1. Early Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development
Chapter Seven

2. p. 124

3. Growth Patterns
Growth rate slows during preschool years; girls and boys gain 2 to 3 inches in height per year and weight gains fairly stable from 4 to 6 pounds per year
Children become “slender” as height increases
Boys slightly larger; variations child to child

5. Development of the Brain
Brain develops more quickly than any other organ during childhood; at 2 years brain is 75% of adult weight; at 5 years brain is 90% of adult weight; body weight of 5 year old is only 1/3 of adult weight
Increase in brain size due in part to myelination of nerve fibers
Completion of myelination of neural pathways that link the cerebellum to the cerebral cortex helps development of fine motor skills

6. Brain Development Continued
Between ages 4 and 7 parts of the brain involved in the ability to sustain attention and screen out distractions has become more myelinated
Most children ready to read and do school work by this time
Visual processing speed improves and reaches adult level at adolescence
Functions of left and right hemispheres overlap
Information from right to left hemispheres and left to right hemisphere able due to the corpus callosum (connecting nerve fibers)

7. Brain Development Continued
Plasticity – brain’s ability to compensate for injuries to particular parts of the brain
Plasticity greatest at 1 to 2 years of age; preschoolers with damage to language areas can overcome them due to plasticity
Sprouting (growth of new dendrites) may contribute to brain’s plasticity; redundancy of neural connections may also contribute

8. Motor Development
Gross motor skills involve large muscles used in locomotion such as balancing on one foot, walking up stairs, pedaling a bike; by age 4 to 5 most older preschoolers have mastered large motor skills
Boys and girls similar in development; girls slight advantage in balance and precision; boys slight advantage in throwing and kicking
Nature and nurture contribute to motor development
Preschoolers spend an average of 25 hours a week in large muscle activity; decreases as child ages

10. Rough-and-tumble play is not the same as aggressive behavior.

12. Physical Activity Continued
Rough and tumble play helps develop physical and social skills in children; aggression does not
The more physically active the parent, the more physically active the child
Children of active fathers 3.5 times as likely to be active as children of inactive fathers
Twin studies suggest heredity component of activity
Fine motor skills include control of wrists and fingers; develop slowly and lag gross motor skills; consist of buttoning, tying shoelaces, stacking blocks

13. Children’s Drawings
Development of drawing is linked to the development of motor and cognitive skills
Kellogg (1959, 1970) identified basic scribbles needed in the building blocks of art: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, circular, curving, waving/zigzagging, and dots
Four stages of making scribbles consist of: placement, shape, design and pictorial stages; stage develops from random placement of scribble on paper at age 2 to drawing basic shapes at age three to drawing a recognizable object at age 4 or 5

14. Figure 7.2: The Twenty Basic Scribbles.
By the age of 2, children can scribble. Rhoda Kellogg has identified these 20 basic scribbles as the building blocks of the young child’s drawings.
Fig. 7-2, p. 128

15. Figure 7.3: Four Stages in Children’s Drawings.
Children go through four stages in drawing pictures. (a) They first place their scribbles in various locations on the page. They then (b) draw basic shapes and (c, d) combine shapes into designs. Finally, (e) they draw recognizable objects.
Fig. 7-3, p. 129

16. Handedness
Handedness emerges during infancy; by age 4 mos. clear preference for right-hand; by 7 to 11 months preference for particular hand increases; by childhood clear preference for right or left hand
Left-handedness associated with dyslexia, stuttering, high blood pressure, epilepsy, schizophrenia and depression; ALSO associated with higher math ability, success in athletics, success in musical fields, architectural fields and the arts
Heredity contributes to handedness

17. p. 129

18. Nutrition
4 to 6 year olds need 1,400 calories a day; 1 to 3 year olds need 1,000 to 1,300
Appetite becomes erratic during 2nd and 3rd year of life
Children are often fed too much salt and sugar
Food preferences are somewhat environmental
Repeated exposure to a food increases the liking of it; parents are the role model for which types of food a child will like to eat

