Early Childhood

Piaget and Vygotsky
(Age 2-6)

Today

• Midterm Reminder for accommodations
• Focused review on Piaget and Vygotsky (The rest reviewed quickly Thurs)
• WS5: Theory of Mind

Physical Growth

• 2-3" growth in height each year (slower than infancy)
• Body proportions become more adult-like
• Brain increases from 70% to 90% of its adult weight

Influences

• Pituitary gland releases growth hormone (GH) and Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH)
• Psychosocial Short Stature (PSS) childhood stress can reduce physical growth
• Nutrition, impacted by lower appetit and picky-eating

Motor Development

Gross Motor Skills

• Walks rhythmically
• Walks up stairs alternating feet
• Walks downstairs alternating feet
• Mature throwing and catching

Fine motor Skills

• Uses spoon effectively
• Fastens/unfastens large buttons
• Cuts with scissors following line
• Ties shoes

Piaget: Preoperational Thought

• Egocentrism
  • “Stuck” in own viewpoint
  • 3 Mountains Problem
• Private speech
  • Piaget “egocentric speech” (useless monologue)
  • Vygotsky disagreed (it is useful!)
• Child fails conservation tasks
• Lack hierarchical classification
  • e.g. "cats" and "dogs" are both "animals"

Developing "Self" and "Others"

• Solipsism and Descartes
• Empathy v. Theory of Mind

Piaget and Play

• Ages 2-7: gains in mental representation
• Make-Believe Play
  • Play detaches from the real-life conditions
  • Play becomes less self-centered with age
• Symbol ~ World Relations
  • Children understanding that symbols correspond to the real world
  • Language becomes the flexible means of mental representation

"Cat"

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Vygotsky and Play

"Tools of the Mind"

• Socio-dramatic Play
  • The most “mature/advanced” form of play
  • Taking on social roles (role-play)
  • Pretend scenario
  • Following play “rules”  increases children’s self-regulation
  • Symbolic object substitutions (using banana for a phone)

Piaget v. Vygotsky

• Piaget and Education
  • Discovery learning
• Vygotskian Education…
  • Assisted Discovery
  • Teachers guide learning
  • Peer collaboration
  • Dramatic Play
• Scaffolding in the ZPD
  • "Scaffolders" adjust their support
  • Promote private speech
  • more advanced cognition