EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
Physical Development in Early Childhood
Ages 2-6:
Children grow about 3 inches in height and gain 4 to 5 pounds annually.
Growth occurs in spurts, similar to infancy.
Weight and Height:
At 2 years: weigh 23 to 28 pounds and are 33 to 35 inches tall.
By 6 years: weigh 40 to 50 pounds and are 44 to 47 inches tall.
Body Proportions:
3-year-olds: resemble toddlers with large heads, stomachs, and short limbs.
By 6 years: torso lengthens, and proportions start resembling adult forms.
Appetite:
Growth is slower than in infancy, leading to a reduced appetite, which can concern parents.
Calorie Needs:
2-3-year-olds: need 1,000 to 1,400 calories daily.
4-8-year-olds: need 1,200 to 2,000 calories daily (Mayo Clinic, 2016a).
Brain Development
Brain Weight:
By age 3: brain reaches about 75 percent of its adult weight.
By age 6: it is at 95 percent of its adult weight.
Myelination and Dendrite Development:
Continue, enhancing cognitive and motor abilities.
Prefrontal Cortex:
Matures, supporting thinking, strategizing, controlling attention, and emotions.
Enables better emotional regulation and understanding of games.
Hemispheric Growth:
Ages 3-6: left hemisphere (language skills) grows significantly.
Right hemisphere (spatial tasks) continues to develop throughout early childhood.
Corpus Callosum:
A dense band of about 200 million nerve fibers connecting the brain's hemispheres.
Experiences a growth spurt between ages 3 and 6.
Enhances coordination between hemispheres, improving tasks requiring bilateral movement.
Example: Children under 6 struggle with tasks like using an Etch A Sketch because their corpus callosum is still developing.
Motor Skill Development
Motor Skill Acquisition:
Early childhood is crucial for developing basic locomotion skills (running, jumping, skipping) and object control skills (throwing, catching, kicking).
Gross and Fine Motor Skills:
Gross motor skills are enhanced through running and jumping.
Fine motor skills are refined through pouring, drawing, coloring, and using scissors.
Developmental Milestones:
2-year-olds: improved coordination in running but may struggle with pedaling a tricycle.
Age 3: gain the ability to pedal tricycles and improve in fine motor tasks like dressing themselves.
Age 4: no longer struggle to put on their clothes, showing notable advancement in motor skills.
Emphasis on Play:
Play involving motor skills is vital for practicing and refining abilities.
Children's Art Development:
Children's drawings illustrate significant developmental changes.
Age 2: produce about 20 types of scribbles.
Age 3: start to create shapes from scribbles and combine these shapes into more complex images.
Ages 4 and 5: drawings become more recognizable representations of their world.
Tadpole Drawings:
Emerge around age 3 and are a common feature globally.
Cultural variations exist in size, facial features, and emotional expressions.
Western contexts: larger figures with more detail and positive emotions.
Non-Western rural contexts: smaller figures with fewer details and more neutral expressions, reflecting cultural norms that emphasize social groups over individualism.
Gross Motor Skills by Age:
Age 2: Can kick a ball without losing balance, run with better coordination (may still have a wide stance).
Age 3: Can briefly balance and hop on one foot, may walk up stairs with alternating feet (without holding the rail), can pedal a tricycle.
Age 4: Shows improved balance, hops on one foot without losing balance, throws a ball overhand with coordination.
Age 5: Has better coordination, skips, jumps, and hops with good balance, stays balanced while standing on one foot with eyes closed.
Fine Motor Skills by Age:
Age 2: Able to turn a door knob, can pick up objects while standing without losing balance, can look through a book turning one page at a time, can build a tower of 6 to 7 cubes, able to put on simple clothes without help.
Age 3: Can build a block tower of more than nine cubes, can easily place small objects in a small opening, can copy a circle, can draw a person with 3 parts, can feed self easily.
Age 4: Can cut out a picture using scissors, manages a spoon and fork neatly while eating, puts on clothes properly, can draw a square.
Age 5: Shows more skill with simple tools and writing utensils, can copy a triangle, can use a knife to spread soft foods.
