pt 7: Early Childhood - Physical and Cognitive Development

ASPECTS OF PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

1. BODILY GROWTH AND CHANGE

2. SLEEP PATTERNS AND PROBLEMS

3. BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

4. MOTOR SKILLS

1. BODILY GROWTH AND CHANGE

• 3 years: Lose their babyish roundness and take on the slender, athletic appearance of childhood.

o Both boys and girls typically grow about 2 to 3 inches a year.

o Gain approximately 4 to 6 pounds annually.

• Muscular and skeletal growth progresses.

o Promote the development of a wide range of motor skills.

2. SLEEP PATTERNS AND PROBLEMS

• Nighttime sleep increases, daytime sleep decreases

• About a third of parents or caregivers of children ages 1 to 5 years say their child has a sleep problem.

2. SLEEP PATTERNS AND PROBLEMS

Night Terror

Enuresis

Night Terror

Awaken abruptly from a deep sleep early in the night in a state of agitation.

• Quiets down quickly and remembers nothing about the episode the next morning.

• Generally peak at about 11⁄2 years of age.

• Common between 21⁄2 and 4 years of age and decline thereafter.

• !! Walking and talking during sleep are fairly common in early and middle childhood.

enuresis

Repeated urination in clothing or in bed.

• Repeated, involuntary urination at night by children old enough to be expected to have bladder control, is not unusual.

• !! More than half outgrow bed-wetting by age 8 without special help.

3. BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

during early childhood is less dramatic than during infancy but a brain growth spurt continues until at least age 3, when the brain is approximately 90 percent of adult weight

• 3 years:

Brain is approximately 90 percent of adult weight.

• 3 to 6 years:

The most rapid brain growth occurs in the frontal areas that regulate planning and goal setting.

• 4 years:

Density of synapses in the prefrontal cortex peaks at age 4.

o Myelin: A fatty substance that coats the axons of nerve fibers and accelerates neural conduction.

▪ Continues to form.

age 6

brain weight—95% of aldult weight. some source: The brain has attained about 90 percent of its peak volume.

This development, which continues until age 15, improves arousal, and speech and hearing.

• 6 to 11 years:

Rapid brain growth occurs in areas that support associative thinking, language, and spatial relations.

o Corpus Callosum

o Corpus Callosum

▪ A thick band of nerve fibers that connects both hemispheres of the brain and allows them to communicate more rapidly and effectively with each other.

• Allows improved coordination of the senses, attention and arousal, and speech and hearing.

• Continues to be myelinized throughout childhood and adolescence.

• Peak volume occurring later in boys than in girls.

4. MOTOR SKILLS

Gross Motor Skills

Fine Motor Skills

Handedness

Development of the sensory and motor areas of the cerebral cortex

permits better coordination in children. Preschool children make great advances in gross motor skills.

Gross Motor Skills

Physical skills that involve the large muscles.

• Children under 6 are rarely ready to take part in any organized sport.

Fine motor skills

involve eye-hand and small-muscle coordination. As they develop motor skills, preschoolers continually merge abilities they already have with those they are acquiring.

• Systems of Actions

Systems of action

Increasingly complex combinations of skills, which permit a wider or more precise range of movement and more control of the environment.

Handedness

• Preference for using a particular hand.

o Evident by about Age 3

▪ !! The left hemisphere of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, is usually dominant, 90 percent

of people favor their right side.

▪ !! Boys are more likely to be left-handed than are girls.

Gross motor skills

- Use of symbol (Symbolic function)

> Deferred Imitation

> Pretend play

- Intuitive thought

> Understanding of identities

> Understanding of cause and effect

> Ability to classify

> Understanding of number (Ordinality)

> Empathy

> Theory of mind

Advances in preoperational stage

HEALTH AND SAFETY

1. OBESITY

2. UNDERNUTRITION

3. FOOD ALLERGIES

4. ORAL HEALTH

5. DEATH AND ACCIDENTAL INJURIES

6. HEALTH IN CONTEXT: ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

2 UNDERNUTRITION

Forms of Malnutrition

Stunted

Wasted

Stunted

Children appear to be of normal weight but are shorter than

they should be for their age and may have cognitive and

physical deficiencies.

o Result of chronic, persistent hunger.