19. Health and Illness
Minor illnesses refer to respiratory infections, gastrointestinal upsets; last a few days to a week
These diseases in childhood are normal; leading killer of children in developing countries is diarrheal illness
Advances in immunization along with development of antibiotics have reduced and/or eradicated illnesses such as rubella, measles, tetanus, mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio

20. p. 130

21. Health and Illness Continued
1/3 of children in the U.S. younger than 18 years of age suffer from a chronic illness such as arthritis, diabetes, cerebral palsy, or cystic fibrosis
World wide 8 to 9 million children die from six diseases: pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, tetanus, whooping cough, and tuberculosis
Air pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels for heating and cooking causes many respiratory infections which are responsible for one death in five for children younger than 5 years of age

22. Health and Illness Continued
Diarrhea kills nearly 2 million children under the age of 5 each year; due to unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene
Consuming lead or breathing in dust from paint with lead in it or drinking tap water with lead in it can contribute to neurological damage and a lowered cognitive functioning and other delays in childhood

23. Accidents
Number one cause of death in early childhood is motor vehicle accidents
Boys more likely than girls to incur accidental injuries at all ages and in all socioeconomic groups
Poor children are five times as likely to die from fires and more than twice as likely to die in motor vehicle accidents than children who aren’t poor
High accident rate of low-income children may result in part from living in dangerous housing and neighborhoods

24. Sleep Disorders
Sleep terrors — more severe than nightmares; occur during deep sleep; nightmares occur during REM; begin in childhood; end in late adolescence; can be associated with stress; may wake suddenly with a surge in heart and respiration rates, talk incoherently; thrash about
Sleep terrors can contribute to child’s fear of going to sleep and insomnia; caretakers have to be understanding and give affection; regular sleep routine helps

25. p. 131

26. Sleep Disorders Continued
Sleep walking (somnambulism) — children may walk, rearrange toys, go to the bathroom, go to the refrigerator; no memory of activity; awakening them does not cause aggressive behavior; onset is between ages of 3 and 8; occurs during deep sleep; sleep walking associated with immaturity of the nervous system

28. Elimination disorders
Most American children potty trained between the ages of 3 and 4; may still have “accidents”
Enuresis — failure to control the bladder (urination) once the “normal” age for achieving bladder control has been reached (usually at age 5); does not include bed-wetting under twice a month; immaturity of the motor cortex may be contributor; outgrow between age 8 and adolescence

29. Elimination Disorders con’t
Bed-wetting — inability to wake up during the night and go to the bathroom; 8 to 10% of American children bed wet; occurs during deep sleep

30. Elimination Disorders Continued
Encopresis — lack of control over the bowels; more common with boys as is bed-wetting; 1 to 2% of children at the ages of 7 and 8 have continuing problems with bowels; soiling more likely to happen during the day causing embarrassment to the child; stems from physical causes such as chronic constipation as well as psychological factors such as harsh punishment for toileting accidents

31. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
Preoperational stage lasts from age 2 to age 7
Language ability greatest symbolic activity during this stage; scribbling/drawing begins at start of this stage
Symbolic play (pretend play) is engaged in from 15 months of age; increases in complexity as child ages
Quality of child’s play has long term implications; preschoolers who engage in violent pretend play are less empathic, less likely to help other children and more likely to engage in antisocial behavior later on

32. p. 133

33. p. 133

34. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Continued
65% of preschoolers have imaginary friends; more common among first born and only children than children with siblings
Children with imaginary playmates are less aggressive, more cooperative, more creative than children without imaginary friends; show better ability to concentrate and are more advanced in language development

35. Piaget con’t
Egocentrism — one-dimensional thinking; think parents are aware of everything that is happening to them; Piaget used “three-mountains” test to measure it
Precausal — unless preoperational children know the natural causes of an event, their reasons are likely to be based egocentrically and not based on science

37. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Continued
Transductive reasoning — children reason by going from one specific isolated event to another
Animism — attribution of life and intentions to inanimate objects
Artificialism — assumes environmental factors such as rain and thunder have been designed and made by people

