Chapter 7

Physical & Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Baby Growth

• Height and weight:

  • Average child grows 2 ½ inches in height an dgains 5-10 pounds a year during early childhood

  • Growth patterns vary individually with ethnic origin and nutrition being the 2 most important contributors in height differences

• The brain:

  • The brain and nervous system continue to develop but not as rapidly as it did in infancy

  • By 3 years the brain is 75% of its adult size

  • By age 6, the brain is closer to 95% of its adult size

Gross Motor Skills development

• Most preschool children are more active than they will ever be at any later period in the lifespan

• Gross motor skills:

  • Simple movements at age 3

    • Hopping, jumping, and running back and forth

  • More adventurous at age 4

    • Display athleticism in jungle gyms

  • Hair-raising risks at age 5

    • More complex stuns and competition (e.g. racing their peers or parents)

Fine Motor Skills Development

• At age 3, most children can pick up tiny objects between theirr thumb and forefinger, but they are still somewhat clumy at it.

  • Building tall block towers is nearly impossible as they don’t place them in a stright line

• At age 4, fine motor skills improve and are more precise

  • Can build higher block towers but may knock over the existing stack as they attempt to place each block perfectly

• At age 5, body coordination has improved substantially,

  • Hand, arm, and body all move together under better command of the eye; building block towers are easier

Sleep

• Recommended sleep for children around 3-4 years of age is 10-13 hours of good quality sleep, with consistent sleep and wake times

  • May include mid-day naps

• Children can experience a number of sleep disorders:

  • Narcolepsy - extreme daytime sleepiness

  • Insomnia - difficulty going to sleep or stayign asleep

  • Nightmares

• Sleep problems can lead to negative outcomes

  • Attention problems

  • Worse school readiness (also linked to increased screen time)

  • Being overweight

  • Social problems

Nutrition and Exercise

• Children’s nutrition is strongly influenced by caregiver’s behaviors

• Eating habits and activity levels at this stage can strongly influence the risk for:

  • Obesity, malnutrition, disordered eating, etc.

• The US has the second higher rate of childhood obesity

• Eleven million preschool children are experiencing malnutrition

Cognitive Changes

• Piaget’s pre-operational stage

• Vygotsky’s theory

• Information processing

Piaget’s Preoperational stage

• preoperational stage:

  • Second stage

  • Ages 2 to 7 years

  • Children represent the world with words, images, and drawings

  • Can form stable concepts and begin to reason

  • Cognitions are dominated by magical beliefs and egocentrism - inability to distinguish one’s own perspective from someone else’s

Symbolic Function Substage

• Occurs between the ages of 2 and 4

• Young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present

• Child is less concerned with reality. Their drawings tend to be fanciful and inventive

  • 3 ½ year old drew “a pelican kissing a seal.”

  • 11 year old’s Christmas tree is a neater and more realistic, but also less inventive

Children in the preoperational stage tend to fail conservation tasks

Vygotsky’s Theory

• This theory argues that children think and understand primarily through social interaction, especially instruction

• Zone of proximal development (ZPD): range of tasks that are too difficult for the child alone but can be learned with guidance.

  • Lower limit - level of skill reached by child working independently

  • Upper limit - level of additional responsibility child can accept with assistance of an instructor

Language Development

• Toddlers move quickly from producing two-word utterances to create three-four-, and five-word combination

  • B/n 2 and 3 years of age, children transition to saying more complex sentences

• Children also demonstrate knowledge of morphology rules

  • Plural and possessive nouns: dogs and dog’s

  • Verb endings: -ed for past tense and -ing when in action

  • Prepositions: in and on

  • Various forms of the verb to be: “I was going to the store”

Evidence of Language Development

• Some of the best evidence for changes in children’s use of morphological rules occurs in their overgeneralization of them.

• Preschool child says “foots” instead of “feet,” or “goed” instead of “went.”

Word Learning

• There are six key principles in young children’s vocabulary development

  • Learn the words they hear most often

  • Learn words for things and events that interest them

  • Learn words better in responsive and interactive contexts than in passive contexts

  • Learn words best in contexts that are meaningful

  • Learn words best when they access clear information about word meaning

  • Learn words best when grammar and vocabulary are considered

Value of Books

• Books can be valuable in enhancing children’s communication skills

  • Use books to initiate conversation in young children

    • Asking them what they would do/think/feel if they were the character in the story

  • Use what and why questions

    • Asking what they think will happen next in a story

  • Choose some books that play with language

    • Books about the alphabet or those that use rhymes

  • Encourage them to ask questions about stories

Variations in Early childhood Education

• There are many variations in the way young children are educated

• The child-centered kindergarten - emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for their physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development

  • Instruction is organized around child’s needs, interests, and learning styles

  • Emphasis on the process of learning rather than what is learned

  • Honors these 3 principles

    • Each child follows a unique developmental pattern

    • Young children learn best through firsthand experiences with people and materials

    • Play is extremely important in the child’s total development

• The Montessori Approach is a philosophy of education in which children are given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities

  • Children can move from one activity to another as they desire

  • Teacher is a facilitator rather than a director

  • Shows how to perform intellectual activities

  • Demonstrates interesting ways to explore curriculum materials

  • Offers help when child requests it

• Montessori programs seek to develop self-regulated problem solvers who can make choices and manage their time effectively

  • By encouraging children to make decisions from an early age

Controversies in Early Childhood Education

• Controversy surrounds the topic of early childhood education curriculum

  • One side has the child-centered, constructive activists

  • On the other are those who advocate an academic, direct-instruction approach.

  • Another controversy focuses on whether preschool education makes a difference, especially for children who are not disadvantaged

    • Disadvantages children may include those from lower-income households where all possible caregivers must return to work and cannot provide the children with the necessary interactions for learning for learning and development