(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Chapter 5

Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Physical Development

Growth rate slows in early childhood but it is still the most obvious physical change

Girls are only slightly smaller and lighter than boys during these years

Heads are still somewhat large for their bodies Body fat also shows a slow, steady decline

Girls have more fatty tissue than boys; boys have more muscle tissue

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Variations in Growth

Growth patterns vary individually Much of the variation is due to heredity Environmental experiences are also

involved urban, middle-socioeconomic-status, and

firstborn children tend to be taller than rural, lower-SES, and later-born children

African-American children are taller than white children

(Meredith, 1978)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The Brain Maturation of the brain combined with

opportunities for experience add to emerging cognitive abilities they plan their actions attend to stimuli more effectively show increased language development

Amount of brain material in some areas can nearly double in as little as a yearfollowed by loss of tissue as unneeded cells

are pruned the brain continues to reorganize itself

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The Brain In neurons, the number and size of

dendrites increase Myelination continues

myelination -- process in which axons are covered with a layer of fat cells

it increases the speed and efficiency of information traveling through the nervous system

(Nelson, 2011)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Gross Motor Skills 3 years of age: hopping, jumping, and

running back and forthdelight and pride in showing how they can run

and jump 4 years of age, the same kinds of activities

but more adventurousincreased abilities on steps

Age 5, they are even more adventuresome run hard and enjoy races with each other and

their parents

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Fine Motor Skills

By age 3: have had the ability to pick up the tiniest objects between their thumb and forefinger for some timebut still somewhat clumsy

By age 4: fine motor coordination has improved substantially and becomes much more precise

By age 5: hand, arm, and body all move together under better command of the eye

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Nutrition and Exercise

Eating habits important to development Affects their skeletal growth, body shape,

and susceptibility to disease Exercise and physical activity are also

very important

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Overweight Young Children

Being overweight has become a serious health problem 45 percent of children’s meals exceed recommendations

for saturated and trans fat One-third of children's caloric intake comes from

restaurants Young children’s eating behavior is strongly influenced

by their caregiver’s behavior Need a predictable schedule Model eating healthy food Mealtimes are pleasant occasions Engage in certain feeding styles

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Overweight Young Children

Categories for being overweight or at risk for being overweight are determined by body mass index (BMI)

Percentages of young children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight have increased By age 5

physicians are seeing Type II diabetesoverweight is associated with lower self-

esteem(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Exercise

Routine physical activity should be a daily occurrencePreschool children should engage in 2 hours

of physical activity per dayOne hour structuredOne hour unstructured

Child’s life should be centered around activities, not meals

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Malnutrition Poor nutrition is associated with low income

poor nutrition -- diets low in essential amounts of iron, vitamins, or protein

In the United States, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program was designed to address malnutrition and provides:Healthy supplemental foodsHealth care referrals Nutrition education for women from

pregnancy and for infants and children up to age 5

WIC serves 7,500,000 participants

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Illness and Death

In the United States, accidents are the leading cause of deathmotor vehicle accidentsdrowningfallspoisoning

Cancer Cardiovascular disease (National Center for Health Statistics, 2009; Modell, 2010)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Safety and Prevention

Influences on children’s safety their own skills and safety behaviors characteristics of their family and home, school peerscommunity’s actions

Figure 5.2 outlines the steps that can be taken in each of these contexts to enhance children’s safety and prevent injury

(Trasande & others, 2010; Sleet & Mercy, 2003)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Parental Smoking An estimated 22 percent of children and

adolescents are exposed to tobacco smoke in the home

Children exposed to smoke are more likely to develop wheezing symptoms and asthma than children in non-smoking homesLinked to young children’s sleep problems

and sleep-disordered breathing

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

World Health Issues

Many deaths could be prevented by a reduction in poverty and improvements in nutrition, sanitation, education, and health services

Dramatic increase in the number of young children who have died because of HIV/AIDS transmitted to them by their parentsthese deaths occur in countries with high

rates of poverty and low levels of education

(UNICEF, 2009, 2010, 2011)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Cognitive Changes

Piaget’s Preoperational Stagefrom approximately 2 to 7 years of age children begin to represent the world with

words, images, and drawings form stable concepts and begin to reason dominated by egocentrism and magical

beliefs Child does not yet perform operations -- which

are reversible mental actions

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Preoperational Thought: Symbolic Function

Substage Between ages of 2 and 4 Child gains the ability to mentally

represent an object that is not present Egocentrism -- inability to distinguish

between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective

Animism -- the belief that inanimate objects have life-like qualities and are capable of action

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Preoperational Thought: Intuitive Thought

Substage Between approximately 4 and 7 years of age Begin to use primitive reasoning and ask all

sorts of questions Questions signal the emergence of interest in

reasoning and in figuring out why things are the way they are

“Intuitive” because children seem sure about their knowledge and understanding

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Centration and the Limits of Preoperational

Thought Another limitation of preoperational thought is centration -- centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others. centration is most clearly evidenced in young

children’s lack of conservation -- the awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Vygotsky’s Theory

Vygotsky was a constructivist Vygotsky’s social constructivist approach

emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interactionZPD -- zone of proximal development scaffolding

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Zone of Proximal Development

