Primates have been able to learn simple language. However, this may not actually be language use and comprehending as they do not use complex grammar (1), lack social-cognitive abilities that allow for language learning (2) and lack a theory of mind (3). Language may have co-evolved with social intelligence.
Language refers to the systematic and conventional use of sounds, signs or written symbols for the intention of communication or self-expression. Human language differs from the communication of other animals in three ways:
There are seven functions of language:
Language consists of phonology (1), morphology (2), syntax (3), semantics (4) and pragmatics (5).
Phonology refers to the sounds of a language. There are age-related changes in the tongue, mouth and the larynx which allow for producing sounds. There are several stages of phonological development:
Babbling consists of many non-repeated consonant-vowel patterns. Jargon babbling refers to strings of sound filled with a variety of intonations and rhythms to sound like meaningful speech. Speech production driven before 6 months of age is driven by internal forces rather than the environment. Babbling may have the function of socially relating to family members and it may reflect infants’ sensitivity to and production of patterns in the linguistic input. Phonemic awareness refers to the knowledge that words consists of separable sounds. This is important in proficient reading and phonemic awareness may improve by learning to read.
Morphology refers to the structure of words and to a system of rules for combining units of meaning into words (e.g. adding ‘ed’ to a word makes it past tense). A morpheme refers to the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g. fire; run). Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and are attached to free morphemes (e.g. the letter ‘s’). The mean length of utterance refers to the average number of morphemes a child uses in a sentence and is indicative of children’s linguistic development. Many of the morphemes children learn are word endings and they tend to show overregularization (i.e. overusing a rule; ‘s’ for every word that is plural).
The wug test shows children a series of unfamiliar objects or pictures of people performing unfamiliar actions and tie pseudowords to these objects or actions (i.e. ‘this is a wug’). Children then have to extend the word from singular to plural and this will show whether a child knows the morphological rule of the language.
Syntax refers to a system of rules for creating phrases and sentences out of words. Holophrases refer to one-word sentences (i.e. single words with different intonations to convey different meanings). Children initially only use meaningful words and omit languages that make language easier to understand but are not necessary (e.g. ‘daddy give milk me’). This is called telegraphic speech. Children begin to produce more complicated sentences aged two and children use complex sentences by four years of age.
Children typically learn about negatives at two years of age. Questions develop from adding a raised intonation at the end of declarative sentences to more adultlike forms. The ‘wh’ questions begin during the third year. Children learn about passive sentences around the age of 5 or 6. The basic grammatical structure of school-age children’s sentences varies little from that of adults.
Semantics refer to the meaning of language terms. Vocabulary is one indication of children’s semantic development. Children speak their first words at about 10 to 12 months of age. At 18 months of age, the rate at which they learn new words increases substantially (i.e. word spurt). Most words children learn here are labels for objects. However, some children may experience a more gradual development of vocabulary. Children first rapidly learn words in their receptive vocabulary before they learn it for their productive vocabulary. Fast mapping refers to the ability to learn new words based on very little input and this may underlie the word spurt. The word spurt is associated with a special processing ability (i.e. fast mapping).
There are several lexical constraints that influence word learning:
Joint attention may be an important mechanism which gives rise to word learning. However, children are prepared to learn words.
Overextensions refer to stretching a familiar word beyond its correct meaning (e.g. ‘bird’ for everything that flies). This may be a strategy to get adults to provide them with the correct word. Underextension refers to the phenomenon of having a too strict category for a word (e.g. only one’s cat is a cat and other cats have a different name).
Pragmatics refer to how language is used in a social context (e.g. different tones to a classmate or teacher). Children need to learn that good messages have the right quantity of information (1), is at the proper level of description (2), are truthful (3) and relevant to the present context (4). Another important issue of pragmatics is turn taking. Speech registers refer to different styles of speech (e.g. different style of speech at home and at school). A speech register at home that differs from school (i.e. in the case of dialects) can lead to educational difficulties (e.g. at home: ‘we be vibin’). Children have the ability to make most of their wants and feelings known by age 5 or 6 but their ability to communicate effectively continues to increase with age.
Communicative competence refers to the overall mastery of language (i.e. all separate aspects). Children’s early speech may be egocentric. Collective monologues refer to egocentric exchanges (i.e. speaking with but not necessarily to one another). Children typically have metacognitive deficits. This means that they have a poor understanding of message quality and its role in determining the success or failure of a communication. Children often also find it difficult to monitor their own speech. Assessing children’s self-monitoring abilities can be done by examining the frequency with which they correct their speech (e.g. verbal repairs). The incidence of verbal repairs is low in young children’s speech because of poor self-monitoring skills. Verbal repairs increase during middle childhood and decreases in adolescence as skills such as planning improve.
Children’s speech is not always egocentric and there is greater metacommunicative competence when the messages are embedded in familiar scripts. Communication abilities develop first in highly specific, familiar situations and are easily disrupted. With age, children display their communication skills in increasingly diverse contexts.
Behavioural theories state that children learn language through the principles of classical and operant conditioning. In this model, parents are reinforcers for language. However, this theory is unlikely to account for language learning. Statistical learning refers to a domain-general mechanisms to discern what is a word and what is not a word. In statistical learning, infants keep track of how often different syllables follow one another and use this information to determine whether sound frequencies are meaningful. While there is some evidence for this, it may be a domain-general ability and not specific to language learning.
