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Chapter 5
Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL

(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Physical Development
Growth rate slows in early childhood but it is still the most obvious physical change
Girls are only slightly smaller and lighter than boys during these years
Heads are still somewhat large for their bodies
Body fat also shows a slow, steady decline
Girls have more fatty tissue than boys; boys have more muscle tissue

Variations in Growth
Growth patterns vary individually
Much of the variation is due to heredity
Environmental experiences are also involved
urban, middle-socioeconomic-status, and firstborn children tend to be taller than rural, lower-SES, and later-born children
African-American children are taller than white children
(Meredith, 1978)

The Brain
Maturation of the brain combined with opportunities for experience add to emerging cognitive abilities
they plan their actions
attend to stimuli more effectively
show increased language development
Amount of brain material in some areas can nearly double in as little as a year
followed by loss of tissue as unneeded cells are pruned
the brain continues to reorganize itself

Why is the prefrontal cortex especially important in our development? What is its’ primary role?

The Brain
In neurons, the number and size of dendrites increase
Myelination continues
myelination -- process in which axons are covered with a layer of fat cells
it increases the speed and efficiency of information traveling through the nervous system
(Nelson, 2011)

Gross Motor Skills
3 years of age: hopping, jumping, and running back and forth
delight and pride in showing how they can run and jump
4 years of age, the same kinds of activities
but more adventurous
increased abilities on steps
Age 5, they are even more adventuresome
run hard and enjoy races with each other and their parents

Fine Motor Skills
By age 3: have had the ability to pick up the tiniest objects between their thumb and forefinger for some time
but still somewhat clumsy
By age 4: fine motor coordination has improved substantially and becomes much more precise
By age 5: hand, arm, and body
all move together under better
command of the eye

Nutrition and Exercise
Eating habits important to development
Affects their skeletal growth, body shape, and susceptibility to disease
Exercise and physical activity are also very important

Overweight Young Children
Being overweight has become a serious health problem
45 percent of children’s meals exceed recommendations for saturated and trans fat
One-third of children's caloric intake comes from restaurants
Young children’s eating behavior is strongly influenced by their caregiver’s behavior
Need a predictable schedule
Model eating healthy food
Mealtimes are pleasant occasions
Engage in certain feeding styles

Overweight Young Children
Categories for being overweight or at risk for being overweight are determined by body mass index (BMI)
Percentages of young children who are overweight or at risk for being overweight have increased
By age 5
physicians are seeing Type II diabetes
overweight is associated with lower self- esteem
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011)

Exercise
Routine physical activity should be a daily occurrence
Preschool children should engage in 2 hours of physical activity per day
One hour structured
One hour unstructured
Child’s life should be centered around activities, not meals

Malnutrition
Poor nutrition is associated with low income
poor nutrition -- diets low in essential amounts of iron, vitamins, or protein
In the United States, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program was designed to address malnutrition and provides:
Healthy supplemental foods
Health care referrals
Nutrition education for women from pregnancy and for infants and children up to age 5
WIC serves 7,500,000 participants

Illness and Death
In the United States, accidents are the leading cause of death
motor vehicle accidents
drowning
falls
poisoning
Cancer
Cardiovascular disease
(National Center for Health Statistics, 2009; Modell, 2010)

Safety and Prevention
Influences on children’s safety
their own skills and safety behaviors
characteristics of their family and home, school
peers
community’s actions
Figure 5.2 outlines the steps that can be taken in each of these contexts to enhance children’s safety and prevent injury
(Trasande & others, 2010; Sleet & Mercy, 2003)

How does the individual, family, school/peers, and community impact the young child’s development?

Parental Smoking
An estimated 22 percent of children and adolescents are exposed to tobacco smoke in the home
Children exposed to smoke are more likely to develop wheezing symptoms and asthma than children in non-smoking homes
Linked to young children’s sleep problems and sleep-disordered breathing

World Health Issues
Many deaths could be prevented by a reduction in poverty and improvements in nutrition, sanitation, education, and health services
Dramatic increase in the number of young children who have died because of HIV/AIDS transmitted to them by their parents
these deaths occur in countries with high rates of poverty and low levels of education
(UNICEF, 2009, 2010, 2011)

Cognitive Changes
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
from approximately 2 to 7 years of age
children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings
form stable concepts and begin to reason
dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs
Child does not yet perform operations -- which are reversible mental actions

