PHYSICAL & COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD Lecture Prepared by: Dr. M. Sawhney

 Body Growth & Change ◦ Children grow about 2.5 inches in a year and gain 5-7 pounds weight  Brain ◦ Increased Myelination ◦ Frontal Lobe

 Overweight young children ◦ Influenced by eating habits of caregivers ◦ Increase in obesity rate, 12.1%: ; 10.4%: and 5%: (Ogden et al., 2012) ◦ United States has second highest rate of obesity Malnutrition Developing countries face malnutrition as a norm Iron deficiency (anemia) is experienced by majority of children

Cognitive Development in Early childhood Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Vygotsky’s Theory Information Processing Theory

I. Symbolic function substage: ◦ Egocentrism: World is viewed only from the child’s perspective ◦ Animism II. Intuitive thought substage Occurs between 4-7 yrs of age Primitive Reasoning “Why?” “How Come?”

 Centration: Focusing attention on one characteristic and excluding the others  Lack of Conservation

Which row has more circles AB Which line is longer AB

 Underestimate children’s abilities  Cultural context is missing

 Social interaction is the key to development  Zone of proximal development (ZPD)  Scaffolding: Help given by a skilled person to accomplish a task  Private Speech

 Attention: Focusing of mental resources on select information Executive attention Sustained attention Attention deficiencies: Salient Vs. relevant dimensions Planfulness  Memory: Retention of information over time Short term memory: Information can be retained upto 30 seconds without rehearsal

 Cognitive inhibitionCognitive inhibition  Cognitive flexibility  Goal setting  Delay of gratification  &list=RDSc4EF3ijVJ8&index=2

 Awareness of one’s own mental process and the mental processes of others ◦ Developmental changes ◦ Perceptions ◦ Emotions ◦ Desires ◦ False Beliefs ◦