Nativist theories hold that children are biologically prepared to learn language and do so with innate learning mechanisms. Social interactionist theories state that humans are biologically prepared to acquire language but aspects of the environment (e.g. parents) specifically foster language acquisition.
The deep structure of language refers to the underlying meaning of language. Chomsky states that languages share this deep structure and innate knowledge about this allows a child to learn a language. He proposed the language acquisition device (LAD). Lenneberg states that language is a special huma ability with a strong biological basis because of the following characteristics of language:
Wernicke’s area, located in the temporal lobe, is associated with comprehending speech. Broca’s area, located in the frontal lobe, is associated with speech production. Recovery of language function is often good when damage occurs in infancy or early childhood compared to when it occurs later in life. There may also be a grammar centre in the brain. Children’s brains are especially sensitive to language. Different areas of the brain are involved when a second language is learned in childhood versus in adolescence or adulthood though there is not necessarily a difference in fluency.
It is possible that children have universal grammar which refers to innate knowledge about the syntax of language and consists of the basic grammatical rules that typify all languages. Evidence for this comes from the existence of pidgins (i.e. combined ‘language’ of group of people with different native languages) and creoles (i.e. created language within a generation, by children, based on the pidgins). This means that children invented language when necessary and shows some evidence for the existence of universal grammar. There may be a critical period of language development. Children need to be exposed to language early in life if they want to master it. Younger children are better at learning a second language than older children and adults. Grammatical proficiency is related to age of first exposure to sign language and not the number of years one has been using the language.
The less is more hypothesis states that cognitive limitations of infants and young children simplify the body of language they process making the complicated syntactical system of any language easier to learn. Children’s limited information processing abilities reduce the complexity of what they must master and this results in easier initial acquisition.
The social pragmatic view of language acquisition states that while children are biologically prepared for learning language, the environment is important and helps. For example, the content and the presentation of language is adjusted to their abilities. It holds that language is a powerful social-cognitive tool which can be used to manipulate other people’s attention.
It is possible that joint-attention activities between children and caregivers provide the context for effective communication in which language will emerge. Children who engage in joint attention activities early tend to begin talking early. The gesture facilitation hypothesis states that the use of gestures facilitates the acquisition of spoken language (e.g. gestures can be used to get attention to something which is then paired with a verbal component). Gestures could cause parents to say words and sentences that children need to expand their speaking abilities or children who use gestures may have better cognitive skills which allows for easier language learning. Thus, treating other people as intentional beings (e.g. shared attention) is the social-cognitive foundation for language development.
Motherese (i.e. child-directed speech) includes high-pitched tones (1), exaggerated modulations (2), simplified forms of adult words (3), many questions (4) and many repetitions (5). It is possible that adults have a language acquisition support system (LASS) which responds to infants and young children by automatically altering speech to a more understandable form. Infants prefer motherese. When motherese is used, infants can discriminate between words that have very slight differences in sound.
Motherese may teach children about language (i.e. syntactic development) but it may also promote the emotional relationship between the infant and the caregiver. Motherese may be used to regulate the child’s emotions. There are different acoustic patterns in motherese which convey the mother’s approval (1), express prohibition (2), ask for attention (3) and provide comfort to the infant (4). This may help in promoting a secure attachment and this is beneficial in the development of language.
Children receive a highly simplified body of language in the early stages of language development. In combination with the limited information-processing abilities, it is easier for children to learn language. However, motherese may not be necessary for language acquisition though only adult-directed speech without a social component is not sufficient to learn a language.
Bilingualism refers to being fluent in two languages. Simultaneous bilingualism refers to children being exposed from birth to two languages. Sequential bilingualism refers to children who learn a second language after mastering their first. Simultaneous bilinguals often experience rarely any interference between the two languages, bar the occasional mistake, but do have smaller vocabularies in both languages and a slight delay in syntactic development. However, these differences are minimized by the age of 8 or 9. Bilinguals of all ages are slower than monolinguals at retrieving individual words from their long-term memories.
Bilingual children often have greater cultural sensitivity (1), recognize more phonemes (2), have higher levels of metalinguistic awareness (3) and have enhanced executive control (4). Semi-lingualism refers to a lack of mastery in either language.
Caregivers talk more and use more supportive speech with daughters than with sons. The content also differs. Emotion talk is more frequent in young girls. However, it is likely that gender differences in language development exist due to cultural differences. One difference that is found is that girls are more advanced in their narrative production than boys. The greater prenatal exposure to testosterone, the smaller the child’s vocabulary is. Girls may be more vocal in infancy and this may give an advantage in learning a first language though this is not necessarily true.
Language is used to express thought but is not thought itself. The ability to use language may transform a child’s thinking and the use of language in social situations may facilitate this transformation. According to Vygotsky, thought and speech have different roots in development but they merge in development and becoming interdependent. Egocentric speech (i.e. private speech) refers to speaking to oneself. This may help children organize their thoughts as they cannot use language covertly (i.e. in their heads) yet. Private speech serves as a cognitive self-guidance system. Private speech eventually gives way to inner speech. Children rely more heavily on private speech when facing difficult rather than easy tasks.