Toilet Training
Timing:
Usually, occurs between 24 and 36 months of age.
Some children show interest by age 2, others may not be ready until later.
Average age for girls: 29 months; for boys: 31 months.
Most children are fully trained by 36 months.
Readiness:
Physical and emotional readiness is more important than age.
If a child resists training, take a break and try again later.
Daytime bladder control is often mastered in two to three months; nap and nighttime training may take longer.
Readiness Indicators:
Interest in the potty or underwear.
Ability to follow basic directions.
Expresses discomfort with wet or dirty diapers.
Indicates the need to go.
Can stay dry for two hours or longer.
Can manage their pants.
Can sit on and rise from a potty chair.
Elimination Disorders:
Enuresis: repeated urination into bed or clothes.
Encopresis: repeated passage of feces into inappropriate places.
May require intervention from a pediatrician or mental health professional.
Prevalence of enuresis: 5%-10% in 5-year-olds, drops to approximately 1% by age 15.
Encopresis affects around 1% of 5-year-olds and is more common in males.
Sleep Patterns
Sleep needs vary widely in early childhood.
Two-year-olds may require 15-16 hours of sleep, while six-year-olds may need only 7-8 hours.
National Sleep Foundation's recommendations vary by age.
Sexual Development
Sexual arousal begins in infancy.
Children are capable of erections and vaginal lubrication before birth.
Early childhood is marked by self-exploration and curiosity about bodies.
Self-stimulation is common; children may show their genitals or explore each other's bodies.
Boys often learn about masturbation from peers, while girls may discover it accidentally.
Parents should address these behaviors without alarm, promoting healthy understanding of appropriate times and places for such activities.
Nutritional Concerns
Young children often exhibit smaller appetites and may be reluctant to try new foods.
Due to the "just right" phenomenon, children prefer consistency and routine.
Malnutrition is rare in developed nations, but many children lack a balanced diet.
High added sugars and fats make up a significant portion of their daily caloric intake.
Caregivers should encourage healthy eating habits early to establish positive taste preferences for fruits and vegetables.
Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
Preoperational Stage (Ages 2-7):
Children use symbols to represent objects and engage in pretend play.
Begin to use language but lack the ability to understand adult logic and manipulate information logically.
Characterized by egocentrism, conservation errors, classification errors, and animism.
Key Features of the Preoperational Stage:
Symbolic Play: engage in imaginative play using objects to represent something else, enhancing cognitive development.
Egocentrism: struggle to see perspectives other than their own.
Conservation Errors: fail to understand that altering an object’s appearance does not change its quantity.
Classification Errors: struggle to classify objects in multiple ways and often focus on one characteristic.
Animism: attribute lifelike qualities to inanimate objects.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Emphasized the impact of culture and social interactions on cognitive development.
Learning occurs through guided interactions with more knowledgeable individuals.
Key Concepts:
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): range where a child can perform tasks with guidance but not independently.
Scaffolding: temporary support provided to help a child accomplish a task, gradually removed as the child becomes more competent.
Private Speech: children talk to themselves to process thoughts and solve problems, which evolves into inner speech.
Comparison with Piaget: Piaget believed in child-led discovery, while Vygotsky emphasized teacher-directed instruction.
Information Processing in Early Childhood
Attention Types:
Divided Attention: difficulty managing multiple tasks simultaneously but improves by age five.
Selective Attention: the ability to focus on specific stimuli improves with age.
Sustained Attention: struggle to maintain focus over long periods.
Memory Development:
Sensory Memory: holds sensory input briefly; auditory sensory memory improves with age.
Working Memory: active component where conscious mental activity occurs; capacity increases as children grow older.
Executive Function: self-regulatory processes that enable children to adapt to new situations; influenced by environmental factors and parental support.
Children’s Understanding of the World
Constructivism: belief that children actively seek to understand the world around them.
Piaget (Cognitive Constructivist): focuses on independent learning where children build knowledge on their own.
Vygotsky (Social Constructivist): emphasizes social interactions as the basis for learning, highlighting the role of culture and guidance.
Theory-Theory:
Children naturally generate theories to explain the world around them, similar to how scientists develop and revise their theories.
