Developmental Psychology

Achieve Test Prep: Developmental Psychology

Vygotsky postulated that children begin to utilize grammar and language rules during early childhood. Children frequently overgeneralize these rules which leads to overextension. A common example of overgeneralization is pluralizing nouns by adding an ‘s’ to the end of all nouns. ‘Dog’ becomes ‘dogs’ and to a child who is overextending, ‘tooth’ becomes ‘tooths.’ Language components of psychological importance are: 1. Phonemes: sounds 2. Morphemes: basic units of the meaning of words 3. Syntax: grammar of language 4. Semantics: study of word choice 5. Pragmatics: language variation in societal context What children learn in schools influences what they learn about language. School and proper education have become increasingly important at early ages. Through research and studies, it has been determined the earlier a child begins their education, the greater their achievements will be in later academic pursuits. Significant components of quality preschool education are: low student- teacher ratio, well-trained staff, and a curriculum that focuses on using creative play to promote cognitive development. Social and Emotional Development: Children in the stage of early childhood are generally allowed to explore their world and environment. This freedom allows children to grow in self-confidence and social skills. As children age, they become more aware of themselves as individuals. A child may start to describe themselves physically and emotionally. According to Erik Erikson , children of this age are in the Initiative versus Guilt Stage, which lasts until approximately age five. Children play, interact with others, and participate in conversations and activities throughout their days. Due to the variety of activities and environments which surround a child, children develop initiative. If children are not allowed to explore, they will inevitably have insecurities about accomplishing tasks independently and guilt when doing so. Learning Theories: Unlike psychoanalysts, learning theorists emphasized the notion that gender roles are learned and modeled inside and outside of the home. Parents tend to reward behavior they deem as gender- appropriate. In addition, parents tend to be critical of gender behavior. The Baby X Experiments showed that when adults believed a child was a girl, they encouraged passive play and commented

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