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Bjorklund & Causey (2017). Biological bases of development” – Article summary
Evolution refers to the process of change in gene frequencies within populations over many generations. The major principle of evolution is reproductive fitness, which refers to the likelihood that an individual will produce offspring or that that individual’s offspring will produce offspring. Evolution provides an explanation for how a mechanism developed but also why it developed. Previously adaptive mechanisms may not be adaptive anymore in modern society.
Evolutionary developmental psychology refers to a field which looks at development of humans from an evolutionary perspective. It is useful to look at which cognitive operations underlie adaptive behaviour. Psychological mechanisms (e.g. cognitive psychology) may be the missing link between evolution and behaviour.
It is possible that domain-specific mechanisms designed by natural selection to deal with specific aspects of the physical or social environment (e.g. face recognition) evolved. However, evolution has also influenced domain-general mechanisms (e.g. executive functions). There are three types of constraints on learning:
These constraints indicate that people are prepared by natural selection to process some information more readily than other. Evolved probabilistic cognitive mechanisms refer to information-processing mechanisms that have evolved to solve recurrent problems faced by ancestral populations but they are expressed in a probabilistic fashion in each individual in a generation. This means that it will develop in a species-typical manner if the individual experiences a species-typical environment but if not, development will be different (e.g. people are not innately afraid of snakes but are ready to develop a fear of snakes if the environment gives reason for this).
According to Geary, the mind is a set of hierarchically organized domain-specific modules that develop as children engage their physical and social worlds. Though people have domain-specific modules, human cognition is adaptive to local conditions. Development fine tunes the modules that are very flexible and broad.
The long period of youth in children may be necessary or children to master complexities of human societies and technologies. This means that cognition needs to be adapted to a wide range of environments. There are biologically primary abilities (e.g. language):
Kuppens & Ceulemans (2019). Parenting styles: A closer look at a well-known concept”. – Article summaryParenting practices refer to directly observable specific behaviours that parents use to socialize their children (e.g. supervision with homework). There are two broad dimensions of parenting:
It is possible that a combination of parenting practices impact child development rather than the practices or dimensions in isolation. Parenting style refers to a parent’s configuration of parenting dimensions and practices. Baumrind suggested three parenting styles:
Another typology of parenting styles was developed by Maccoby and Martin:
Authoritative parenting styles are associated with positive developmental outcomes while permissive and authoritarian styles were not. Outcomes for the children of neglectful parents were the poorest.
Children in two-parent households are influenced by the parenting style of both parents but also by the interaction of these styles (e.g. additive effect for two authoritative parents). By incorporating psychological control, several other parenting styles could be identified:
Taraban & Shaw (2018). Parenting in context: Revisiting Belsky’s classic process of parenting model in early childhood.” – Article summaryAccording to Jay Belsky’s process of parenting model, parenting is determined by characteristics of the parent, child and family social context. Parental personality and parental psychological functioning are important factors in the parental domain. In the child’s domain, a difficult temperament is important. In the social context domain, parents’ work habits, sources of parental social support and marital relationship quality are important.
Positive parenting refers to dimensions of parenting such as warmth, sensitivity, limit setting, appropriate scaffolding and contingency-based reinforcement. Negative parenting refers to behaviours that are inconsistent, over-reactive, controlling and harsh. Negative parenting has been linked to negative child outcomes (e.g. lower academic achievement) while positive parenting has been linked to adaptive child outcomes. Associations between parenting and child outcomes are stronger in early childhood. Adolescence may also be a critical period.
Fathers have taken up a larger parenting role over the recent years. Research shows that the parenting of fathers is subject to contextual influence and has a great impact on child outcomes.
According to Belsky, there are three primary predictors of parenting:
Tucker-Drob, Briley, & Harden (2013). Genetic and environmental influences on cognition across development and context" – Article summaryCognition is about 50% - 70% heritable at the population level. Heritability is maximized when people choose their own environments and experiences.
Gene-environment correlation states that people with more similar genes experience more similar environments and vice versa. Transactional models state that early-life behaviours, driven by genetics, lead to a person selecting particular types of environments. These environments have a causal effect on cognition, leading to the notion that the original behaviours led to these experiences and this cognition (e.g. having higher IQ leads to environments where you can stimulate IQ, which leads to an even higher IQ). Traits such as intelligence, motivation and intellectual interest are important in selecting these environments. Genes are thus very important in selecting environments which, in turn, have large impact on cognition. This leads to a large estimate of heritability.
The availability of environmental experiences is essential in choosing one’s own environment. Differences in heritability between groups could thus demonstrate important underlying developmental processes. Heritability differs along age/development and socioeconomic advantage.
Heritability increases with age as people tend to select their own environments more and more. Children select experiences in line with their genetic predispositions and these experiences stimulate cognitive development. This means that the early genetic influences on cognition will become amplified. Another explanation for the increased heritability with age is that new genes become activated later in development (e.g. biological changes of puberty).
There may be lower heritability in children with lower SES. This may be because people with lower SES have less freedom to choose the most enriching experiences which, in turn, lead to more heritability. SES disadvantage may not disrupt gene-environmental transactions in countries that ensure high quality healthcare and education (e.g. Scandinavian countries).
Gross (2010). Emotion regulation.” – Article summary Emotions may facilitate adaptation by readying behavioural responses (1), enhancing memory for important events (2) and guide interpersonal interactions (3). However, emotions are maladaptive when they are of the wrong type (1), at the wrong time (2) or at the wrong intensity level (3). Emotions consist of three key features:
The behavioural changes as a result of emotions are associated with autonomic and neuroendocrine changes that anticipate the associated behavioural response with an emotion.