Wasted

Children are an appropriate height for their age but are thinner than they should be.

o Result of a recent, rapid weight loss.

3. FOOD ALLERGIES

• !!90% of food allergies can be attributed to eight foods: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, soy, wheat, and shellfish.

• !! More prevalent in children than adults, and most children will outgrow their allergies.

4. ORAL HEALTH

• Two common areas of oral health of concern to parents: thumbsucking and tooth decay.

o 3 years: All the primary (baby) teeth are in place.

o 6 years: The permanent teeth will begin to appear.

o Fluoride

▪ A mineral essential for the maintenance and solidification of bones.

• Shown to reduce the incidence of dental caries—or cavities.

5. DEATH AND ACCIDENTAL INJURIES

• Accidents are the leading cause of death in the United States for young children.

o Most deaths from injuries among preschoolers occur in the home.

▪ Fires, drowning in bathtubs, suffocation, poisoning, or falls.

5. DEATH AND ACCIDENTAL INJURIES

o !! Car accidents are the most commonly reported cause of accidental death for children over the age of 4.

o Other common causes of death in early childhood:

▪ Cancer, congenital abnormalities and chromosomal disorders, assault and homicide, heart disease,

respiratory diseases and septicemia.

• Septicemia: a bacterial infection that poisons the blood leading to organ failure.

6. HEALTH IN CONTEXT: ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:

PIAGETIAN APPROACH: THE PREOPERATIONAL CHILD (ages 2 to 7)

According to Jean Piaget, this stage is called the preoperational stage of cognitive development because children this age are not yet ready to engage in logical mental operations...

this will be in the stage of concrete operations in middle childhood.

1. ADVANCES OF PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT

Symbolic Thought/Use of Symbol

Symbolic Function

Understanding of Objects in Space

Understanding of Causality

Understanding of Identities and Categorization

Understanding of Number

Empathy

Theory of Mind

Symbolic Thought

Accompanied by a growing understanding of space, causality, identities, categorization, and number.

Use of symbols

Children do not need to be in sensorimotor contact with an

object, person, or event in order to think about it.

They don't need to touch or see it or make use of their senses to think about the object, person, or event

Symbolic Function

Ability to use mental representations (words, numbers, or images) to which a child has attached meaning.

Deferred Imitation

Pretend Play (fantasy play, dramatic play, or imaginative play)

Language

> Deferred Imitation

children imitate an action at some point after observing it

> Pretend play

fantasy play, dramatic play, or imaginary play; children use an object to represent something else.

> Language

A system of symbols.

• "Key" is a symbol for the class of objects used to open doors.

Understanding of Objects in Space

• 3 years: Most children reliably grasp the relationships between pictures, maps, or scale models and the objects or

spaces they represent.

Understanding of Causality

Transduction

Tendency to mentally link two events, especially events close in time, whether or not there is logically a causal relationship.

Understanding of Identities and Categorization

Identities

The concept that people and many things are basically the same even if they change in outward form, size, or appearance.

• Putting on a wig does not make a person a different person.

Understanding of Identities and Categorization

Categorization or classification

Requires a child to identify similarities and differences.

• 4 years: Many children can classify by two criteria (good and bad, shape and color).

• Animism

o The tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive.

Understanding of Number

6 months: can “count” higher and know that 8 dots are different from 16 dots.

• Around 9 to 11 months: Ordinality

o The concept of comparing quantities (more or less, bigger or smaller)—seems to begin.

• Cardinality Principle

• Cardinality Principle

o Children understand that the number of items in a set is the same regardless of how they are arranged and that the last number counted is the total number of items in the set regardless of how they are counted.

▪ Develop at about 21⁄2 years of age.

5 years: Most children can count to 20 or more and know the relative sizes of the numbers 1 through 10.

intuitive thought

begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions

- approximately 4-7 years of age.

- children can begin to understand the symbols that describe physical spaces.

- Piaget believed that children cannot yet reason logically about causality.

Empathy

Children become more able to imagine how other might feel.

Theory of mind

Children become more aware of mental activity and the functioning of the mind.

