Early Childhood: Body and Mind

This is Unit Five, part two, on how young children learn, the layers of language, and play. Part one closed on theory of mind. Part two opens with what still stands in Piaget's account, and sets it beside two others. Carry one question through this part: how do young children learn, alone through stages, step by step, or with other people? Each answer has its champions. At the entry comparing three accounts of early learning, the part shows that each answers a different question. By the end you will be able to say what holds up in Piaget's stages and what has been revised. To compare Piaget, information processing and Vygotsky. To assign a child's language error to its layer. To explain why early access to a full language matters for deaf children. And to name Parten's six forms of play.

Three entries: what stays fixed in Piaget's stages, and the step-by-step growth of attention and memory.

What stays fixed in Piaget's stages.

HGD 0629 Order Fixed, Pace Varies

Substantial evidence confirms that the order of Piaget's stages is fixed, while progress through them can be accelerated or delayed by experience: children in two cultures reach conservation at different ages, but both after preoperational thought. On the exam, a stage theorist expects children everywhere to pass through the same stages in the same order.

Executive function and attention.

HGD 0630 Executive Function and Attention

Executive function, planning, organising, deciding and controlling impulses, develops in early childhood along with attention and inhibitory control, as when a five-year-old ignores a noisy toy to finish a puzzle. Information processing sees these gains as quantitative, growing step by step, where Piaget described qualitative changes in kind.

Memories of one's own life.

HGD 0631 Autobiographical Memory

Autobiographical memory, memory of one's own life events, begins in early childhood and draws on language and a growing sense of self. When caregivers talk through shared memories in detail, such as yesterday's zoo trip, who they saw and what they felt, children's autobiographical memory improves, along with socioemotional skill and self-regulation.

Three entries on learning with other people, ending with three accounts of early learning set side by side. The opening question is answered here.

Vygotsky in the preschool years.

HGD 0632 The More Knowledgeable Other

For Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development holds tasks a child can do with a more knowledgeable other but not yet alone, like an older sister guiding a four-year-old through a puzzle. Vygotsky stressed potential, not only mastered skills. He did not use the word scaffolding; later researchers applied that metaphor to his idea.

Learning by pitching in.

HGD 0633 Learning by Observing and Pitching In

Learning by observing and pitching in, described by Barbara Rogoff, is common in Indigenous communities of the Americas: children learn by joining real work, such as watching and then helping with the family meal. Rogoff contrasts it with the assembly-line instruction of most Westernized schools, where learning is separated from real work.

The payoff: three accounts, compared.

HGD 0634 Three Accounts of Early Learning

Three accounts describe how young children learn, and together they answer this part's question. Piaget describes qualitative change: stages, each a different way of thinking. Information processing describes quantitative change: attention, memory and executive function growing step by step. Vygotsky describes learning as social, mastered through interaction and cultural tools, and Rogoff extends that view to whole communities. Environments shape which skills develop. In one widely reported experiment, children in a Delhi slum taught themselves computer skills from a computer set into a wall, a finding attributed to its author, Sugata Mitra, and best treated as his report. The misconception is that one theory must be right. They answer different questions, though they do disagree on stages and on how much development depends on others. On the exam, culture and guidance point to Vygotsky; gradual gains in memory, to information processing.

Five entries on the layers of language, and on an error that shows a rule has been learned.

Sounds, and the parts of words.

HGD 0635 Phonology and Morphemes

Phonology is a language's sound system, and phonological awareness, recognising and manipulating those sounds, is a key foundation for learning to read. The world's languages use about eight hundred phonemes. Morphological awareness helps children decode new words, such as unfillable, broken into un, fill and able.

Meaning, and structure.

HGD 0636 Semantics, Syntax and Grammar

Semantics is meaning in context; syntax is the rules for combining words; grammar is a language's full set of rules, including syntax. The banana ate a child is correct in syntax and absurd in meaning. Word order rules differ by language: English puts adjectives before nouns, Spanish usually after.

A revealing early error.

HGD 0637 Overregularization

Overregularization is applying a grammar rule to words that are exceptions, as when a child says I runned or we goed, or mouses for mice. The misconception is that this is a step backward. It shows the child has learned a rule and is applying it.

Using language in context.

HGD 0638 Pragmatics and Code-Switching

Pragmatics is using language appropriately in context, taking turns and adjusting to listeners; code-switching is changing language or variety with the setting, as a child speaks one way to a baby sibling and another to a teacher. African American Vernacular English has its own grammar, and researchers report negative stereotypes about it from preschool on.

The layers, together.

HGD 0639 The Features of Language

Language can be described in layers. Phonology is its sound system; morphology its units of meaning; semantics meaning in context; syntax the rules for ordering words; grammar the whole rule system; and pragmatics how language is used with real people in real settings. Preschoolers progress in every layer at once. Exam questions often describe an error and ask for its layer. Goed is grammar, a rule overapplied. Doggie for every animal is semantics. Talking over a teacher is pragmatics, and fading egocentrism helps pragmatics most, as children adjust to what a listener already knows.