The modal model of emotion states that emotion arises four steps:
Emotions can change the environment which, in turn, alters the probability of experiencing a certain emotion.
Emotion regulation refers to how one attempts to influence the emotions one has, when one experiences them, how one experiences them and how one expresses these emotions. Intrinsic emotion regulation refers to regulating one’s own emotions. Extrinsic emotion regulation refers to regulating the emotions of somebody else (e.g. regulating the emotions of a child). Emotions can be down-regulated (i.e. lower intensity of emotions) but also up-regulated (i.e. greater intensity of emotions).
Emotion regulatory acts may have their primary impact at different points in the emotion generative process. Each of the parts of the modal model of emotion may be influenced by emotion regulation. There are five points at which individuals can regulate emotions:
Zelazo & Müller (2011). Executive function in typical and atypical development.” – Article summary Executive function (EF) refers to the psychological processes involved in the conscious control of thought and action. However, there are several possible definitions:
It may be that executive function consists of separable but related constructs. It seems to consist of inhibition of prepotent responses (1), shifting between mental sets (i.e. flexibility) (2) and updating and monitoring of representations in working memory (3). However, by conducting a task which is aimed at a single construct of EF, it is unclear whether it taps into multiple component processes (e.g. does flexibility rely on inhibitory control or are they separate constructs).
Executive function has several developmental characteristics:
Luria states that the prefrontal cortex consists of interactive functional systems which involve the integration of subsystems. The subsystems have specific roles but cannot be considered outside of the larger systems. This means that executive function may be a function and not a mechanism or cognitive structure. Functions refer to behavioural constructs defined in terms of their outcome (e.g. what they accomplish). It is possible to organize functionally distinct phases around the constant outcome of solving a problem (i.e. the outcome of EF).
Intending refers to keeping a plan in mind to control behaviour. Rule use refers to translating a plan into action. After acting, evaluation occurs and this includes error detection and error correction. Representational inflexibility refers to the inability to form a new plan. Lack of response control refers to the inability to carry out a new plan.
Executive function draws on the prefrontal cortex but it is not the same. Damage to the PFC does not necessarily mean executive function impairment. The prefrontal cortex includes the orbitofrontal cortex (1), dorsomedial cortex (2), ventrolateral cortex (3), dorsolateral cortex (4) and rostrolateral prefrontal cortices (5).
The lateral prefrontal cortex may play an important role in the integration of sensory and mnemonic information and the regulation of intellectual function and action. It is connected to the thalamus (1), parts
.....read more Hay, Payne, & Chadwick (2004). Peer relations in childhood.” – Article summary There is a bi-directional influence between peer relationships and children’s disorders. Children’s problems with peers may contribute to the genesis of the disorder (e.g. anxiety) and the disorders may make peer contact more problematic.
Matching of negative emotion with another infant (e.g. making another infant cry in the nursery) is the first form of peer interaction. Variation in responsiveness to young peers may relate to general individual differences in emotionality and behavioural inhibition.
Infants start to smile at, reach towards and touch other infants by the second half of the first year of life. This behaviours develops simultaneously with peers and adults. Topic-related interactions between infant peers is a characteristic of the second year of life (e.g. direct peers’ attention to toys).
Contingent peer interactions (i.e. contingent responsiveness) refers to an interaction which resembles turn-taking and can be observed at 6 months. Infants are better at this when a toy is not present. One year olds are able to engage in cooperative games with their peers. This makes use of sustained interactions with mutual engagement (1), repetition of actions (2), alternating of turns (3) and playful quality (4). Other forms of prosocial behaviour (e.g. helping; sharing; comforting) emerge around the first birthday.
One year olds also have conflict with peers and use force to pursue their goals, next to being cooperative and prosocial. Most conflict regards the possession of toys or violation of personal space. Conflicts between young peers are characterized by communicative gestures and signs of social influence. Toddlers use hitting and grabbing. Grabbing tends to decrease over time while hitting remains stable. This may be a precursor for later aggression. Younger toddlers show more frequent, brief aggression and older toddlers show fewer but more sustained aggressive behaviours. This peaks around 30 months of age. Adult behaviour affects toddlers’ responses to conflict.
Infants are more likely to respond positively to unfamiliar peers than to unfamiliar adults. They also interact differently with unfamiliar peers compared to familiar peers. Preferences for playmates develop in toddlerhood as well as preferences for same sex peers.
There are individual differences in the quality of play with peers during the first few years of life. It is predicted by the social environment (1), experience with siblings (2), attachment figures (3) and other caregivers (4).
Stable individual differences in competence with peers emerge in the first years of life. Individual differences in aggression and externalizing problems emerge during toddlerhood. Socially inhibited behaviour in preschool settings is predicted by earlier patterns of inhibition with peers.
An infant’s ability to engage successfully in interaction with peers requires several skills:
Matthews et al. (2020). A longitudinal twin study of victimization and loneliness from childhood to young adulthood.” – Article summary Children and adolescents who are exposed to victimization face increased risk of diverse negative outcomes by early adulthood (e.g. psychopathology; lower educational and career attainment; inflammatory disease). It could lead to loneliness, which refers to psychological distress associated with perceived shortcomings in one’s social relationships. Individuals vary in their susceptibility to feeling lonely. The heritability of loneliness is 40%-50%.
