Psychology for Dummies (55 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Sometimes, when I’m playing with toddlers, I catch myself quizzing them and testing the limits of their knowledge. I may read them a book and ask them to point things out on each page, “Where’s the ball?” This sort of toddler homework is perfectly okay, as long as I don’t over do it, which I have a tendency to do.
A lot of parents begin to teach their children some of the rudiments of knowledge that will serve as the foundation for future school learning. Recognizing objects and categories of objects such as shapes, colors, animals, numbers, and letters are basic skills that all children need to possess. Although some level of pre-existing skill is present, a child’s ability to recognize objects increases around the ages of 18 months or 2 years. Children love to learn stories, songs, and nursery rhymes at this time in their lives.
Play is a very important part of a toddler’s learning experience. By the age of 21/2, most children can play alongside their peers in both cooperative and inde- pendent activities for a sustained period of time. Prior to this age, children may engage in short sessions of independent play or interactive physical play (like patty-cake) with adults or older children. Toddlers and preschoolers prefer more natural toys such as sand, mud, and water. They invent their own games but still don’t do too well with rules and regulations.
Some parents expect their children to learn how to recognize and write letters before they get to kindergarten. But, for most toddlers and preschool-aged children, these skills are too advanced, and very little retention can be expected prior to kindergarten. By the age of 5, children do begin to form letters.
Drawing, however, is a related skill that toddlers and preschoolers do demonstrate some ability in. Stanley Gardner has shown that most 2- and 3-year-olds can scribble, and by the end of this period, they can easily create straight lines, curves, and loops. Four- and five-year-olds begin to draw representations and pictures with simple designs. They can easily color within the lines.
A lot of parents remember their child’s first words. When their little one utters the words
momma
or
dada,
their hearts usually melt.
Ball
usually doesn’t get the same reaction.
The dominant position in psychology on the development of language is that language is innate and gradually unfolds as the child’s brain develops. This doesn’t mean that children are born with a language, but that they’re born with the innate mental capacity to learn and grasp the rules of the language community they’re born into. Parents can facilitate language development by providing a supportive and stimulating environment and prompting children to use their words to communicate their needs and desires.
Our children aren’t born speaking in sentences or giving speeches. Well, at least none of the children I’ve ever come across. We all know that children learn to talk little by little. Language develops in stages as little Johnny makes little, adorable strides over the course of his first two to three years of life. Here’s a quick overview of those accomplishments that make us so proud as parents:
Infant speech begins with
cooing.
For the first few months, infants make sounds that come naturally from the movements of the mouth (feeding, breathing, and sucking) and from crying. Making a “raspberry” sound or humming are good examples of sounds that come from natural mouth movements. The vocal behaviors associated with crying are experimented with and the use of voice begins. These sounds occur both spontaneously and in response to interaction with others. A baby may coo in response to a mother’s cooing, for example. These interactions often serve as a basis for future social development as well as parent and child engaging in sound-making games and getting a feel for each other’s interaction style.
Between the fifth and seventh month, infants slightly refine these basic sounds. Around the seventh or eighth month, infants begin to form sounds that resemble syllables. In English, some syllable sounds are easier to utter than others, such as
ma
or
ba.
It’s pretty hard to get a 6-month-old to utter a
th
or
l
sound.
Around the one-year mark, infants begin to use simple monosyllabic words. Early consonant and vowel sounds are then combined to produce early polysyllabic words like
momma
or
boo-boo
or
bye-bye.
This process continues for the next few months, as new words occasionally emerge and mastered words serve as a foundation to generalize from.
Language development explodes around the time infants reach their 18th month. According to Dacey and Travers, children learn new words at the approximate rate of one word every two hours. That’s staggering! I’ve taken Spanish at different points throughout my life, and I was lucky if I could learn one word every two weeks. Pretty sad, I know. This explosion continues until children are about 3 years old. Their language skills expand beyond using one word for many things —
ball
is no longer every round object,
doggy
is no longer anything with four legs, and so on. Building upon their ability to generalize, children begin to form simple two-word sentences, and then three-word sentences, and on and on. The next thing you know, you’re answering more “why” questions than you ever thought possible.
Most children have learned the greatest portion (the structures, rules, and a great deal of vocabulary) of their native language by the age of 4. By the time they’re ready to enter kindergarten, kids have acquired approximately 8,000 words and learned to use language in a variety of social situations. They can also use questions and make negative statements. At this point, the rudiments of language are solidly in place, and it’s simply a matter of continued learning and increased sophistication, building upon the existing foundation.
The earliest relationships infants have are with their primary caregivers. A parent and a baby often engage in simple visual and touching games with each other. Infants also make facial gestures at strangers. The interactions between an infant and his or her primary caregiver have been likened to a dance in which each partner takes cues from the other in a scene that almost seems choreographed. This process of using feedback from each other to gauge social interaction has been called
reciprocal interaction,
and it often depends on the primary caregiver’s ability to respond to the cues given by the child.
A good connection between an infant and primary caregiver is often the result of something called the
goodness of fit
— the fit between a child’s and a caregiver’s temperaments and styles. I’ve often heard parents say that each of their children had a different temperament and that learning to respond differently to each child was a challenge at times. Some children may be very outgoing and seek social stimulation, but others can be shy and may require a lower-key style of interaction. I think part of the art of parenting is knowing how to match up with a child’s temperament — it often represents a significant challenge in therapy with children.
An infant’s social circle gradually expands to include siblings, and he or she begins to show signs of
separation anxiety
(fear of being left by a primary caregiver) between the ages of 7 and 9 months. From 16 to 24 months, infants are able to spend time playing and interacting with others without too much significant involvement from their primary caregivers. From the beginning of 3 to 4 years of age, children’s social worlds continue to expand. Sometimes quarreling occurs as they encounter the limitations of dealing with other children. Sharing and taking turns become more important, and simple friendships and fondness for specific children also begin to emerge.
Most children enter kindergarten around the age of 5. This marks a significant turning point in child development — learning, cognitive, and social skills become increasingly important. Children leave their parents and the protective and facilitative environment of the home to begin interacting with a larger and more complex world. School-related skills, such as writing, reading, spelling, and simple mathematics, begin to occupy a great deal of their mental energy and time.
During kindergarten, children learn to use tools and writing-related materials with greater skill. Some children may not have been exposed to such things as scissors, glue, or paint before kindergarten. They’re expected to learn how to write letters, their names, and a few simple words. They also begin to acquire the basics of reading, including letter recognition and beginning phonics. As children progress through school, these skills are expected to expand with the ability to read and write larger pieces of information.
Mathematical skills begin with counting. By the age of 4 or 5, most children can count with one to one correspondence.
One-to-one correspondence
is when a child can count each object he or she is presented with. So, if I put five apples out, children at this age will count (“One, two, three” and so on) for each apple. As children progress from kindergarten through the school system, they develop concepts of addition and subtraction, and eventually they develop more sophisticated operations that extend to advanced multiplication, division, and sometimes, even fractions.