2. IMMATURE ASPECTS OF PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT

Limitations of Preoperational child

- Centration

- Irreversibility

- Focus on states rather than transformations

- Transductive reasoning

- Egocentrism

- Animism

- Inability to distinguish appearance from reality

Centration

- Focusing on one aspect of a situation and neglect others.

inability to decenter - to think simultaneously about

several aspects of a situation

Conservation

- equal according to a certain measure remain

equal in the face of perceptual alteration as long as nothing has been added or taken away from either object.

Irreversibility

Various Kinds of Conservation

Number

Length

Liquid

Matter (mass)

Weight

-Irreversibility

Children fail to understand that some operations or actions can be reversed restoring the original situation.

-Focus on states rather than transformations

Children fail to understand the significance of the transformation between states.

-Transductive reasoning

Children do not use deductive or inductive reasoning; instead they jump from one particular conclusion to another and see cause where none exist.

-Egocentrism

- inability to consider another's person point of view.

- Children assume everyone else thinks, perceived, and feels as they do.

-Animism

Children attribute to objects not alive

-Inability to distinguish appearance from reality

Children confuse what is real with outward appearance

Between ages 3 to 5

children come to understand that thinking goes on inside the mind, that it can deal with either real or imaginary things, that someone can be thinking of one thing while doing or looking at something else.

at age 5 or 6

children begin to understand the distinction between what seems to be and what is.

Knowledge about Thinking and Mental States

• Between Ages 3 and 5

o Children come to understand that thinking goes on inside the mind.

o It can deal with either real or imaginary things.

o Thinking is different from seeing, talking, touching, and knowing.

Knowledge about Thinking and Mental States

• 5 years

o If they are sad about something, they can try to think about something else.

• !! The recognition that others have mental states accompanies the decline of egocentrism and the development of mempathy.

False Beliefs and Deception

• Children do not consistently pass false belief tasks until about 4 years of age.

• 5 to 6 years

o Children understand second-order false beliefs—that they may have an incorrect belief about what someone else believes.

• Deception:

An effort to plant a false belief in someone else’s mind.

o Preschoolers who are more advanced in their understanding of others’ mental states are better liars.

• 3 years: Children become capable of telling simple lies.

o With follow-up questions, young children fail to hide their knowledge.

• Almost 8 years: Children become better able to think about what they should and should not know and thus conceal

their transgressions more effectively.

Distinguishing between Appearance and Reality

• Age 5 or 6 (Piaget): Children begin to understand the distinction between what seems to be and what is.

o Recent studies: Ability emerging between 3 and 4 years of age.

Distinguishing between Fantasy and Reality

• Between 18 months and 3 years: Children learn to distinguish between real and imagined events.

• 2 or 3 years: Know that pretense is intentional; they can tell the difference between trying to do something and pretending to do the same thing.

• 4 years: Children, if given the choice, complete stories with real-world causal laws rather than magical or fantastical

elements.

INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACH: MEMORY DEVELOPMENT

Information-processing theorists think of memory as a filing system that has three steps, or processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Difficulties in any of these processes can interfere with efficiency.

➢ Encoding

➢ Storage

➢ Retrieval

3 steps

➢ Encoding

- attaches a code, or label, to the information so that it will be easier to find when needed; events are encoded along with information about the context in which they are encountered.

➢ Storage

retention of information in memory for future use.

Three types of storage:

A. Sensory Memory

B. Working Memory

C. Long term memory

➢ Retrieval

occurs when the information is needed, retrieving from memory

A. Sensory Memory

B. Working Memory

C. Long term memory

three types of storage:

Sensory memory

is a temporary holding tank for incoming sensory information, without processing (encoding), these types of memories fade quickly. Otherwise, they are kept/actively processed in the working memory which is where short-term memory is also stored.

The growth of working memory

allows the development of executive function which is a conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and actions to accomplish goals or solve problems.

o Emerges around the end of an infant’s 1st year and develops in spurts with age.

B. Working Memory

A short-term storehouse for information a person is actively working on, trying to understand, remember, or think about.

C. Long-Term Memory

A storehouse of virtually unlimited capacity that holds information for long periods of time.