The evolutionary model of loneliness states that humans are motivated to seek social connection as it confers a sense of safety. Being victimized is a sign that one’s safety is compromised and this could elicit a feeling that one’s social network is deficient and not fulfilling the desired functions.
Bullying has several characteristics:
With cyberbullying, there is no physical location (1), the identity of the perpetrator may not be known (2) and it may continue even if the victim removes oneself from the situation (3). It is associated with greater loneliness and other emotional problems.
Bullying may play an important role in the development of loneliness. Emotional maltreatment may disrupt the formation of secure attachments and this negatively shapes individuals’ perceptions of their relationships with others. This could have a negative effect on loneliness. Polyvictimization refers to the experience of multiple victimization of different types. This is a stronger predictor of negative outcomes.
People that are victimized may be more lonely but it is also possible that more lonely people get victimized more often. This may be due to traits and negative stereotypes associated with loneliness (e.g. shyness).
People who have been exposed to one form of severe victimization are lonelier than those who are not. People who have been exposed to multiple forms of victimization are even more lonely. People who have been victimized in both childhood and adolescence were lonelier than people who were victimized in one of these time periods.
Bullying is associated with loneliness regardless of pre-existing psychopathology or genetics (i.e. it also is the case for twins). Adolescent victimization is associated with greater feelings of loneliness and especially for severe maltreatment (1), sexual victimization (2) and neglect (3) regardless of childhood loneliness or victimization.
Severe physical or sexual abuse and bullying up to age 12 predicts feelings of loneliness at age 18. This is mainly the case for frequent bullying, regardless of loneliness in childhood. Lonely children are at increased risk of experiencing new instances of victimization during adolescence.
The loneliness that victimized adults in childhood and adolescence felt is partly explained by the presence of mental health problems and by genetic influences. This holds for all forms of victimization except for bullying.
In late childhood and early adolescence, feelings of loneliness are strongly related to an unfulfilled need to be accepted by
.....read more Schaffer (2006). Social and personality development.” – Article summary A peer refers to two or more people who are operating at similar levels of behavioural complexity (e.g. two toddlers). This means that children who differ in age can be considered peer as long as they adjust their behaviour to suit one another’s capabilities as they pursue common interests or goals.
Conflict among peers when resources (e.g. toys) are scarce can help children learn how to resolve their differences in a positive way. This fosters the growth of prosocial conflict resolution (e.g. sharing). Hostile exchanges could create dominance hierarchies which minimizes the likelihood of future aggression within the peer group. Peer interaction may promote the development of adaptive patterns of social conduct.
Equal-status contacts (i.e. same age interactions) with peers are likely to contribute to the development of social competencies. This is more difficult to obtain with parents as parents are the more powerful interaction partner and this is not the case with same-age peers.
A mixed-age peer interaction refers to interactions among children who differ in age by a year or more. The asymmetry in this interaction (i.e. one child having more social competencies) could help children acquire certain social competencies. The presence of younger peers may foster the development of compassion (1), caregiving (2), prosocial inclinations (3), assertiveness (4) and leadership skills (5). Younger peers learn a variety of new skills from this interaction. Mixed-age peer interaction does not have the same influence as sibling contact as sibling status is determined by order of birth whereas peer status is more flexible.
Children tend to spend more time in mixed-age interactions than with same-age peers. As a result of gender segregation in childhood, boys form packs where competition is central (e.g. team sports; competitive games) whereas girls form pairs where a cooperative relationship is central.
Parents and peers each contribute something essential but different to a child’s social development. Regular contact with sensitive, responsive parents permits infants to acquire basic interactive skills and provides them with a sense of security. Contact with peers may allow children to elaborate their basic interactive routines and develop competent and adaptive patterns of social behaviour with those who are similar to them (i.e. peers). Peer rejection is a risk factor for negative outcomes (e.g. delinquency).
Harris claims that peers are more important as socialization agents than parents because parental influence is mainly genetic while peer influence is mainly environmental (e.g. parents react to individual differences in the child due to genetic differences rather than create these differences using parenting). However, parenting behaviour does matter.
Sociability refers to one’s willingness to interact with others and seek their attention or approval. 6-7 month old babies smile, vocalize and gesture to other infants. 10-month-old infants show simple social preferences. By 1 year, they start to imitate peers and between 12 and 18 months they start to react more appropriately to each other’s behaviour (e.g. turn taking). By 18 months of age, infants begin
.....read more Pomerantz, Ki, & Cheung (2012). Parents’ involvement in children’s learning.” – Article summary Parent involvement in learning may be essential as parents provide the resources children depend on (1), children spend a substantial time outside of the school environment (2) and parents are a central relationship for children (3).
Parental involvement refers to parents’ commitment of resources to children’s learning. There is a distinction between parental involvement at school and at home. School-based involvement includes practices that require parents making contact with the school (e.g. attending school meetings). Home-based involvement refers to parents’ practices related to learning that take place outside of school (e.g. assisting children with homework; talking about academic issues). Home- and school-based involvement may be connected.
