1© 2009 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc

Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Chapter 7

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Guideposts for Study

How do children’s bodies and brains change between ages 3 and 6, and what sleep problems and motor achievements are common?

What are the major health and safety risks for young children?

What are typical cognitive advances and immature aspects of preschool children’s thinking?

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Guideposts for Study

What memory abilities expand in early childhood? How is preschoolers’ intelligence measured, and

what are some influences on it? How does language improve during early

childhood, and what happens when its development is delayed?

What purposes does early childhood education serve, and how do children make the transition to kindergarten?

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Bodily Growth and Change

Around age 3, children lose ‘baby roundness’– Limbs lengthen, height increases

Cartilage turns to bone faster

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Physical Growth: Ages 3 to 6

AgeHeight in Inches Weight in Pounds

Boys Girls Boys Girls

3 37.5 37 32 30

4 40.5 39.5 36 35

5 43 425 40 40

6 45.5 45.5 46 45

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Preventing Obesity

Over 10% of 2-5 year olds overweight Low-income children of all ethnicities at

greatest risk Heredity and learned eating habits also

contribute– As ‘junk food’ spreads through developing

countries, obesity rate increases

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Sleep Patterns

By age 5, most children – Average about 11 hours sleep a night – Give up naps

Bedtime varies among cultures:– Zuni: No regular bedtime, sleep when sleepy– Canadian Hare: Bedtime after dinner, but no naps

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Typical Sleep requirements

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Sleep Disturbances

Night Terrors – Abrupt awakening; extremely frightened

Nightmares– Common

Walking and talking – Fairly common– Accidental activation of brain’s motor control

Bed-wetting (enuresis)– About 10-15% of 5-year-olds

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Brain Development

By 6 years, brain is at 95% peak volume

Corpus callosum, linking left and right hemispheres, improves functioning

Most rapid growth in areas that support thinking, language and spatial relations

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Motor Skills

Gross– Involves large muscle groups– Jumping and running

Fine– Using eye-hand and small-muscle

coordination– Buttoning a shirt, drawing pictures

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Handedness

Usually evident by age 3 Heritability Single-Gene Theory

– Dominant allele for right-handedness– 82% of population is right-handed

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Artistic Development

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Preventing Obesity

Approximately 14% of 2-5 year olds obese

Overweight children tend to become overweight adults

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Malnutrition

Almost 30% of children worldwide are underweight, some severely.

19% of U.S. children under 18 live in food-insecure households.

Malnutrition can harm long-term cognitive development.

Early education and improved diet can moderate the effects.

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Deaths and Accidental Injuries

73% of deaths of children under 5 occur in poor, rural regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

In U.S. most child deaths are caused by injury rather than illness.

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Low SES and Health

Lower SES increases risk of injury, illness and death Poor children are more likely to:

– Be of a minority– Have chronic health problems and/or lack health

insurance– Suffer vision and hearing loss

10% of poor children are homeless—more likely to have health problems and/or depression

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Exposure to Pollutants

Parental smoking: Increases child’s risk of asthma and bronchitis

Air pollution: Increases risk of chronic respiratory diseases

Pesticide poisonings: Most occur in young children

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Exposure to Lead

Dangerous levels of lead in nearly 8% of children

Mostly poor and on Medicaid Lead gets in the bloodstream via:

– Contaminated food or water– Contaminated dust of lead paint at home or

school

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Cognitive Development:Symbolic Function

The ability to use symbols that have meaning– Words– Numbers – Images

Examples– Deferred imitation – Pretend play

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Understanding Objects in Space

Why is it hard for children under age 3 to understand scale models and maps?

Because they need to keep more than one mental representation in the mind at one time.

Advancing spatial thinking: Using simple maps and models becomes easier

after age 3

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Causality

Transduction: Mentally linking phenomena, whether logical or not

�’My parents got a divorce because I was bad.’

Familiar settings help advance causality

� ‘I am quiet so I won’t wake the baby.’

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Animism

The tendency to attribute life to inanimate objects� ‘The cloud is smiling at me!’

Familiarity increases accuracy� ‘I know that a person is different from

my doll.’

