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

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

3.  Overweight young children ◦ Influenced by eating habits of caregivers ◦ Increase in obesity rate, 12.1%: 2009 -2010; 10.4%: 2007-2008 and 5%: 1976-1980 (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

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

5. I. Symbolic function substage: ◦ Egocentrism: World is viewed only from the child’s perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OinqFgsIbh0 ◦ Animism II. Intuitive thought substage Occurs between 4-7 yrs of age Primitive Reasoning “Why?” “How Come?”

6.  Centration: Focusing attention on one characteristic and excluding the others  Lack of Conservation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLEWVu815o

7. Which row has more circles AB Which line is longer AB

8.  Underestimate children’s abilities  Cultural context is missing

9.  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

11.  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

13.  Cognitive inhibitionCognitive inhibition  Cognitive flexibility  Goal setting  Delay of gratification  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo4WF3cSd9Q &list=RDSc4EF3ijVJ8&index=2

15.  Awareness of one’s own mental process and the mental processes of others ◦ Developmental changes ◦ Perceptions ◦ Emotions ◦ Desires ◦ False Beliefs ◦ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLubgpY2_w