Early Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development

1
CHAPTER 7

• Early Childhood Physical and Cognitive
  Development

2
Growth Patterns
3
Growth Patterns

• Growth rate
• -Slows during preschool years
• -Girls and boys gain 2 to 3 inches in height per
  year
• -Weight gains remain fairly even at about 4 to 6
  pounds per year
• -Children become slender as height increases
• -Boys become slightly taller and heavier than
  girls
• Variations are shown from child to child

4
Fig. 7-1, p. 134
5
Development of the Brain

• Brain
• -Brain develops more quickly than any other
  organ during childhood
• -At 2 years, brain is 75 of adult weight
• -At 5 years, brain is 90 of adult weight
• Increase in brain size due in part to myelination
  of nerve fibers
• Completion of myelination of neural pathways that
  link the cerebellum to the cerebral cortex helps
  development of fine motor skills, balance, and
  coordination.

6
Brain Development (contd)

• Parts of the brain involved in the ability to
  sustain attention and screen out distractions
  have become increasingly myelinated (between ages
  4 and 7).
• Visual processing speed improves and reaches
  adult level (at adolescence)
• Functions of left and right hemispheres overlap
• The hemispheres are aided in cooperation by the
  myelination of the corpus callosum.
• - a thick bundle of nerve fibers that connects
  the
• hemispheres

7
Brain Development (contd)

• Plasticity
• -Brains ability to compensate for injuries to
  particular
• parts of the brain
• -Greatest at 1 to 2 years of age
• Preschoolers with damage to language areas can
  overcome them due to plasticity.

8
Motor Development
9
Motor Development

• Gross motor skills
• -Involve large muscles used in locomotion
• -ex. balancing on one foot, walking up
  stairs, pedaling a bike
• -By age 4 to 5, most older preschoolers have
  mastered large motor skills.
• Boys and girls similar in motor skills
• -Girls somewhat better in balance and precision
• -Boys show some advantage in throwing and
  kicking
• Motor experiences in infancy may affect the
  development of motor skills in early childhood.

10
Table 7-1, p. 136
11
Table 7-2, p. 137
12
Physical Activity

• Preschoolers spend an average of 25 hours a week
  in large muscle activity.
• -Decreases as child ages
• Rough-and-tumble play helps develop physical and
  social skills in children.
• -Is not the same as aggressive behavior
• Physically active parents are likely to have
  physically active children.
• -Children of active fathers 3.5 times as likely
  to be active
• -Twin studies also suggest there is a genetic
  tendency
• for activity level

13
Fine Motor Skills Childrens Artistic
Development

• Fine motor skills involve the small muscles used
  in manipulation and coordination.
• -Development of drawing is linked to the
  development of motor and cognitive skills
• -Kellogg (1959, 1970) identified basic scribbles
  needed in the building blocks of art vertical,
  horizontal, diagonal, circular, curving,
  waving/zigzagging, and dots
• -Four stages of making scribbles consist of
• 1. placement
• 2. shape
• 3. design
• 4. pictorial

14
Handedness

• Handedness emerges during infancy
• -By 4 months
• -clear preference for right
• hand
• -By 6 to 14 months
• -preference to grasping with particular hand
  increases
• -By childhood
• -clear preference for right or
• left hand

• Origins of handedness
• If both parents are right-handed, 92 chance that
  child will be right-handed
• If both parents are left-handed, 50 chance that
  child will be left-handed

15
Health and Illness
16
Nutrition

• Nutritional needs vary by age.
• -1- to 3-year-olds need 1,000 to 1,300 calories
  a day
• -Appetite becomes erratic during 2nd and 3rd
  year of life and caloric needs decrease
• -4- to 6-year-olds need 1,400 calories a day
• Children are often fed too much salt and sugar.
• Food preferences are somewhat environmental.
• Repeated exposure to a food increases the liking
  of it.
• Parents are the role model for which types of
  food a child will like to eat.

17
Minor Illnesses

• Minor illnesses include
• -respiratory infections
• -gastrointestinal upsets
• -last a few days to a week
• These diseases in childhood are normal
• -Leading killer of children in developing
  countries is diarrheal illness
• American children between the ages of 1 and 3
  average eight to nine minor illnesses a year
• Between the ages of 4 and 10, the average drops
  to four to six

18
Major Illnesses

• Advances in immunization along with development
  of antibiotics have reduced and/or eradicated
  illnesses such as rubella, measles, tetanus,
  mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria, and polio.
• 1/3 of children in the U.S. (younger than 18
  years of age) suffer from a chronic illness such
  as
• arthritis, diabetes, cerebral palsy, or cystic
  fibrosis
• Worldwide, 8 to 9 million children die from
• pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, tetanus, whooping
  cough, and tuberculosis
• Air pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels
  for heating and cooking causes many respiratory
  infections.