When questions are not fully answered, children create their own explanations.
Theory of Mind:
The ability to understand and think about other people’s thoughts and beliefs, helping in predicting behavior.
False-Belief Task: measures theory of mind, where children must understand that someone can hold a belief that is false.
Pre-Four Years: struggle to understand false beliefs and tend to be egocentric.
Cognitive Effort: requires children to separate their own knowledge from what someone else may believe.
Developmental Milestones in Theory of Mind:
Before Age Four: generally fail false-belief tasks.
Ages Four to Five: begin to understand false beliefs and that others may have thoughts that differ from reality.
Middle Childhood: start to grasp that people can hide their feelings or thoughts.
Cultural Influences on Theory of Mind Development:
Individualistic Cultures: emphasize personal autonomy, leading children to develop an understanding of the diversity of beliefs earlier.
Collectivistic Cultures: emphasize conformity and respect for elders, leading to earlier acquisition of knowledge access over diverse beliefs.
Role of Conflict: conflicting beliefs are more common in the individualistic family, aiding earlier development of the concept of diverse beliefs.
Impact of Siblings:
Children with siblings tend to develop a theory of mind earlier, as sibling interactions provide opportunities to understand different perspectives.
Social Intelligence and Theory of Mind:
Awareness of others' mental states allows children to anticipate and predict others' actions, enhancing social communication and empathy.
Self-Consciousness: fosters an understanding that others may perceive and think about us differently, contributing to self-awareness and social understanding.
Components of Theory of Mind:
Diverse-desires: understanding that two people may have different desires regarding the same object.
Diverse-beliefs: understanding that two people may hold different beliefs about an object.
Knowledge access: understanding that people may or may not have access to information.
False belief: understanding that someone might hold a belief based on false information.
Hidden emotion: understanding that people may not always express their true emotions.
Language Development
Vocabulary Growth:
Between ages two and six, children’s vocabulary increases from around 200 words to over 10,000 words.
Learn 10-20 new words per week through fast-mapping, linking new words to concepts they already understand.
The parts of speech children learn vary by language. Verb-friendly languages emphasize verbs, while English speakers learn nouns more readily.
Literal Meanings:
May repeat words and phrases without fully understanding their meanings and take expressions literally.
Overregularization:
Apply grammatical rules incorrectly, such as saying “goed” or “doed” instead of “went” or “did.” This is typical for two- and three-year-olds.
Role of Training and Support:
Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): children benefit from assistance in learning.
Scaffolding: adults provide support to help children develop new language skills, gradually removing assistance.
Bilingualism:
Many children worldwide are bilingual.
In the United States, over 60 million people speak a language other than English at home.
Bilingual children represent nearly 30% of early childhood program enrollees.
May show delays in proficiency depending on language exposure.
Often have stronger skills in the language heard more frequently.
Quality of Language Exposure:
Children may hear languages spoken by non-native speakers, which can affect language quality.
May favor the majority language.
Cognitive Advantages of Bilingualism:
Outperform monolinguals in tasks requiring inhibitory control and working memory.
These advantages are sometimes less pronounced in lower socioeconomic status populations.
Word Learning in Bilingual Children:
More adept at learning new names for familiar objects, unlike monolingual children, due to their experience translating between two languages.
Preschool
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) identifies 10 standards for high-quality preschools:
Positive relationships between children and adults.
A curriculum supporting social, emotional, physical, language, and cognitive development.
Developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate teaching methods.
Regular assessments of children’s learning and development.
Promotion of children’s health and protection from illness or injury.
Qualified teachers who are committed to children’s learning.
Strong collaborative relationships with families.
Established relationships with community agencies to support program goals.
Safe and well-maintained indoor and outdoor environments.
Qualified and licensed leadership and management.
Types of preschool programs:
Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, High Scope, Parent Co-Ops, and Bank Street programs.
Teachers guide children by creating activities based on developmental levels.
Head Start:
Established in 1965 to provide preschool education for children in poverty.
Concerns persist regarding its effectiveness.