Six entries on language and thought, the window for learning language, and who gets access to it.

Whether language shapes thought.

HGD 0640 Language and Thought

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that language shapes thought. Its strong form, that language determines thought, is probably wrong. The weaker claim holds up: habits of language use can influence habits of thought, as when Chinese speakers remember a personality type more easily because Chinese has one word for it, and as Vygotsky's private speech suggested.

Sensitive periods for language.

HGD 0641 Sensitive Periods for Language

Adults' difficulty learning new languages points to sensitive periods ending well before seven, and childhood is the optimal time for a first and second language. Genie, severely neglected with little language until thirteen, never reached typical speech. Deaf and hard-of-hearing children risk language deficits from reduced exposure, especially when their hearing loss is not diagnosed.

Language, class, and the home.

HGD 0642 Language and the Home

All-day recordings of family talk found wide variation within and across income groups, driven mainly by the mother's education: two families on the same income may differ, one talking with their toddler constantly, one rarely. Home visiting, quality childcare and pre-kindergarten all improve early language exposure.

Deaf children's access to language.

HGD 0643 Deaf Children and Early Language

About two to three in every thousand children are born deaf, more than ninety percent to hearing parents. What matters most is access to a full language early: children with no language input in the first two years risk never achieving fluency. American Sign Language is a natural language with its own grammar, phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics, and the brain processes it much as it processes speech. The misconception is that sign language is a set of gestures. It is a complete language, and early access to it protects language development. The source text reports a debate over prioritising spoken language; the course takes no side.

Preschoolers learning two languages.

HGD 0644 Bilingual Preschoolers

Children exposed to two languages may mix them or know fewer words in each at first, then become fluent with regular exposure. Research by Ellen Bialystok reports bilingual children outperforming monolinguals on inhibitory control. The misconception is that mixing means confusion. Mixing is normal, and both one-parent-one-language and mixed approaches work.

Early literacy, and early education.

HGD 0645 Early Literacy and Early Education

Early literacy rests on phonological awareness, with vocabulary, print awareness and comprehension, and strong early literacy predicts later academic success. Studies report cognitive, social, economic and health benefits from high-quality early education, the basis for publicly funded programmes such as Head Start returning more in benefits than they cost.

Five entries to close the unit, on play: why it matters, its six forms, and how it differs across children.

Why play matters.

HGD 0646 Why Play Matters

Play builds language, motor skills, social skills, emotional regulation and problem solving, relieves stress and supports self-esteem, and it needs no expensive toys, as children building a fort from cushions negotiate roles and rules. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in nineteen eighty-nine, includes a child's right to play.

The six forms play takes.

HGD 0647 Parten's Six Forms of Play

Mildred Parten observed two- to five-year-olds and described six forms of play. Three are non-social: unoccupied play, watching or moving randomly; solitary play, playing alone; and onlooker play, watching without joining. Three are social: parallel play, side by side with similar materials but separately; associative play, sharing and interacting without a common goal; and cooperative play, organised around roles, rules and a shared goal. By about five, associative and cooperative play are most common. On the exam, two children side by side with the same toys but no interaction are in parallel play.

What children learn from playing together.

HGD 0648 Peer Play and Prosocial Behaviour

Collaborative play with peers builds prosocial behaviour, such as sharing and cooperating, and reduces aggression, a link to Vygotsky's social constructivism: two preschoolers agree to take turns with the only scooter. Schools have cut play time for academics, and withholding recess remains a punishment in some US schools.

Outdoor preschools.

HGD 0649 Nature Preschools

Scandinavian early education centres unstructured outdoor play in all weather, and nature preschools produce kindergarten readiness similar to academic preschools. Picture four-year-olds climbing, building and exploring outdoors all morning, through rain and snow. The misconception is that play takes time from learning. Nature preschool children also showed better executive control.

How play differs across children.

HGD 0650 Play, Gender, Class and Ability

Traditional gender roles steer boys toward physical, competitive play and girls toward quieter play, and low-income urban children often have less outdoor space. Children with physical disabilities gain the same benefits from active play but face mobility and social barriers; teacher training and inclusive design, such as an inclusive playground, help.

Look at what you can now do. You can say what holds up in Piaget: the order of the stages, while the pace varies with experience and his ages have been revised. You can compare the accounts: Piaget for how thinking is organised at each age, information processing for how its parts grow, Vygotsky and Rogoff for how it passes between people. You can assign an error to its layer: goed to grammar, doggie for every animal to semantics, talking over a teacher to pragmatics. You can explain that deaf children need a full language early, and that American Sign Language is one. And you can name Parten's six forms, from unoccupied and solitary play to parallel, associative and cooperative. Unit Six turns to self and others in early childhood.