Parents’ expectations and values are not necessarily a sign of their commitment of resources to children’s learning. There is an association between expectations and values and children’s achievement and a link between parents’ involvement and children’s achievement. The magnitude of the association may depend on different forms of parental involvement. The association is not diminished when SES is taken into account. Parental practices can have negative effects (e.g. monitoring) or positive effects (e.g. direct assistance with homework). Parental involvement with homework may yield negative effects because this typically only occurs when a child experiences difficulty with achievement. However, parents tend to assist children who are having difficulty with homework and this improves how these children do in school.
The more involved parents are, the more children benefit over time in terms of their achievement. Highly involved parents in their children’s learning also tend to engage in other parenting practices which are beneficial for children’s achievement (e.g. autonomy support). It is possible that the influence of parents’ involvement accumulates over time so that small effects become large. Parental involvement may be more beneficial for children’s learning among families with children at risk for achievement problems (e.g. as a result of low SES).
Parental involvement may provide children with assets that allow them to achieve their full potential. There are several models through which parental involvement may lead to improved achievement:
Roehrig et al. (2012). Effective teachers and teaching: Characteristics and practices related to positive student outcomes.” – Article summary Effective teachers are teachers who have a positive impact on students’ engagement in learning activities and the outcomes associated with students’ learning (e.g. self-regulation). Teachers operate in the atmosphere of the classroom (1), instruction (2) and management (3). Effective teaching encompasses all three domains. This means that an effective teacher is one who considers how the three domains interact and is able to respond to the teaching environment by implementing practices aligned with the four dimensions of effective teaching.
There are four dimensions of effective teaching:
Teachers’ knowledge and dispositions are reflected in their behaviour and are thus also important. However, this indirectly influences students’ outcomes but directly affect teachers’ skills.
Developing caring classroom communities requires eliciting desirable social and behavioural student outcomes (e.g. cooperation) by using affective mechanisms (e.g. praise) and behavioural mechanisms (e.g. procedures) to establish a safe place for students ’learning. Teachers establish classroom community and atmosphere early in the semester and tend to maintain this atmosphere. Positive classroom atmospheres provides students with emotional and academic support. To establish this, teachers need to be caring and fair (1), get to know students (2) and create an atmosphere of mutual respect and positive interpersonal relationships (3).
Teachers need to be emotional warm and teachers’ positive interactions with students provide support for building their social competencies. Students need to feel a sense of belonging in school settings to promote their academic achievement and social well-being. Allowing for student collaboration fosters students’ interest, engagement and autonomy. Monitoring without public punishment leads to more engaged students. Instructional talk allows for students to respond and this may foster autonomy.
Developing a classroom community can be done by monitoring behaviour rather than punishing (1), foster a classroom community (2) and establish a democratic classroom (3).
An effective teacher elicits desirable affective and cognitive responses from students about their academic work (e.g. being excited and engaged in learning) by using affective mechanisms (e.g. their own excitement) and cognitive mechanisms (e.g. having students make predictive inferences about a story) to enhance students’ motivation to learn.
Teachers with mastery-focused values and goals tend to
.....read more Tomasello (2010). Language development.” – Article summary Contrary to most animals, humans communicate cooperatively. Infants (i.e. 10 to 12 months) begin in cooperative communication through the pointing gesture. This form of communication relies on their social-cognitive ability to direct the attention of others and to understand the attention-directing intentions of others.
Skills of intention-reading refer to social-cognitive abilities which are necessary to understand one’s intentions and which are foundational to all forms of human communication. Cognitive skills of pattern-finding refer to general cognitive processes of categorization, analogy, schema formation and distributional learning aimed at reconstructing the linguistic abstractions of a speech community to become productive and creative with the conventions of a language.
One theory of language acquisition is that children have innate knowledge of language (e.g. Chomsky) and these innate grammar structures constrain language development. Constructivist theories state that children acquire competence with a language mainly through cultural learning and other cognitive processes (e.g. categorization; analogy). In constructivist theories, children are biologically prepared for language but only in general ways (e.g. capacities for cultural learning).
An utterance refers to the smallest unit in which a person expresses a complete communicative intention (e.g. ‘give’). It is used to direct a recipient’s attention to something and to express a communicative motive (e.g. through an emotional expression). A child needs to understand the communicative intention of an utterance before the child can use it. Adults help this by stressing the word in a sentence. When a child does not understand the sub-functions of an utterance, the child will not be able to use it in different situations (e.g. novel situations).
Children learn words by attempting to understand utterances. To understand utterances, children often need to determine the functional role of a word. To learn a new word, children must extract it from a larger utterance and connect it to the relevant aspect of the current situation. Children learn the function of an utterance or word and this is how they begin to learn language.
A linguistic construction refers to a unit of language that comprises multiple linguistic elements used together for a relatively coherent communicative function. The elements also perform sub-functions. Constructions vary in their complexity depending on the number of elements and interrelations and they also vary in their abstractness. This makes that people know the general profile of an event in a sentence without knowing anything about individual content words (i.e. grammatical structure tells us who does what).
Holophrases refer to one-unit utterances with an intonational contour expressing communicative motive. Children begin speaking language by using holophrases. The initial schemas and constructions of children are very concrete and are organized around particular words and phrases instead of around abstract categories. The utterance-level constructions underlying children’s earliest multi-word utterances have three types:
Dehaene (2011). The language of numbers”. – Article summary Contrary to most animals, humans communicate cooperatively. Infants (i.e. 10 to 12 months) begin in cooperative communication through the pointing gesture. This form of communication relies on their social-cognitive ability to direct the attention of others and to understand the attention-directing intentions of others.
