaptable for online use. Online discussion board set-up instructions are available within the manual
features, through servers such as Blackboard and through online sources, for example, the University
of Waterloo https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-
tips/developing-assignments/blended-learning/online-discussions-tips-instructors.
An idea; to begin this content use Lecture Launchers: Focus on protection, what it means for
Canadian Children. Introduce and explore the following websites with the class Government
of Canada Initiatives to Protect Children: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp pr/cp-pm/cr-
rc/dig/prot.html Canadian Centre for Child Protection: https://www.protectchildren.ca/
app/en/ Smartrisk: http://www.parachutecanada.org/smartrisk.
Follow this information up by asking student to identify public cases from their community;
or provinces, when children have experienced maltreatment. They can locate this information
by using their local media. Define the types of harm, and categorize them according to the
definitions provided in this chapter.
LECTURE ENHANCEMENT
Language Development
One significant area of development in early childhood that is important for school is language.
Children progress rapidly from their first vocal utterances to conversing in complete sentences. Most
children will speak their first complete word somewhere between 11 to 13 months of age. This age
range is approximate; some children will begin to speak sooner while others later. Children are
making progress toward their first words much earlier than this. Usually around six months of age the
child will begin to babble phonemes. Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound in a language that

affects the meaning of speech. Changing one of these basic sounds changes the meaning of speech.
Changing “pear” to “tear,” for example, requires changing only a phoneme, yet the resulting effect on
the meaning of the word is profound.
To illustrate the effect of culture on language development, it is interesting to note that all babies
(provided they have the appropriate vocal apparatus) will babble all 80 phonemes that the human
vocal apparatus can possibly produce. The native languages these children will come to speak,
however, will not all utilize the same subset of those phonemes. English utilizes 40 phonemes.
Children from different cultures who are beginning the babbling stage of language development also
do not have an accent. The individual effects of one's culture, however, begin to quickly progress.
By the time the child reaches about ten months of age, another remarkable event occurs. The child
exhibits what is called phonetic contraction. During this process, the child begins to restrict his or her
phoneme usage to only those basic sounds that will be utilized by the native language.
Within the span of about four months, the child has gone from being able to babble all possible
human sounds to utilizing only those that are required for the native language he or she will develop.
All that remains, then, is for the child to learn how to put those basic sounds together to form a word.
The child progresses quickly from single word utterances (often referred to as holophrases because
they are meant to convey a whole sentence of meaning even though they are one-word utterances) to
first sentences. Even the 18-month-old child seems to understand some basic grammatical rules, such
as the adjective always precedes the noun it is describing. This can easily be heard in such simple
sentences as “white sock” instead of “sock white.” Although the child's sentences are not very
complex at this point, he or she is able to communicate a lot of information by using them. Caregivers
sometimes have to pay very close attention to what is being said and how it is being said, however, to
understand what the toddler is articulating. A 20-month old, for example, might say, “Mommy
Cookie” when she sees her mother eating a cookie. An hour later, however, this same child may say,
“Mommy, Cookie” and be frustrated when Mommy responds with, “No thanks, honey, I do not want
another cookie.” Why might the child be frustrated? Because it is entirely possible that what she
meant to express with her second use of “Mommy, Cookie” was, “Mommy, could I please have a
cookie?”
The child around 24 months of age will utilize many of these two-word utterances. This stage of
language development has been nicknamed telegraphic speech because the child does not use a lot of
inflections. In other words, the child's speech is very basic and includes only what is essential for
conveying meaning. Just like the manner in which a telegram is sent with only the minimal words
required to keep the cost of the message down, the child communicates as much meaning as possible
with very limited utterances.
Prior to three years of age (usually between 27 to 36 months), the child will mature to more complex
sentences including three, four, five, or more words in each sentence. At the same time, the child is
gaining a more sophisticated usage of grammar such as adding “s” to words to make them plural, or
adding “ed” to words to indicate the past tense. It is easy to understand why this can be a challenge
for children because of all of the exceptions in our grammatical system that need to be understood.
Imagine the child who learns that one hand is called “hand”" while more than one hand is called
“hands.” He then tries to use this new knowledge to describe the appendages at the end of his legs. If
one foot is a “foot,” then certainly more than one foot would be called “foots.”

The Role of Culture in the Perception of Meaning
7.14 Identify what kinds of evidence support the nature and nurture explanations for individual
differences in IQ.
Culture might have an impact on the perception of meaning and word usage. Certainly cultures differ
on the perception of meaning or even on what words might get used. Some Inuit communities were
discovered to have seven or more words for snow (to describe its various states, etc.) while some
desert cultures do not have any words for snow. The point is that language does not develop within a
vacuum. Words have meaning to the extent that they are relevant for explaining the reality that exists
within a given culture. It would make sense that the same cultural differences would also influence
language development in children. Individualistic cultures encourage children to utilize words of
independence while collectivist cultures encourage children to utilize language that stresses inclusion
and togetherness. Although this point does not change the basic pattern by which children in any
culture seem to develop language, it could be a crucial point in understanding individuals from
diverse cultures. Culture will not just influence which words a child will choose when speaking, it,
will also influence how the words that are heard are interpreted or perceived. Whether we consider
this point from the perspective of a country (such as Canada) or regions (such as the western prairies,
the impact is important.

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PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

WHAT’S NEW IN CHAPTER 7?

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

I. Physical Changes (page 181).

II. Cognitive Changes (page 190).

III. Changes in Language (page 200).

IV. Differences in Intelligence (page 205).

A. Growth and Motor Development

Discussion Question: Give examples of large-muscle skills and fine-muscle skills.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

B. The Brain and Nervous System

Lateralization in 95 percent of humans develops in a pattern known as left-brain dominance. In a

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

C. Health Promotion and Wellness

Weblink: Electronic Child Health Network:

There are several health issues for children in early childhood.

 Young children continue to require periodic medical check-ups as well as a variety of

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Research Report: Unintentional Injuries in Canadian Preschoolers

D. Child Maltreatment in Canada

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Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

Research Report: Traumatic Events and Neurobiological and Functional

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II. COGNITIVE CHANGES

A. Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

Critical-thinking Question: Overcoming egocentrism is the foundation of many

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B. Challenges to Piaget’s View

Critical-thinking Question: Consider your own theory of mind. What assumptions do

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Discussion Question: Why is a child’s development of the theory of mind a good

D. Alternative Theories of Early Childhood Thinking

7.8 Learning Objective: Describe how information-processing and sociocultural

Information-Processing Theories: One set of alternative proposals is based on the information-

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Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

B. The Grammar Explosion

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Classroom Activity: Give examples of inflections, questions and negatives,

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Development in the Real World:

Tips for Dialogic-Reading:

D. Language and Numeracy

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IV. DIFFERENCES IN INTELLIGENCE

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Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

B. Origins of Individual Differences in Intelligence

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Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

FOR HYBRID COURSES

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Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario.

The Role of Culture in the Perception of Meaning

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