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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


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)


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 year

followed by loss of tissue as unneeded cells are pruned

the brain continues to reorganize itself


Why is the prefrontal cortex

especially important in our

development? What is its’ primary

role?


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)


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

running back and forth

delight and pride in showing how they can run and jump

4 years of age, the same kinds of activities

but more adventurous

increased abilities on steps

Age 5, they are even more adventuresome

run hard and enjoy races with each other and their parents


Fine Motor Skills

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

but 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


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


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


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 diabetes

overweight is associated with lower self-esteem

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011)


Exercise

Routine physical activity should be a daily occurrence

Preschool children should engage in 2 hours of physical activity per day One hour structured

One hour unstructured

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


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 foods

Health care referrals

Nutrition education for women from pregnancy and for infants and children up to age 5

WIC serves 7,500,000 participants


Illness and Death

In the United States, accidents are the leading cause of death

motor vehicle accidents

drowning

falls

poisoning

Cancer

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


Safety and Prevention

Influences on children’s safety

their own skills and safety behaviors

characteristics of their family and home, school

peers

community’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)


How does the individual,

family, school/peers,

and community impact

the young child’s

development?


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 homes

Linked to young children’s sleep problems and sleep-disordered breathing


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 parents these deaths occur in countries with high

rates of poverty and low levels of education

(UNICEF, 2009, 2010, 2011)


Cognitive Changes

Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

from 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


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


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


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


How do these concepts relate to one another? Why does a

Preoperational child not present the “correct” answer,

according to Piaget?


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 interaction

ZPD -- zone of proximal development

scaffolding


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 independently

upper limit is the level of additional responsibility the

child can accept with the assistance of an able

instructor


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


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 speech

for Piaget, private speech is egocentric and immature

for Vygotsky, it is an important tool of thought during the early childhood years

(Wertsch, 2007)


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


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


Evaluating Vygotsky

Critics say Vygotsky overemphasized the

role of language in thinking

Emphasis on collaboration and guidance

has potential pitfalls

Facilitators might be too helpful

Some children might become lazy and expect

help when they might have done something

on their own


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 dimensions

Planfulness


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


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


The Young Child’s “Theory of Mind”

Definition: 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)


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

three mental states:

perceptions

emotions

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


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)


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)


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)


How do you know the

answer to this question?

This relates to early

language learning of

rules of our spoken and

written language.

How might other

languages answer be

different?


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)


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


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 development

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


Variations in Early Childhood Education

The Montessori Approach is a philosophy

of education in which children are given

considerable freedom and spontaneity in

choosing activities Teacher 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


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 critically

Working cooperatively

Solving problems

Developing self-regulatory skills

Enjoying learning


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


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


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

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