Central Executive

• In Baddeley’s model, element of working memory that controls the processing of information.

• Two Subsystems

o Phonological Loop: Aids in the processing of verbal information.

o Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad: Maintains and manipulates visual information.

• Age 4:

Children typically remember only two digits.

• Age 12:

Typically remember six digits.

2. RECOGNITION AND RECALL

Types of Retrieval

- Recognition

- recall

Recognition

(is the ability to identify something encountered before)

recall

(ability to reproduce knowledge from memory)

3. FORMING AND RETAINING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

1. Generic memory

2. Episodic memory

3. Autobiographical memory

1. Generic memory

produces a script, or a general outline of a familiar and repeated event. Helps a child know what to expect and how to act.

2. Episodic memory

refers to awareness of having experiences a particular event or episode at a specific time and place.

3. Autobiographical memory

- refers to memories of distinctive experiences that form a person's life history

INTELLIGENCE: PSYCHOMETRIC AND VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH

Intelligence: Psychometric and Vygotskian Approach

- Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

- Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence

The two most commonly used individual tests fore preschool

➢ STANFORD-BINET INTELLIGENCE SCALES

for ages 2 and up,

duration: around 45 to 60 minutes to finish

The child is asked to define words, string beads, build with blocks, identify the missing parts of a picture, trace mazes, and show an understanding of numbers.

➢ STANFORD-BINET INTELLIGENCE SCALES

It is supposed to measure fluid reasoning (the ability to solve abstract or novel problems), knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual spatial processing, and working memory.

➢ WESCHLER PRESCHOOL AND PRIMARY SCALE OF INTELLIGENCE, REVISED (WPPSI-III)

Separate levels for ages 2 1⁄2 to 4 and 4 to 7.

duration: taking 30 to 60 minutes to accomplish

This includes subtests designed to measure both verbal and nonverbal fluid reasoning, receptive vs expressive vocabulary, and processing speed.

This yields separate verbal and performance scores as well as a combined score.

2. TESTING AND TEACHING BASED ON VYGOTSKY'S THEORY

According to Vgotsky, children learn by internalizing the results of interactions with adults. Interactive learning is most effective in helping children cross the zone of proximal development ( ZPD) which can be assessed by dynamic tests.

zone of proximal development ( ZPD)

what a child can do on their own and with the help of adults

- can be assessed by dynamic tests

• Provide a better measure of children’s intellectual potential than do traditional psychometric tests that measure what children have already mastered.

o Emphasize potential rather than present achievement.

Scaffolding

the temporary support that parents, teachers, or others give a child to do a task until the child can do it alone—can help guide children's cognitive progress.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

1. VOCABULARY

2. GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

3. PRAGMATICS AND SOCIAL SPEECH

4. PRIVATE SPEECH

5. PREPARATION FOR LITERACY

1. VOCABULARY

• Age 3: Average child knows and can use 900 to 1,000 words.

• Age 6: A child typically has an expressive (speaking) vocabulary of 2,600 words and understands more than 20,000.

• High School: Vocabulary (words she can understand) will quadruple to 80,000 words.

Fast mapping

fast mapping,

For children, the rapid expansion of vocabulary which allows a child to pick up the approximate meaning of a new word after hearing it only once or twice in conversation.

2. GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

Grammar

Syntax

Grammar

The deep underlying structure of a language that enables us to both produce and understand utterances.

Syntax

Involves the rules for putting together sentences in a particular language.

• Between ages 4 and 5: Sentences average four to five words and may be declarative, negative (“I’m not hungry”), interrogative (“Why can’t I go outside?”), or imperative e (“Catch the ball!”).

• Ages 5 to 7: Children’s speech has become quite adultlike.

o They speak in longer and more complicated sentences. They use more conjunctions, prepositions, and articles.

3. PRAGMATICS AND SOCIAL SPEECH

Pragmatics

Social Speech

pragmatics

the practical knowledge of how to use language to communicate.

As children learn vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, they more competent in pragmatics

• Knowing how to ask for things, how to tell a story or joke, how to begin and continue a conversation, and how to adjust comments to the listener's perspective.