Growth from Age 3 to 6

• Bodily Growth
  • Children grow about 2 to 3 inches a year and add 5 to 7 pounds.
  • In developing countries, average weights and heights are considerably lower due to:
  • Poor nutrition
  • Childhood diseases
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Disease and malnutrition may lead to stunting.

Brain Development and "Infantile Amnesia"

• Brain Development Process
  • Size of the brain increases gradually.
  • Frontal lobe growth facilitates:
  • Emotional regulation
  • Foresight
  • Planned behavior
  • Corpus callosum myelination peaks during early childhood.
  • Increased myelination occurs in the cerebellum, supporting balance.
  • Peak myelination of reticular formation and hippocampus enhances attention and memory.
  • Myelination process is generally complete by age 5.
  • Infantile Amnesia refers to the inability to recall events before age 2.

Motor Development, Safety, and Health

• Gross and Fine Motor Skills
  • Gross motor skills show significant improvement, extending earlier abilities.
  • Fine motor skills also develop further, allowing for new skills.
  • Development of handedness is influenced by the prenatal environment.
  • Historically, left-handedness has been stigmatized but individuals may excel in certain areas.
• Safety and Health
  • Injuries: High activity in early childhood leads to significant injury risks; falls are the most common cause.
  • Illness and Disease: In developing countries, major causes of child mortality include pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea.
  • Malnutrition: Causes nearly half of early childhood deaths, contrasting with developed countries where adequate nutrition and vaccination are common.
  • In developed countries, children often face obesity due to excessive unhealthy food consumption.

Theories of Cognitive Development

• Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

  • Represents the cognitive development feature where children begin to use symbols and internalize images.
  • Cognitive errors include:
  • Conservation: The inability to recognize that a substance remains the same despite changes in form.
  • Egocentrism: The failure to distinguish one’s perspective from another’s; may result in animism (attributing human feelings to inanimate objects).
  • Classification: Understanding that objects can belong to multiple cognitive groups.
  • Criticisms of Piaget's theory include underestimating children's capabilities and overemphasizing stage-like development.

• Theory of Mind

  • Refers to the capacity to understand the thoughts and feelings of oneself and others.
  • Develops through joint attention and pretend play; assessed through false-belief tasks.

• Cultural Learning

  • Children acquire culturally specific skills through guided participation, influenced by cultural factors and socio-economic complexities.

Early Childhood Education

• Importance of Preschool Quality

  • Preschool enhances cognitive and social outcomes in children, including verbal skills and self-confidence.
  • High-quality preschool features:
  • Qualified teachers
  • Manageable class sizes
  • Age-appropriate materials
  • Effective teacher-child interactions.
  • Variability exists in preschool quality and its pedagogical focus, influencing children's collaborative skills.

• Early Intervention Programs

  • Aimed at promoting development in at-risk children; examples include Project Head Start and Early Head Start, with outcomes varying in effectiveness.

Language Development

• Advances in Vocabulary and Grammar

  • Language acquisition accelerates, with rapid increases in vocabulary via fast mapping.
  • Grammar utilization expands as children practice language in cultural contexts.

• Pragmatics

  • Understanding social rules of language develops through gestures and conversational practice, influenced by cultural norms.

Emotional Regulation and Gender Socialization

• Emotional Regulation

  • Development of emotional control is essential for social interactions, with strategies learned for effective self-regulation.
  • Different cultures exhibit varied expectations for emotional expression, affecting children's emotional understanding.

• Moral Development

  • Empathy develops along with a grasp of cultural moral standards through social interactions.

• Gender Development

  • Gender identity intensifies between ages 3 and 4, with reinforcement from parents and peers significantly shaping gender roles.

Parenting Styles

• Types of Parenting Styles

  • Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and disengaged, each presenting unique impacts on child development.
  • Authoritative parenting generally leads to the most positive outcomes for children.

• Cultural Variations in Discipline

  • Parenting practices are highly influenced by cultural context, presenting diverse approaches to discipline, shaping children's responses to behavioral guidance.

The Child’s Expanding Social World

• Social Stages of Childhood Developments

  • Mead identified stages such as the "lap child" and "yard child" emphasizing the evolving social interactions from dependence on caregivers to peer relationships.

• Universal Aspects of Sibling Relationships

  • Common sibling dynamics include jealousy and support, while only children often experience different social skills outcomes depending on cultural context.

• Friendships and Play

  • Definitions of friendship deepen, with the impacts of play becoming more pronounced in social development, fostering cooperation and interaction skills.

• Media Use

  • Television exposure influences aggression and perceptions of violence; educational content has potential benefits in teaching skills.