Studies show varied results; some show potentially positive effects on reading achievement but no significant effects on math achievement or social-emotional development.
Head Start programs vary depending on location, making it difficult to generalize their effectiveness.
Challenges include testing young children, which is influenced by language skills and comfort with evaluators.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Characterized by disturbances in three main areas:
Deficits in social interaction.
Deficits in communication.
Repetitive patterns of behavior or interests.
Symptoms appear early in life and cause significant impairments in functioning.
Communication Deficits:
Range from a complete lack of speech to one-word responses and echoed speech.
Struggle to use or understand nonverbal cues like facial expressions and gestures.
Repetitive Behaviors and Restricted Interests:
Include rocking, head-banging, or repeatedly picking up and dropping objects.
Show intense distress when routines are disrupted.
Develop fixated interests that are disproportionate to their utility.
Autism as a Spectrum:
Reflects the wide range of symptoms, from severe to mild.
DSM-5-TR no longer recognizes Asperger’s disorder as a separate diagnosis, integrating it into the autism spectrum disorder category.
1 in 59 children in the U.S. has autism, with boys being four times more likely than girls to be diagnosed.
Rates of ASD have dramatically increased since the 1980s due to various factors.
Causes of Autism:
The exact causes remain unknown, although genetics play a significant role.
Identical twins show high concordance rates (60% to 90%).
Environmental factors, such as exposure to pollutants and prenatal infections, may also contribute.
Maternal infections during pregnancy increase the risk of autism by 79%.
Debunking Myths: Autism and Vaccines:
There is no scientific evidence supporting a link between vaccines and autism.
Psychosocial Development in Early Childhood
Erikson - Initiative vs. Guilt:
Children develop a desire to take initiative by creating and thinking of new ideas and actions.
Caregivers play a crucial role in reinforcing initiative by praising efforts and avoiding criticism.
Encouraging a child’s creativity enhances their sense of initiative.
Self-Concept and Self-Esteem:
Children begin forming a self-concept, describing themselves based on physical and internal qualities.
Self-esteem refers to how children evaluate themselves.
Around three years old, children describe themselves based on physical characteristics and possessions (categorical self).
Children start to give consistent answers regarding their self-concept after the age of four.
Positive self-esteem is often due to the lack of social comparison and the optimism that comes from evaluating new abilities.
Insecure attachments and negative emotions from caregivers can lead to lower self-esteem.
Self-Control:
Includes response initiation (evaluating before acting), response inhibition (stopping a behavior), and delayed gratification (waiting for a larger reward).
The Marshmallow Test demonstrates how delaying gratification at age four can predict better academic and health outcomes later in life.
Self-control develops gradually and is linked to improving executive function, reducing impulsivity.
Gender Identity:
Preschool children become more interested in understanding the differences between boys and girls.
Gender identity is the self-perception of being male or female, shaped by biological, social, and psychological factors.
Children learn gender roles from parents, peers, media, and other societal influences.
There are Gender role expectations.
Parents often unconsciously reinforce gender stereotypes.
Theories of Gender Development:
Social Learning Theory: children learn gender roles through observation, modeling, reinforcement, and punishment.
Gender Schema Theory: children actively construct their understanding of gender by seeking information about gender-appropriate traits and behaviors.
Developmental Intergroup Theory: strong cultural emphasis on gender leads children to focus on gender differences, forming rigid gender stereotypes based on societal cues.
Transgender Children:
A small percentage of children reject traditional gender roles and identify with the opposite gender.
Research shows that their gender development mirrors that of cisgender peers with family support.
Intersex Individuals:
Making up about two percent of the population with a mix of male and female reproductive organs or hormones.
Key Points on Gender Development:
Gender socialization begins at birth and is influenced by toys, media, and societal expectations.
Support fosters resilience, self-value, and a secure sense of self.
Parenting Styles
Parent-child relationships evolve as children mature, influencing child development.
Children in preschool and grade school become more independent and may challenge parental expectations.
Diana Baumrind’s model focuses on control/expectations and warmth/responsiveness.
Authoritative Parenting:
High expectations, warmth, open communication, reasoning instead of coercion, encourages autonomy.