19
Major Illnesses (contd)

• Diarrhea
• -kills nearly 2 million children under the age
  of 5 each year
• -is due to unsafe drinking water and poor
  sanitation/hygiene
• Lead exposure
• -Consuming lead
• -Breathing in dust from paint with lead in it
• -Drinking tap water with lead in it
• -Can contribute to neurological damage and
  lowered cognitive functioning and other delays
  in childhood

20
Accidents

• Number one cause of death in early childhood
• -Motor vehicle accidents
• Boys
• -More likely than girls to incur accidental
  injuries at all ages and in all socioeconomic
  groups
• Poor children
• -Five times as likely to die from fires
• -More than twice as likely to die in motor
  vehicle accidents
• High accident rate of low-income children may
  result in part from living in dangerous housing
  and neighborhoods.

21
Sleep
22
Sleep Disorders

• Sleep terrors
• -More severe than nightmares
• -Occur during deep sleep (not during REM)
• -Begin in childhood end in late adolescence
• -Can be associated with stress
• -May wake suddenly with a surge in heart and
  respiration rates, talk incoherently thrash
  about
• Sleep terrors can contribute to childs fear of
  going to sleep and insomnia caretakers have to
  be understanding and give affection regular
  sleep routine helps

23
Sleep Disorders (contd)

• Sleep walking (somnambulism)
• -Children may walk, rearrange toys, go to the
  bathroom, go to the refrigerator
• -Will have no memory of the activity
• -Awakening does not cause aggressive behavior
• -Onset is between ages of 3 and 8
• -Occurs during deep sleep
• -Associated with immaturity of the nervous
  system

24
Table 7-3, p. 141
25
Elimination Disorders
26
Elimination Disorders

• Most American children potty train between the
  ages of 3 and 4 may still have accidents
• Enuresis
• -Failure to control the bladder (urination)
  once the normal age for achieving bladder
  control has been reached
• (usually at age 5)
• -Does not include bed-wetting under twice a
  month
• -Immaturity of the motor cortex may be
  contributor
• -Outgrow between age 8 and adolescence
• Bed-wetting
• -Inability to wake up during the night and go
  to the bathroom
• -8-10 of American children bed wet
• -Occurs during deep sleep

27
Elimination Disorders (contd)

• Encopresis
• -Lack of control over the bowels
• -More common with boys as is bed-wetting
• -1-2 of children at the ages of 7 and 8 have
  continuing problems with bowels
• -Soiling more likely to happen during the day,
  causing embarrassment to the child
• -Stems from physical causes such as chronic
  constipation as well as psychological factors
  such
• as harsh punishment for toileting accidents

28
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage
29
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage

• Preoperational stage lasts from age 2 to age 7.
• Language ability is the greatest symbolic
  activity during this stage.
• -Scribbling/drawing begins at start of this
  stage
• Symbolic play (pretend play) is engaged in from
  15 months of age.
• -Increases in complexity as child ages
• Quality of childs play has long-term
  implications.
• -Preschoolers who engage in violent pretend
  play are less empathic, less likely to help
  other children, and more likely to engage in
  antisocial behavior later on

30
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage (contd)

• 65 of preschoolers have imaginary friends.
• -More common among first born and only children
  than
• children with older siblings
• Children with imaginary playmates are
• -less aggressive, more cooperative, more
  creative than
• children without imaginary friends show
  better ability to
• concentrate and are more advanced in language
  development
• Egocentrism
• -One-dimensional thinking
• -Think parents are aware of everything that is
  happening to them
• -Piaget used three-mountains test to measure
  it

31
Fig. 7-4, p. 144
32
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage (contd)

• Precausal
• -Unless preoperational children know the
  natural causes of an event, their reasons are
  likely to be based egocentrically and not based
  on science.
• Transductive reasoning
• -Children reason by going from one specific
  isolated event to another.
• Animism
• -Attribution of life and intentions to
  inanimate objects
• Artificialism
• -Assumes environmental factors such as rain and
  thunder have been designed and made by people

33
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage (contd)

• Preoperational child has difficulty making
  distinctions between mental and physical events
  may believe dreams are real
• Can only focus on one dimension at a time
• Conservation
• -Law that holds that properties of substances
  such as volume, mass, and number remain the
  same even if you change their shape or
  arrangement
• -Attainment of this skill moves the child into
  concrete
• operational stage
• Preoperational child has not mastered
  reversibility