Skills of intention-reading refer to social-cognitive abilities which are necessary to understand one’s intentions and which are foundational to all forms of human communication. Cognitive skills of pattern-finding refer to general cognitive processes of categorization, analogy, schema formation and distributional learning aimed at reconstructing the linguistic abstractions of a speech community to become productive and creative with the conventions of a language.
One theory of language acquisition is that children have innate knowledge of language (e.g. Chomsky) and these innate grammar structures constrain language development. Constructivist theories state that children acquire competence with a language mainly through cultural learning and other cognitive processes (e.g. categorization; analogy). In constructivist theories, children are biologically prepared for language but only in general ways (e.g. capacities for cultural learning).
An utterance refers to the smallest unit in which a person expresses a complete communicative intention (e.g. ‘give’). It is used to direct a recipient’s attention to something and to express a communicative motive (e.g. through an emotional expression). A child needs to understand the communicative intention of an utterance before the child can use it. Adults help this by stressing the word in a sentence. When a child does not understand the sub-functions of an utterance, the child will not be able to use it in different situations (e.g. novel situations).
Children learn words by attempting to understand utterances. To understand utterances, children often need to determine the functional role of a word. To learn a new word, children must extract it from a larger utterance and connect it to the relevant aspect of the current situation. Children learn the function of an utterance or word and this is how they begin to learn language.
A linguistic construction refers to a unit of language that comprises multiple linguistic elements used together for a relatively coherent communicative function. The elements also perform sub-functions. Constructions vary in their complexity depending on the number of elements and interrelations and they also vary in their abstractness. This makes that people know the general profile of an event in a sentence without knowing anything about individual content words (i.e. grammatical structure tells us who does what).
Holophrases refer to one-unit utterances with an intonational contour expressing communicative motive. Children begin speaking language by using holophrases. The initial schemas and constructions of children are very concrete and are organized around particular words and phrases instead of around abstract categories. The utterance-level constructions underlying children’s earliest multi-word utterances have three types:
Dehaene (2011). Small heads for big calculations.” – Article summary People do not have innate mechanisms for complex calculations (e.g. math). However, children typically do spontaneously come up with some form of counting without being explicitly taught. It may be that counting knowledge is innate but it is also possible that this develops through imitation and that children, while being able to count, do not know the meaning of these numbers.
At three and a half years of age, children know that the order in which one recites numerals is crucial. Young children are able to point out subtle counting errors (e.g. count something twice) and by four years of age, children have mastered the basics of how to count. Children do not know the meaning of counting until the end of their fourth year.
Children tend to come up with calculation algorithms without explicit instruction (e.g. adding numbers up using their fingers). Children initially have big difficulties in counting without their fingers and may explicitly state their process (i.e. name what they are doing), though this requires a lot of effort and concentration. The minimum strategy refers to starting an addition equation with the larger quantity and count a number of times equal to the smaller of the two numbers (e.g. 4 + 2 = four, five, six, six!). This strategy underlies most of children’s calculations before the onset of formal schooling. Children develop an intuitive understanding of commutativity (i.e. a+b=b+a) without any formal schooling. Between the ages of 4 and 7, children exhibit an intuitive understanding of what calculations mean and how they should best be selected.
Young adults rarely solve addition and multiplication problems by counting but retrieve results from a memorized table. Accessing this table takes longer as the operands get larger. This may be due to the accuracy of mental representations dropping with number size (1), order of acquisition influencing memory (2) and the amount of drilling (i.e. less training with larger number sizes because they are less common) (3). This means that memory plays a central role in adult mental arithmetic.
The multiplication table is more difficult to retain in memory because arithmetic factors are not arbitrary and independent of each other. Human memory is associative (i.e. it links events with each other). This permits the reconstruction of memories on the basis of fragmented information. It allows one to remember a lot with only a small piece of information (1), it allows one to take advantage of analogies (2) and it allows one to apply knowledge acquired under other circumstances to a novel situation (3). However, associative memory is a weakness when knowledge must be kept from interfering with each other. This means that when one wants to remember the answer to 7x5, all the associated arithmetic functions (e.g. 7x6) are also activated, making it more difficult to remember.
The automatization of arithmetic memory (e.g. seeing two numbers and automatically adding them up) starts at age seven. It is possible that children eventually
.....read more Bjorklund (2012). Children’s thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences.” – Article summaryPrimates have been able to learn simple language. However, this may not actually be language use and comprehending as they do not use complex grammar (1), lack social-cognitive abilities that allow for language learning (2) and lack a theory of mind (3). Language may have co-evolved with social intelligence.
Language refers to the systematic and conventional use of sounds, signs or written symbols for the intention of communication or self-expression. Human language differs from the communication of other animals in three ways:
There are seven functions of language:
Language consists of phonology (1), morphology (2), syntax (3), semantics (4) and pragmatics (5).
Phonology refers to the sounds of a language. There are age-related changes in the tongue, mouth and the larynx which allow for producing sounds. There are several stages of phonological development:
Babbling consists of many non-repeated consonant-vowel patterns. Jargon babbling refers to strings of sound filled with a variety of intonations and rhythms to sound like meaningful speech. Speech production driven before 6 months of age is driven by internal forces rather than the environment. Babbling may have the function of socially relating to family members and it may reflect infants’ sensitivity to and production of patterns in the linguistic input. Phonemic awareness refers to the knowledge that words consists of separable sounds. This is important in proficient reading and phonemic awareness may improve by learning to read.
