1. Early Childhood: Physical & Cognitive Development
Chapter 7:
Early Childhood: Physical & Cognitive Development

2. Growth Patterns: Growth rate slows during the preschool years.
Height: 2-3 inches/yr
Weight: 4-6 lbs./yr
Children become more slender as they get taller and lose baby fat.
Boys generally become slightly taller and heavier than girls.

3. Brain Development: By 2: 75% of adult weight By 5: 90% of adult weight
This growth due to continued myelinization.
Myelinization of the corpus collosum allows integration of logical and emotional functioning
Brain shows plascticity
Increase in myelin connects the nerve fibers of the cerebellum/cerebral cortex, which facilitates dev of fine motor skills, balance and coordination.

4. What is Brain Plasticity?
The 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
Brain shows most placity from 1-2, then gradually declines (other areas of the brain may assume the functiolning of the other areas)
Rasmussen’s syndrome/Seizures

5. Brain Plasticity (a real example!)

6. Gross Motor Development:
Movement which involves the large muscles used in locomotion.
As nervous system matures, movements become more precise and coordinated.
Boys and girls are similar in motor skills:
Girls slight advantage in: balance and precision
Boys slight advantage in: throwing and kicking
Preschoolers acquire new tasks by teaching themselves or watching others. (this is the most important way they learn motor skills)

8. Gross Motor Development, Cont.
Rough and tumble play: Running, chasing, hitting w/open hand, laughing, making faces.
Helps develop physical and social skills.

9. Q: Is rough and tumble play the same as aggression?
 No!
What is aggressive behavior?
Hitting, pushing, taking, grabbing, angry looks.
(Rough and tumble play helps develop physical and social skills in children; aggression does not)

10. Physical Activity:
Preschoolers spend an average of 25 hours a week in large muscle activity; decreases as child ages
The more physically active the parent, the more physically active the child
Twin studies suggest heredity component of activity
Children of active fathers 3.5 times as likely to be active as children of inactive fathers

11. Fine Motor Development:
Fine motor skills include control of wrists and fingers; develop slowly and lag behind gross motor skills; consist of buttoning, tying shoelaces, stacking blocks

13. Handedness:
Handedness emerges during infancy; by 7 to 11 months preference for particular hand increases; by age 4 clear preference for handedness.
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

14. 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

15. Preoperational Stage Lasts from age 2 to age 7
Characterized by the use of symbols to represent objects and relationships among them.
Language ability greatest symbolic activity during this stage; scribbling/drawing begins at start of this stage
Symbolism is also expressed as symbolic or pretend play.

16. The Preoperational Stage is Characterized by:
1. Symbolic play
2. Egocentrism
3. Precausal thinking
4. Conservation
5. Appearance as reality.

17. 1. Symbolic “Pretend” Play
Engaged in from 15 months of age; increases in complexity as child ages
Requires cognitive sophistication because it requires child to use and recollect symbols (things he has learned about or experienced)
First engage in pretend play at:
12-13 mo: Perform familiar activities (feed self)
15-20 mo: Feed a doll (shift focus from self to others)
30 mo: Doll is feeding self
Older preschooler: comb doll hair, have a teaparty, help doll drink it, etc.

18. 2.Egocentrism:
Children do not understand that others do not see the world as they do.
One dimensional thinking
Measured by the three mountains test.

19. 3. Precausal Thinking:
Reasoning about events that is egocentric and not based on science.
Exhibited 3 ways:
1. Transductive reasoning: reasoning by going from one specific isolated event to another
2. Animism: attribution of life and intentions to inanimate objects
3. Artificialism: assumes environmental factors such as rain and thunder have been designed and made by people
Things happen for a reason and not by accident
1.I cannot go to bed, it is still light out, I I wake up and go to school. Even on the weekende

20. 4. Conservation:
Preoperational age children can only focus on one dimension at a time, called Centration.
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
The preoperational child has not mastered “reversibility”
Reversibility: Play doh ball. Flatten. (more, less, or the same?)
Conservation requires the child to focus on more than one dimension at a time. (height and width)
Reversibilthy

23. 5. Appearance as Reality:
Appearance-reality distinction — understanding the difference between real events and mental events
A belief that an objects appearance tells you what the object is really like.
Mask with brother get scared, mustache with phil and becky.

24. 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
Two subclasses of a larger class. Animals 4 cats, 6 dogs. “Are there more dogs or more animals?”
Why? They cannot focus on the subclass and the larger class at the same time.

25. Class Inclusion Example:
Q: Are there more dogs, or animals?

26. What are the 3 Factors That Influence a Child’s 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) — the gap between what children are capable of doing alone and what they could do with help from others; adults or older children help in guiding by gearing assistance to children’s capabilities
Older more experienced individuals to teach them. Rd pg. 137
Vgotsky

27. What are the 3 Factors That Influence a Child’s Cognitive Development
What are the 3 Factors That Influence a Child’s Cognitive Development?, cont.
Inner Speech: At first children’s thoughts are spoken out loud, which serves to regulate her behavior.
Gradually the thoughts become internalized, which is the ultimate binding of language and thought.
Used especially when performing difficult tasks or after a mistake is made.

28. 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, because of this, preschool programs such as Head Start began in 1960’s
Environmental enrichment as well as parent education can enhance cognitive development of economically disadvantaged
Read pg. 138

29. 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; the 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.
What happens during a birthday party? The script is used. Then, what did you do at your birthday party?

30. What are the Factors That Influence Memory?
Order: Children remember events that follow a logical order more easily
Interest: Children remember according to what interested them
Cues from others: Younger children depend on older children or parent for cues to help them retrieve their memories
Order read pg. 140
Recall of toys for boy better if it is cars or weapons, for girls it is dolls, dishes, and bears.

31. Know!
 Parental interest and questioning increases preschooler’s memory.

32. Language Development:
Preschoolers learn an average of 9 new words a day.
Word learning does not occur gradually.
Fast-mapping — process where
child quickly attaches a new
word to its appropriate concept

33. Development of Grammar:
Children’s sentence structure increases during 3rd year of life, due to a grammar explosion.
Including:
Articles (a, an, the)
Conjunctions (and, but, but, or)
Possessive adjectives (your, her)
Pronouns (she, him, one)
Prepositions (in, on, over, around, under, through)

34. Grammar, cont.
Overregularization — children acquire grammatical rules as they learn language; young ages apply rules rigidly even in cases where there are exceptions.
Ex:
“Mommy sitted down”
“The sheeps I seed at the farm”
“The childs I saw at the park”
Read pg

35. Asking Questions:
First question tend to be telegraphic and characterized by a rising pitch.
After 3 certain Wh questions (what, who, where) appear earlier than others (why, when, which, how)
Later the child will add the verbs is, did, and will to indicate whether the question concerns the present, past or future.
More milky?

36. Pragmatics:
Practical application of language; children demonstrate pragmatics when they adjust speech to fit the social situation
“Social language”
Read pg. 142