1. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Chapter 9 Cognitive Development in the Preschool Years Child Development, 3/e by Robert Feldman Created by Barbara H. Bratsch

2. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall How does Piaget interpret cognitive development in the preschool years? How do information processing approaches and Vygotsky’s theory explain cognitive development? How do children’s linguistic abilities develop in the preschool years, and what is the importance of early linguistic development? What kinds of preschool educational programs are available in the United States, and what effects do they have? What effect does television have on preschoolers?

3. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Piaget and Preoperational Thinking Preoperational stage – according to Piaget, the stage that lasts from 2 to 7 during which children’s use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning emerges, and the use of concepts increases Operations are organized, formal, logical mental processes Symbolic function – according to Piaget, the ability to use a mental symbol, a word or an object to represent something that is not physically present Centration – the process of concentrating on one limited aspect of a stimulus and ignoring other aspects

4. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Conservation – knowledge that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance of objects

5. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Common Tests of Conservation

6. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Transformation – the process whereby one state is changed into another

7. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Egocentric thought – thinking that does not take the viewpoints of others into account Intuitive thought – thinking that reflects preschoolers’ use of primitive reasoning and their avid acquisition of knowledge about the world

8. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Preschool Memory Autobiographical memory is memory of particular events from one’s own life Scripts are broad representations in memory of events and the order in which they occur. Preschoolers may remember being in a restaurant, talking to a waitress, getting food and eating. These scripts become more detailed as children get older.

9. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Vygotsky’s View on Preschool Cognitive Development Lev Vygotsky proposed that the focus on cognitive development should be on a child’s social and cultural world, as opposed to the Piagetian approach, which concentrates on individual performance

10. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) The level at which a child can almost, but not fully, comprehend or perform a task without assistance

11. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Language Acquisition in the Preschool Years Syntax – the combining of words and phrases to form meaningful sentences Fast mapping – the process in which new words are associated with their meaning after only a brief encounter Grammar – the system of rules that determine how thoughts can be expressed Private Speech – spoken language that is not intended for others and is commonly used by children during the preschool years

12. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Wugs

13. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Pragmatics is the aspect of language relating to communicating effectively and appropriately with others Social speech refers to speech directed toward another person and meant to be understood by that one person

14. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Poverty and Language Development

15. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Early Childhood Education Approximately 75% of children in the US are enrolled in some form of care outside the home

16. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Child care centers are places that provide care for children while their parents are at work Preschool (nursery school) is a child facility designed to provide intellectual and social experiences for youngsters School child care is a child care facility provided by some local school systems in the U.S.

17. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall The Purpose of Preschool

18. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Developmentally Appropriate Educational Practice: education based on both typical development and the unique characteristics of a given child

19. Feldman Child Development, 3/e ©2004 Prentice Hall Television Time