38. p. 134

39. p. 135

40. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Continued
Preoperational child has difficulty making distinctions between mental and physical events; may believe dreams are real
Can only focus on one dimension at a time
Conservation — law that holds that properties of substances such as volume, mass and number remain the same even if you change their shape or arrangement; attainment of this skill moves the child into concrete operational stage
Preoperational child has not master reversibility

43. Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Stage Continued
Class inclusion — including new objects or categories in broader mental classes or categories; requires child to focus on two aspects of a situation at once; this skill not observed during preoperational stage

44. Vygotsky’s Factors in Cognitive Development
Scaffolding — temporary support provided by a parent or teacher to learning children; guidance by adult decreases as child is capable of carrying out task on their own
Zone of proximal development (ZPD) — gap between what children are capable of doing now and what they could do with help from others; adults or older children help in guiding by gearing assistance to children’s capabilities

45. “HOME” Environment
HOME – Caldwell et al (2003) developed measure for evaluating children’s home environments; acronym for Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment;
contains six subscales;
better predictors of young children’s IQ than social class, mother’s IQ or infant IQ scores;
home environment connected with occupational success as an adult
Parental responsiveness, stimulation, encouraging independence of preschooler is connected with higher IQ scores and greater school achievement

47. Effects of Early Childhood Education
Preschool education enables children to get an early start on achievement in school
Higher the SES, the greater the performance of standardized intelligence tests
Preschool programs begun in 1960’s
Head Start provides health care as well as beginning reading skills
Environmental enrichment as well as parent education can enhance cognitive development of economically disadvantaged

48. Television
U.S. children spend more time watching television than they do in school
3 year olds watch 2 to 3 hours of TV per day
Children’s programming shows mild to moderate effects on preschoolers’ cognitive development; effects better for girls than boys
Sesame Street has been shown to increase lower SES children’s learning of numbers, letters
Commercials are harmful to children’s food choices

49. Theory of Mind
Preschoolers can accurately predict and explain human action and emotion in terms of mental states
Preschoolers can separate their beliefs from those of another person who has false knowledge of a situation by age of 4 to 5
By age 4 children understand that senses contribute to understanding qualities of an object
Appearance-reality distinction — understanding the difference between real events and mental events

50. Development of Memory
By age 4 children can remember events from 1 1/2 years earlier
Young children form scripts when describing what happens during a particular event
Script becomes more elaborate as it is told
Autobiographical memory (episodic memory) — memory for specific events is facilitated by children talking about them with others

51. p. 139

52. Development of Memory con’t
Children remember events that follow a logical order easier
Children remember according to interest
Younger children depend on older children for cues to help them retrieve their memories
Parental interest and questioning increases preschooler’s memory

53. Development of Memory Continued
When preschoolers are younger, they remember more than the report
Verbal reports used to measure accuracy of preschoolers’ memory
Rehearsal — memory strategy using repetition; engaged in around 5 years
Sorting objects enhances preschoolers’ memory
Memory strategies advance during middle childhood

54. Language Development: Why “Daddy Goed Away”
Preschoolers learn an average of 9 words a day
Fast-mapping — process where child quickly attaches a new word to its appropriate concept
Whole-object assumption — assume that words refer to whole objects and not to their component parts or characteristics
Contrast assumption — novel terms must refer to unfamiliar objects and not to familiar objects that already have labels

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56. Development of Grammar
Children’s sentence structure increases during 3rd year of life
Overregularization — children acquire grammatical rules as they learn language; young ages apply rules rigidly
Some grammar errors are logical due to understanding the past tense rule
Certain Wh questions (what, who, where) appear earlier than others (why, when, which, how)
Passive sentences difficult until ages 5 or 6

57. Pragmatics
Pragmatics — practical application of language; children demonstrate pragmatics when they adjust speech to fit the social situation
Language and cognitive development are interwoven
Piaget maintained cognitive development precedes language development; children learn the word and then apply it to the category
Research on which develops first is inconclusive
Vygotsky maintained that vocalizations and thoughts are separate during the first year
Inner speech — spoken aloud thoughts are internalized