34
Fig. 7-5, p. 145
35
Fig. 7-6, p. 146
36
Jean Piagets Preoperational Stage (contd)

• Class inclusion
• -Including new objects or categories in broader
  mental classes or categories
• -Requires child to focus on two aspects of a
  situation at once
• -This skill not observed during preoperational
  stage

37
Factors in Cognitive Development
38
Vygotskys Factors in Cognitive Development

• Scaffolding
• -Temporary support provided by a parent or
  teacher to learning children
• -Guidance by adult decreases as child is
  capable of carrying out task on their own
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
• -Vygotskys term for the situation in which a
  child carries out tasks with the help of someone
  who is more skilled
• -Gap between what children are capable of doing
  now and what they could do with help from others
• -Adults or older children help in guiding by
  gearing assistance to childrens capabilities

39
The HOME Environment

• HOME
• -Home Observation for the Measurement of the
  Environment
• -Caldwell et al. (2003) developed measure for
  evaluating childrens home environments
• -Contains six subscales
• -Better predictor of young childrens IQ than
  social class, mothers IQ, or infant IQ scores
• -Home environment is connected with
  occupational success as
• an adult
• Factors such as parental responsiveness,
  stimulation, encouraging independence of
  preschooler are connected with higher IQ scores
  and greater school achievement.

40
Table 7-4, p. 147
41
Effects of Early Childhood Education

• Preschool education enables children to get an
  early start on achievement in school.
• Children from lower SES
• -show lower performance on standardized
• intelligence tests
• -are at greater risk for school failure
• Effects of preschool intervention programs
• -Studies of Head Start and other enrichment
  programs show that environmental enrichment as
  well as parent education can enhance the
  cognitive development of economically
  disadvantaged children.

42
Television

• U.S. children spend more time watching television
  than they do in school.
• 3-year-olds watch 2 to 3 hours of TV per day
• Childrens programming
• Shows mild to moderate effects on preschoolers
  cognitive development
• Sesame Street
• Regular viewing increases childrens learning of
  numbers, letters, and cognitive skills

43
Theory of Mind
44
Theory of Mind

• Preschoolers can accurately predict and explain
  human action and emotion in terms of mental
  states.
• Preschoolers can separate their beliefs from
  those of another person who has false knowledge
  of a situation by age 4 to 5.
• By age 4, children understand that senses
  contribute to understanding qualities of an
  object.
• Appearance-reality distinction
• -Understanding the difference between real
  events and mental events

45
Development of Memory
46
Development of Memory

• By age 4, children can remember events from 1 1/2
  years earlier.
• Scripts
• -Young children form scripts when describing
  what happens during a particular event.
• -Script becomes more elaborate as it is told
• Autobiographical memory (episodic memory)
• -Memory or specific events is facilitated by
  children talking about them with others
• Parental interest and questioning increases
  preschoolers memory.

47
Development of Memory (contd)

• When preschoolers are younger, they remember more
  than they reported.
• Verbal reports used to measure accuracy of
  preschoolers memory appear to underestimate
  their memory.
• Rehearsal
• -Memory strategy using repetition engaged in
  around 5 years
• Sorting objects enhances preschoolers memory.
• Memory strategies advance during middle childhood.

48
Language Development Why Daddy Goed Away
49
Development of Vocabulary

• Preschoolers learn an average of 9 words a day.
• Fast-mapping
• -Process where child quickly attaches a new
  word to its
• appropriate concept
• Whole-object assumption
• -Assume that words refer to whole objects and
  not to their component parts or characteristics
• Contrast assumption
• -The assumption that objects have only one label

50
Development of Grammar

• Childrens sentence structure increases during
  3rd year of life
• Overregularization
• -Children acquire grammatical rules as they
  learn language young ages apply rules rigidly
• -Reflects accurate knowledge of grammar
• Certain wh questions (what, who, where) appear
  earlier than others (why, when, which, how).
• Passive sentences are difficult for 2- and
  3-year-olds.

51
Pragmatics and Language

• Pragmatics
• -Practical aspects of communication
• -Children demonstrate pragmatism when they
  adjust speech to fit the social situation
• Language and cognitive development are
  interwoven.
• Piaget maintained cognitive development precedes
  language development.
• -Children learn the word and then apply it to
  the category
• Research on which develops first is inconclusive
• Vygotsky maintained that vocalizations and
  thoughts are separate during the first year.
• Inner speech
• -Spoken aloud thoughts are internalized