the presentation would help the psychology / social work students to understand the basic concepts of human growth and development

1. Childhood (End of second
year to 6 year)
Dr. Ishitha E K

2. Characteristics of childhood
 Childhood begins when the infancy period is over approximately two years of the
age group. Childhood period is divided into two age groups (i) early childhood, 2-6
years (ii) late childhood, 6- to the time the child becomes sexually mature 10/12
years
 We generally consider as a ‘little individual’ or ‘small figure’ of the family
 The child enters in the preschool and forms a personality. There are many factors
which influence the child personality such as,
 child’s social history-child learning experiences form the society , parents or
teachers ;culture, place etc.
 Some behavioural problems occur in this period such as obstinacy (inflexibility),
stubbornness, disobedience, negativistic and antagonistic.
 It is a toy age -learn

3.  This is a period when a child is considered physically and mentally independent.
 This is the age of foundations of social behaviour
 Physical changes in early childhood are accompanied by rapid changes in the child’s
cognitive and language development.
 As children become increasingly self-aware, more effective at communicating , and
better at understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, their social skills
increase.
 called as a play age and early childhood age
 intelligence is demonstrated through the use of symbols, language use matures,
and memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a non logical,
non reversible manner
 some basic understanding of less concrete concepts, including time and money.

4. DEVELOPMENTAL TASK
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
 Height: the average child in this stage grows 46.2 inches in height
 Weight: At age 6, children weighs 21-23kg
 Body build endomorphic , mesomorphic , ectomorphic or thin body.
 Motor skills: Gross motor skills include running, skipping and jumping. Fine motor skills include turning
pages of a book and learning to write and draw.
 Brain development: brain and nervous system growth.
 Body proportion and shape: Well balanced meals are important in this stage because their diet affects
skeletal growth, body shape and susceptibility to disease.
 Teeth: the back molars-erupt., the baby teeth begin to replaced by permanent teeth.

5. PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
 children start to develop self-conscious emotions, instead of purely reacting to
caregivers’ or other adults’.
 close nurturing interpersonal relationships with parents, children learn what
people expect of them and what they can expect from other people in the
Environment
 children start to evaluate themselves at the early stage of development-young
children feel ashamed, worthless and incapable of doing expected of them.
 skilled at modifying and expressing their emotions to fit different social
situations
 Children who successfully complete this stage feel secure and confident, while
those who do not are left with a sense of inadequacy and self-doubt.

6. Common emotions:
 Anger-crying, stamping, kicking, jumping
 Fear-running, hiding, crying, avoidance
 Jealousy-pretending to be ill, being naughty
 Curiosity- asking questions
 Envy – material possession, wishes what others have
 Joy – laughing, clapping, jumping
 Grief- crying, losing interest in eating and normal activities
 Affection-people, pet , objects-hugging, kissing

7. Socialisation
 patterns of early socialization
 Social contacts with other children
 Parallel play-play independently beside other children
 Associative play-similar activities with other children
 Cooperative play-in group and interact
 Behaviour in social situation
 Basic social attitude and patterns of social behavior are established
 Social patterns-imitation, rivalry, cooperation, sympathy, empathy, social approval, sharing, attachment
behavior
 Unsocial patterns-negativism, aggressiveness, ascent behavior, selfishness, destructiveness, prejudices-
race, socioeconomic, sex
 companions in early childhood
 Associates, playmates, friends

8. Play
 Play in contributes to all domains of development
 play tends to become more social that it is more interactive and cooperative. At first children
play alone, then alongside other children, and finally, together.
 three types of play, viz.,
 (i) Make believe or Pretend play-Try out roles , mother father, teacher, shopkeeper, driver, doctor
 (ii) Functional play -Functional play involves repetitive muscular movements such as rolling or
bouncing a ball. As gross motor skills improve, preschoolers run, jump, skip, hop, throw
 (iii) Constructive play-child uses objects or materials to make something, such as a house of blocks
or a crayon drawing.
 Patterns:- toy play, dramatizations, constructions, games, reading, movies, radio, television

9. Development of understanding
Common concepts
 Life- living qualities-dolls and animal
 Death
 Bodily function
 Space-learn short distance
 Time-early stage no idea of duration 4-5 years know the day of the week, 6-know
month, season, year
 Self – 3 years know their sex, full name, different body parts,
 Self concepts -begin when they start to play with other children, include facts
about abilities, race but not their socio economic status
 Sex roles more defined
 Social awareness- form opinion about others-good, nice, smart
 Beauty-colors, music, designs
 Comic-funny faces, cartoon

10. Moral development
 Learn principles of right and wrong
 Children obey rules of adults without understanding the reason
 Have not developed conscience- do not feel guilty or ashamed for wrong instead are
frightened
 Discipline in early childhood
 Authoritarian discipline -rule made and the children should obey
 Permissive discipline- not taught rules- not rewarded not punished- learn from the
consequences of the acts
 Democratic discipline- right of child to know why

11. Family relationships
 Attitude towards people, things and life in general are
patterned by their home life
 Conditions influencing
 Changes in child
 Changes in parental attitudes
 Parental concept of good child
 Childish concept of good parent
 Parental preferences
 Preference for outsiders- school, teacher, caretaker

12. LINGUSTIC DEVELOPMENT
 More clear on the pronounciation of words
 Vocabulary building
 They should be able to handle opposite analogies easily: girl-boy, man-
woman, flies-swims, short-long, sweet-sour, etc .
 They must be able to understand such terms as: alike, different,
beginning, end, etc.
 In addition children at this age should be able to tell time to quarter
hour and do simple reading and write many words.

13.  Forming sentences
 By age five, a child’s vocabulary will grow to approximately 1,500
words.
 after age of 3 child learn to produce 6-to 8 word sentences, learn to
use the past tense, and tell familiar stories using pictures
 connected story about a picture
 Improvement in speech skills
 Content of the speech- more social
 Amount of talking- chatter box age
 Influenced by intelligence, discipline, family size, etc.

14. Cognitive Development
 memory and imagination are developed, but thinking is done in a non logical
 Children form stable concepts and mental reasoning begins to develop.
 From 2-4 years children develop symbolic reasoning (the ability to picture an
object that is not present.)
 Magical beliefs are constructed.
 child develops reasoning skills and wondering “why”.
 Starting schooling is a major landmark for children at this age.
 Children experience difficulty in experiencing others person’s perspective.

15. HAZARDS DURING EARLY CHILHOOD
 Physical hazards
 Illness: : respiratory illness and wide spread infectious diseases. Virus
 Accidents
 Obesity
 unattractiveness
 Psychological hazards
 Speech hazards
 Social hazards
 Emotional hazards
 Play hazards-isolation
 Family relationship hazard
 Moral hazards

16. Conditions contributing happiness in early
childhood
 Good health
 Stimulating environment-with opportunities
 Parental acceptance and parental guidance
 Well planned disciplinary policy
 Developmentally appropriate expressions of affection
 Encouragement of creativity
 Acceptance by siblings and playmates
 Atmosphere of cheerfulness and happiness