Zone of Proximal Development -- Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children lower limit of the ZPD is the level of skill reached by

the child working independentlyupper limit is the level of additional responsibility the

child can accept with the assistance of an able instructor

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding -- changing the level of support A teacher or advanced peer adjusts the

amount of guidance to fit the child’s current performance when the student is learning a new task, the

skilled person may use direct instruction as the student’s competence increases, less

guidance is given

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Language and Thought According to Vygotsky (1962), children use

speech not only for social communication, but also to help them solve tasks -- children use language to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior language for self-regulation is called private

speechfor Piaget, private speech is egocentric and

immaturefor Vygotsky, it is an important tool of thought

during the early childhood years(Wertsch, 2007)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Teaching Strategies Based on Vygotsky’s Theory

Assess the child’s ZPD Use the child’s zone of proximal

development in teaching Use more skilled peers as teachers Monitor and encourage children’s use of

private speech Place instruction in a meaningful context

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Comparing Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

Vygotsky’s emphasis on the importance of inner speech in development

The main implication of Vygotsky’s theory for teaching is that students need many opportunities to learn with a teacher and more skilled peers

Piaget’s view that such speech is immature

Implication of Piaget’s theory for teaching is that children need support to explore their world and discover knowledge

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Evaluating Vygotsky

Critics say Vygotsky overemphasized the role of language in thinking

Emphasis on collaboration and guidance has potential pitfallsFacilitators might be too helpful Some children might become lazy and expect

help when they might have done something on their own

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Information Processing

Attention -- the focusing of cognitive resources Executive attention involves planning actions,

allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress on tasks, dealing with novel or difficult circumstances

Sustained attention is focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment 

Control of attention Salient versus relevant dimensionsPlanfulness  

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Memory Memory -- the retention of information over time

Short-term memory -- individuals retain information for only about 30 seconds using rehearsal (repeating information after it has

been presented), we can keep information in short-term memory for a much longer period

older children are better able to rehearse speed and efficiency of processing information are

important memory becomes more accurate with age

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

How Accurate Are Young Children’s Long-Term

Memories? There are age differences in susceptibility

to misleading or incorrect post-event information

Individual differences in suggestibility Interviewing techniques can produce

distortions suggestible not just about peripheral details

but also about the central aspects of an event

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The Young Child’s Theory of Mind

Awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others

Studies view the child as “a thinker who is trying to explain, predict, and understand people’s thoughts, feelings, and utterances”

Children’s theory of mind changes as they develop through childhood

(Harris, 2006; Gelman, 2009; Wellman, 2011)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Theory of Mind Age 2–3, children begin to understand

three mental states:perceptionsemotions desires

Age 4–5, they come to understand that the mind can represent objects and events accurately or inaccurately they realize that people can have false beliefs

-- beliefs that are not true

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Theory of Mind: Beyond Age 5

Not until middle and late childhood do children see the mind as an active constructor of knowledge or processing center

Then they can move from understanding that beliefs can be false to realizing that the same event can be open to multiple interpretations

(Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 2000; Carpendale & Chandler, 1996)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Language Development

Between 2 and 3 years of age children make a transition from saying simple sentences that express a single proposition to saying complex sentences

Children learn the special features of their own language; there are regularities in how they acquire that particular language

(Bloom, 1998; Berko Gleason, 2005)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Understanding Phonology and Morphology

Phonology -- the sound system of a language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined

Morphology -- the units of meaning involved in word formation plural and possessive forms of nouns appropriate endings on verbs use prepositions, articles, and various forms

of the verb “to be”Refer to study by children’s language

researcher Jean Berko (1958)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Changes in Syntax and Semantics

Rules of syntax -- the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences

Semantics -- the aspect of language that involves the meaning of words and sentences

Pragmatics -- the appropriate use of language in different contexts

(Marchman & Thal, 2005)

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Young Children’s Literacy

Build on what children already know about oral language, reading, and writing

Include language skills, phonological and syntactic knowledge, letter identification, and knowledge about print and its functions

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Variations in Early Childhood Education

Child-centered kindergarten emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for his or her physical, cognitive, and socioemotional developmentEach child follows a unique developmental

patternYoung children learn best through firsthand

experiences with people and materialsPlay is extremely important in the child’s total

development

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Variations in Early Childhood Education

The Montessori Approach is a philosophy of education in which children are given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activitiesTeacher is facilitator rather than director

Shows the child how to perform intellectual activities

Demonstrates interesting ways to explore curriculum materials

Offers help when the child requests it

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Developmentally Appropriate Education

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is education that focuses on the typical developmental patterns of children and the uniqueness of each child

Desired outcomes include:Thinking criticallyWorking cooperativelySolving problemsDeveloping self-regulatory skillsEnjoying learning

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Education for Young Children Who Are

Disadvantaged Project Head Start -- a compensatory

program designed to provide children from low-income families the opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences important for success in school

Evaluations support the positive influence of high-quality early childhood programs on both the cognitive and social worlds of disadvantaged young children

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Controversy Over Curriculum

Currently there is controversy about what the curriculum of U.S. early childhood education should be

Child-centered, constructivist approach along the lines of developmentally appropriate practice versus an academic, direct instruction approach

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

A Combined Approach Many high-quality programs include both

academic and constructivist approaches Experts like Lilian Katz worry about academic

approaches that place pressure on young children to achieve and don’t provide any opportunities to actively construct knowledge

Programs should focus on cognitive development and socioemotional development, not just on cognitive development

Another controversy is whether preschool education should be instituted for all U.S. 4-year-old children