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Numbers:Five Counting Principles

Ordinality: number knowledgeCardinalityCountingNumber patternsAbstraction

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Immature Aspects of Preoperational Thought

Centration– Tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation

and neglect others– Egocentrism

Decentering– Thinking simultaneously about several aspects of

a situation– Inability to decenter leads to illogical conclusions

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Conservation

Something remains the same even if its appearance is altered– Matter/mass– Liquid– Length– Number– Area– Volume

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Irreversibility

Failure to see that an action can go two or more ways

A belief that pouring juice from glass to glass changes the amount of juice

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Egocentrism: The Three Mountain Task

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Theory of Mind

Children’s awareness of their own mental processes and those of other people

Preschoolers generally believe that mental activity starts and stops

By middle childhood, understand that activity is continuous

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False Beliefs and Deception

What do you think is in the crayon box?

Crayons! What is actually in the crayon box?

Candy! What do you think Joe will say is in the

crayon box?

Candy!

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Appearance versus Reality

Related to awareness of false beliefs

Requires child to simultaneously refer to two conflicting mental representations– Is a birthday candle wrapped in a

crayon wrapper a crayon or a candle?

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Fantasy versus Reality

Distinguishing between real and imagined events

Magical thinking…witches and dragons

Do you want to hold a box with an imaginary bunny or an imaginary monster?!

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Influences on Theory-of-Mind Development

Heredity and environmental effects

Child’s social skills

Talking with children about mental states

Cultural attitudes

Bilingual children do somewhat better

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Three Steps of Memory

EncodingStorageRetrieval

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Types of Memory

SensoryWorking

• Executive function• Central executive

Short-termLong-term

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Types of Memory Retrieval

Recognition– The ability to identify something

encountered before– Picking out a missing mitten from lost-

and-found Recall

– Reproduce information from memory– Describe the missing mitten

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Three Types of Childhood Memories

Generic� Produces ‘scripts’ - general outlines of repeated

and familiar events

Episodic� Remembering a specific event at a specific time

Autobiographical– Memories that form a person’s life history– Specific and long-lasting

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Social Interaction Model of Memory

Children collaborate with parents and adults when constructing autobiographical memories• Low elaborative style• High elaborative style

Culture affects what children remember

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Intelligence: Psychometric Measures

Tests include verbal itemsResults are more reliable than nonverbal tests for younger children

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

WPPSI-R

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Intelligence: Vygotsky’s Theory

Children use ‘scaffolds’ to learn – the temporary support of adults

Assess potential with dynamic testsZone of proximal development (ZPD)

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Language Development: Vocabulary

Fast mapping

Child learns the meaning of a word after hearing only once or twice

Theory-of-mind development plays a role By age 3, average child knows 900-1000

words By age 6, knows about 2600 and understands

more than 20,000

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Grammar and Syntax

Children start using plurals, possessives and past tense

Know the difference between I, you, and we

Most sentences are declarative Errors with irregular verbs

Holded instead of held

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Pragmatics andSocial Speech

Pragmatics– How we use language to communicate– Knowing how to ask for something

Social Speech– Speech intended to be understood by listener– Trying to explain something clearly

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Box 7.2: Private Speech

Talking aloud with no intended listener

Normal and common in childhood

Piaget: A sign of cognitive immaturity

Vygotsky: Conversation with the self More research supports this view

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Delayed Language Development

About 3% of preschool-age children May be problems in fast mapping Many children catch up – especially if

comprehension is normal� Dialogic reading helps

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Emergent literacy

General linguistic skills Vocabulary, syntax, etc.

Specific Skills Phonemic awareness: Understanding

that words are composed of sounds Social interaction Reading to children

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Types of Preschools

Child-centered (U.S.)– Stress social and emotional growth– Children choose activities and interact

individually with the teacher Academically focused (such as China)

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Compensatory Preschools: Goals of Head Start

To improve: Physical health Cognitive skills Self-confidence Relationships with others Social responsibility Sense of dignity & self-worth for child and

family

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Transitioning to Kindergarten

Today, kindergarten is more like first grade More time with worksheets and pre-reading

Preschool-experienced children transition easier

Factors easing transition:– Prosocial child– Cognitive maturity– Supportive family background

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