Morphology refers to the structure of words and to a system of rules for combining units of meaning into words (e.g. adding ‘ed’ to a word makes it past tense). A morpheme refers to the smallest unit of meaning in a language. Free morphemes can stand alone as words (e.g. fire; run). Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and are attached to free morphemes (e.g. the letter ‘s’). The mean length of utterance refers to the average number of morphemes a child uses in a sentence and is indicative of children’s linguistic development. Many of the morphemes children learn are word endings and they tend to show overregularization (i.e. overusing a rule; ‘s’ for every word that is plural).
The wug test
.....read more Spilt, van Lier, Leflot, Onghena, & Colpin (2014). Children’s social self-concept and internalizing problems: The influence of peers and teachers.” – Article summaryIt is not clear what through what processes peer rejection lead to internalizing problems and how the teacher can be a protective factor in this. School-age children who experience difficulties in their relationships with peers are at increased risk for psychopathology. Social self-concept act as a mechanism through which peer rejection influences the development of internalizing problems.
The social self-concept refers to cognitive self-perceptions of one’s functioning in the social domain and this is negatively influenced by peer rejection. A poor self-concept is a cognitive vulnerability factor leading to the development of internalizing problems.
Teacher-student relationships are predictive of internalizing problems and self-perceptions. Supportive teacher-student relationships may compensate for the negative effect of peer rejection on children’s self-concept. This means that good teacher-student relationships could be a protective factor against the negative effect of peer rejection on one’s social self-concept.
Peer rejection predicts declines in social self-concept and this is negatively associated with internalizing problems. Impeded social self-concept is the mechanism through which peer rejection leads to internalizing problems. Disliked children may receive more negative treatment from peers and this negative feedback may be internalized over time.
Individual teacher support may have a protective factor, though this is not clear. Medium-high to high levels of teacher support protected children’s social self-concept against peer rejection but only at the end of the second grade. This means that teacher support can at least buffer the effects of peer problems on children’s self-concept. However, teachers are not able to alleviate the full burden of peer rejection.
It is possible that the link between maladaptive self-cognitions and internalizing outcomes becomes stronger with age as children’s cognitive abilities mature.
Susperreguy, Davis-Kean, Duckworth, & Chen (2018). Self-concept predicts academic achievement across level of the achievement distribution: domain specificity for math and reading.” – Article summarySelf-concept of ability refers to the perception of one’s capability to successfully perform on academic tasks. This may explain academic achievement. It is possible that young children successfully perform various academic skills which develops a positive view on those skills, making it more likely that they engage with these skills and become proficient in them. A positive perception of skill could be increased by peer comparison and positive feedback.
When a student feels competent, this sense of ability may enhance one’s self-concept, allowing the student to persist at and seek out activities that further influence academic achievement. This means that a positive self-perception of abilities may promote academic achievement.
Early math achievement predicts later math achievement even when controlling or child characteristics, background and demographic variables and early reading achievement also predicts later math achievement.
Self-concept of ability in math between the ages 9 and 14 is related to later math achievement even when taking into account earlier math and reading achievement and other variables (e.g. demographics). Self-concept of ability in reading in middle childhood is not related to later math achievement. This association holds across the achievement spectrum (i.e. high- and low achievers).
Self-concept of ability in reading in middle school predicts later reading achievement even when taking into account earlier achievement and other variables. Self-concept of math does not predict reading achievement. This relationship holds across he achievement spectrum but there is a smaller association between reading self-concept and reading achievement when achievement is high compared to when achievement is lower.
Self-concept of ability plays an important role in motivating achievement over time and across achievement levels. It is possible that these beliefs playa stronger role for students not achieving at higher levels.
Traub & Boynton-Jarrett (2017). Modifiable resilience factors to childhood adversity for clinical pediatric practice.” – Article summaryEarly childhood adversity is common (i.e. 48% - 60%). Early life trauma impacts the developmental trajectory of children and health outcomes over the life course. No experiences with maltreatment and a non-depressed primary caregiver are associated with resilience. Adult health outcomes are influenced by the cumulative incidence of adverse life experiences. Differences in risk are influenced by chronicity (1), severity (2), contextual factors (3) an type of childhood traumas (4).
Resilience refers to good mental and physical health despite early adverse life events. This means that it includes a ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from adversities. It may buffer a child from adversity by reducing the impact of trauma (1), reducing negative chain reactions stemming from trauma (2) and it may enable opportunities for recovery (3).
Resilience results from the interplay between a child’s genetics (1), temperament (2), knowledge and skills (3), past experiences (4), social supports (5), cultural resources (6) and societal resources (7). High self-esteem (1), internal locus of control (2), external attributions of blame (3), optimism (4), determination in the face of adversity (5), cognitive flexibility (6), reappraisal ability (7), social competence (8) and the ability to face fears (9) are resilience factors.
There are five modifiable resilience factors:
Paediatric primary care could enhance resilience to childhood adversity. Barriers to the identification and treatment of trauma in paediatrics include a perceived lack of time (1), lack of training (2), lack of reimbursement (3) and a reluctance to
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