Authoritarian Parenting:
High, often unreasonable expectations, aloof, distant, enforces obedience without discussion, children may fear rather than respect parents.
Permissive Parenting:
Low expectations, children make their own rules, warm but provide little structure, children may lack self-discipline.
Uninvolved Parenting:
Disengaged, low expectations, little responsiveness, children may struggle in school and relationships.
Cultural and Social Class Influences on Parenting:
Individualistic Cultures: favor independence and self-reliance.
Collectivistic Cultures: emphasize obedience and compliance.
Social Class: working-class parents value obedience and reliability, while middle-class parents reward independence and initiative.
Spanking as Discipline:
Research shows it may lead to increased aggression, antisocial behavior, and cognitive issues.
Child development specialists advocate alternatives.
Sibling Relationships:
Develop social skills such as empathy, sharing, cooperation, and conflict resolution.
Sibling conflicts evolve with age; in early childhood, conflicts are often about property rights; in middle childhood, conflicts shift to social situations.
Play and Development
Play has positive outcomes for children’s emotional and intellectual development.
Allows children to release emotions and deal with distress in a safe environment.
Parten categorized six types of play:
Non-Social Play: Unoccupied, solitary, and onlooker play.
Social Play: Parallel, associative, and cooperative play.
Younger children engage in non-social play more often.
Older children increasingly participate in associative and cooperative play.
Types of Play in Preschool Children Table:
Unoccupied Play: Children's behavior seems more random and without a specific goal.
Solitary Play: Children play by themselves, do not interact with others, nor are they engaging in similar activities as the children around them.
Onlooker Play: Children are observing other children playing. They may comment on the activities and even make suggestions but will not directly join the play.
Parallel Play: Children play alongside each other, using similar toys, but do not directly act with each other.
Associative Play: Children will interact with each other and share toys but are not working toward a common goal.
Cooperative Play: Children are interacting to achieve a common goal. Children may take on different tasks to reach that goal.
Children and the Media
Children are increasingly using mobile devices, mainly for games, which correlates with externalizing behaviors, shorter sleep durations, and failure to meet developmental milestones.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children under two should focus on real-world exploration rather than digital media.
For children aged 2 to 5, a maximum of one hour of high-quality programming co-viewed with a caregiver is recommended, and mobile media should not be used to soothe children.
Child Care
A comprehensive longitudinal study revealed that child care quality is crucial for child development.
Higher-quality child care leads to better cognitive performance and school readiness.
Lower-quality care correlates with behavioral problems.
Recommendations for quality child care include low adult-to-child ratios, trained caregivers, and stimulating environments.
Child Abuse
Any act by a parent or caretaker that results in serious harm, including neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse.
Neglect is the most common form.
Childhood sexual abuse involves exploitation by an adult or older child and has significant rates, especially among girls.
The impacts of sexual abuse can lead to long-term psychological effects.
Stress on Young Children
Normal stress promotes coping skills, while prolonged toxic stress can harm development.
Stress affects brain structures involved in memory and can lead to hypersensitivity to stress later in life.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs):
Encompass all forms of abuse and neglect before age 18 linked to negative long-term health outcomes.
Supportive adult relationships and family interventions can mitigate the impact of ACEs.
Family Separation:
Leads to significant stress and potential long-term negative outcomes for these children.
Disrupts children's stress management and can lead to anxiety, PTSD, and attachment issues.
Emphasizes the importance of parental support during stressful times.
COVID-19: Impact on Early Childhood
Children account for approximately 14% of COVID-19 cases.
Most children experience mild or no symptoms.
Children with underlying health conditions are at higher risk for severe illness.
MIS-C:
Rare but serious condition that causes inflammation in various body parts.
The reason for severe reactions in some children with COVID-19 is currently unknown.
The COVID-19 mortality rate for infected children is very low (approximately 0.01%).
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES):
COVID-19 has led to social isolation, parental job loss, school closures, and increased stressors.
These factors can develop or exacerbate ACES.
Increases in child abuse and intimate partner violence have been reported.
Low-income and ethnic minority children face heightened risks for ACES and associated health conditions.