40 Summary
Martha Lally; Suzanne Valentine-French; and Dinesh Ramoo
Key Takeaways
- Rapid physical growth, neurological development, language acquisition, and hand movement, which evolves to mental learning, an expanding emotional repertoire, and the initial conceptions of self and others, make the first two years of life very exciting.
- These abilities are shaped into more sophisticated mental processes, self-concepts, and social relationships during the years of early childhood.
Exercises in Critical Thinking
- Consider your own memories as a child. How far back can you remember? What aspects of these earliest memories do you think made them resistant to forgetting?
- Think of a concept that you learned recently. Write down the process involved in learning it and consider whether it was assimilation or accommodation of your schemata.
- Talk to a friend or colleague who is bilingual about their experience in their dominant language versus the language they learned later. Ask them about what aspects of the language they learned later in life that they find difficult. Classify their responses in terms of phonology, morphology, and syntax.
