Exam 3 Review
The Play Years: Biosocial, Cognitive, Psychosocial
PSY212 Child Psychology
For each of the following, identify the concept, brain structure or process being
discussed. The answers come from the lessons on development in the Play
Years.
1. authoritative parenting style Mandy is a single parent. From the time her son
was old enough to crawl, she has set and enforced reasonable rules for
him. She is responsive to his needs but feels it is her responsibility to
teach him proper respect for authority and protect him from danger.
2. lateralization The left cerebral hemisphere appears to be specialized for
language, logic and rule-governed thought patterns. The right cerebral
hemisphere, on the other hand, seems to be specialized for holistic,
intuitive thinking better adapted for creative activities.
3. egocentrism Kathy is happy because it is her birthday and doesn’t
understand that her brother might be sad because he isn’t getting
presents, too.
4. prefrontal cortex Emotional regulation is one of the hallmarks of development
in the play years and requires the development of this part of the brain.
5. centration Janet has an 8 oz. Sponge Bob glass that is short but wide.
Her friend has an 8 oz. Blues Clues glass that is taller and narrower.
Janet always complains that her friend has more juice because her glass
is taller.
6. sociodramatic play In Sunday school, Brenda and Jonah saw a video about
missionaries in Africa. They were disturbed by the sad children they saw
in the video. For a couple weeks afterward, their favorite game is
“missionary.”
7. perseveration When 3 year old Julie wants her mother’s attention she starts
calling out, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy….” She sometimes continues
even after her mother has asked her to stop or told her she will be with her
in a minute.
8. scaffolding Many baseball programs for children are set up so children
play “T-ball” before they go on to “Parent-pitch” and then to “Kidpitch.” The programs are set up to improve the child’s skills gradually,
working with the child’s current abilities and building on them.
9. child maltreatment The term psychologists use for all intentional harm done to
anyone under the age of 18.
10. permissive parenting style Mr. and Mrs. Harding are very tolerant. There are
few family rules in their home and they rarely punish the children even if
one disobeys a rule. The children often act out and are unmanageable at
family gatherings. If one of the children asks for help or guidance, the
common response is, “You need to work this out on your own.”
11. empathy Will gets a bad grade on a test. His friend leans over and
says, “I know how you feel. Kind of embarrassed and angry at the same
time.”
12. operation An eight-year-old is trying to figure out how to get his ball
that is stuck up in a tree. He stands at the base of the tree and tries to
think the problem through…he could shake the tree, that makes things fall
sometimes, he could climb the tree (too dangerous), he could find
something long enough to tap the ball and make it fall.
13. reactive aggression Heidi’s older brother calls her “Squirt” and Heidi stomps
on his toe.
14. myelination At birth infants’ movements are very jerky. With time,
especially in the first two months, movement begins to smooth out due
primarily to this change in the brain.
15. personal speech Kelly’s tower of blocks falls down. As she is getting ready
to build another one, you hear her saying to herself, “Put all the big blocks
over here so they can go on the bottom.”
16. static reasoning In the middle of a January snow storm, a 4 year old is asked
what she would like to do next summer and she says, “Go sledding.”
17. injury prevention Berger suggests that we need a better term for “accident
prevention” emphasizing that most “accidents” weren’t accidents at all and
were, in fact, preventable.
18. rough-and-tumble play My son and his friends often destroyed my family
room playing a game they called, “Knee ball.” As far as I could tell, the
real goal of the game was to tackle each other and roll around on the floor.
19. memory script Four year old Justin arrives at his grandparent’s house as
he does every Saturday morning and immediately runs to the kitchen to
get a cookie from his grandmother but his grandmother is not home. His
grandfather gets him a cookie and then tries to play with Justin but Justin
seems confused and upset because the Saturday morning routine he is
familiar with is disrupted.
20. focus on appearance Julian has a red ball that is very bouncy. You ask him
why it is so bouncy and explains that red balls are just bouncier.
21. fast mapping Yvette comes home from daycare and shows you how she
can “skip” now. You say, “You are very coordinated for your age.” Yvette
does not have the word “coordinated” in her vocabulary but the next day,
Yvette and her friend are watching figure skating on TV and Yvette
announces, “Figure skaters must be very coordinated
22. language as social mediator The teacher asks one of the after school
children to help one of the pre-schoolers work a puzzle. She tells the
older child not to actually put the pieces together, though. The older child
sits across the table and begins directing the younger child to the correct
pieces and orientation by just talking to him.
23. emotional regulation Hannah gets shoved in line and it looks like she is
about to shove back or cry but she stops herself and calmly says to the
teacher, “Someone is shoving in line.”
24. child neglect Jane’s mother spends all her money on drugs and clothes
and Jane is often hungry and frequently gets sick.
25. theory of mind Four-year-old Beth loves to tell you a “lie” and then say, “I
was kidding!!!” She realizes that she can think one thing and say another
and that you can’t know what was in her mind.
26. impulsivity Jimmy like many other 3 year olds, seems to “act before he
thinks.” He has difficulty focusing and is easily distracted.
27. instrumental aggression Most team sports involve physical contact that is
often hurtful but is just necessary to accomplish the goal of the game.
Players may hurt each other but that is not the intent.
28. corpus callosum For coordinated whole body movements and more and
more complex thought, children’s brains need to maintain communication
between the two cerebral hemispheres over this structure in the brain.
29. bullying aggression Almost everyday after school as Allen is walking home,
he looks for one of the smaller, quieter children in his class, takes
something away from them and runs on ahead to throw it in the street.
30. authoritarian parenting syle Randy and Kendra are trying hard to raise their
children in a depressed area of a large city. They feel the need to set very
strict rules and enforce them consistently. Their children often accuse
them of being restrictive but Randy and Kendra believe that they have to
be the ultimate authority figures to protect their children in this
environment.
31. child abuse Johnny’s father punishes him so severely at times that
Johnny has bruises on his body and one time suffered a broken arm.
32. irreversibility Two pre-school children are given equal amounts of clay in
the form of balls. One pre-schooler makes hers into a snake and says she
has more. The teacher reminds her that hers was a ball just a minute ago
but the child cannot imagine hers as a ball again.
33. relational aggression Candace convinces some of the other girls in the class
to play jump rope with her and ignore Gina.