Preoperational Thought: Symbolic Function Substage
Between ages of 2 and 4
Child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present
Egocentrism -- inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective
Animism -- the belief that inanimate objects have life-like qualities and are capable of action

Preoperational Thought: Intuitive Thought Substage
Between approximately 4 and 7 years of age
Begin to use primitive reasoning and ask all sorts of questions
Questions signal the emergence of interest in reasoning and in figuring out why things are the way they are
“Intuitive” because children seem sure about their knowledge and understanding

Centration and the Limits of Preoperational Thought
Another limitation of preoperational thought is centration -- centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others.
centration is most clearly evidenced in young children’s lack of conservation -- the awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties

How do these concepts relate to one another? Why does a Preoperational child not present the “correct” answer, according to Piaget?

Vygotsky’s Theory
Vygotsky was a constructivist
Vygotsky’s social constructivist approach emphasizes the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction
ZPD -- zone of proximal development
scaffolding

Zone of Proximal Development
Zone of Proximal Development -- Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children
lower limit of the ZPD is the level of skill reached by the child working independently
upper limit is the level of additional responsibility the child can accept with the assistance of an able instructor

Scaffolding
Scaffolding -- changing the level of support
A teacher or advanced peer adjusts the amount of guidance to fit the child’s current performance
when the student is learning a new task, the skilled person may use direct instruction
as the student’s competence increases, less guidance is given

Language and Thought
According to Vygotsky (1962), children use speech not only for social communication, but also to help them solve tasks -- children use language to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior
language for self-regulation is called private speech
for Piaget, private speech is egocentric and immature
for Vygotsky, it is an important tool of thought during the early childhood years
(Wertsch, 2007)

Teaching Strategies Based on Vygotsky’s Theory
Assess the child’s ZPD
Use the child’s zone of proximal development in teaching
Use more skilled peers as teachers
Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech
Place instruction in a meaningful context

Comparing Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories
Vygotsky’s emphasis on the importance of inner speech in development
The main implication of Vygotsky’s theory for teaching is that students need many opportunities to learn with a teacher and more skilled peers
Piaget’s view that such speech is immature
Implication of Piaget’s theory for teaching is that children need support to explore their world and discover knowledge

Evaluating Vygotsky
Critics say Vygotsky overemphasized the role of language in thinking
Emphasis on collaboration and guidance has potential pitfalls
Facilitators might be too helpful
Some children might become lazy and expect help when they might have done something on their own

Information Processing
Attention -- the focusing of cognitive resources
Executive attention involves planning actions, allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring progress on tasks, dealing with novel or difficult circumstances
Sustained attention is focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
Control of attention
Salient versus relevant dimensions
Planfulness

Memory
Memory -- the retention of information over time Short-term memory -- individuals retain information for only about 30 seconds
using rehearsal (repeating information after it has been presented), we can keep information in short- term memory for a much longer period
older children are better able to rehearse
speed and efficiency of processing information are important
memory becomes more accurate with age

How Accurate Are Young Children’s Long-Term Memories?
There are age differences in susceptibility to misleading or incorrect post-event information
Individual differences in suggestibility
Interviewing techniques can produce distortions
suggestible not just about peripheral details but also about the central aspects of an event

The Young Child’s “Theory of Mind”
Definition: Awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others
Studies view the child as “a thinker who is trying to explain, predict, and understand people’s thoughts, feelings, and utterances”
Children’s theory of mind changes as they develop through childhood
(Harris, 2006; Gelman, 2009; Wellman, 2011)

Theory of Mind
Age 2–3, children begin to understand three mental states:
perceptions
emotions
desires
Age 4–5, they come to understand that the mind can represent objects and events accurately or inaccurately
they realize that people can have false beliefs -- beliefs that are not true

Theory of Mind: Beyond Age 5
Not until middle and late childhood do children see the mind as an active constructor of knowledge or processing center
Then they can move from understanding that beliefs can be false to realizing that the same event can be open to multiple interpretations
(Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 2000; Carpendale & Chandler, 1996)

Language Development
Between 2 and 3 years of age children make a transition from saying simple sentences that express a single proposition to saying complex sentences
Children learn the special features of their own language; there are regularities in how they acquire that particular language
(Bloom, 1998; Berko Gleason, 2005)

Understanding Phonology and Morphology
Phonology -- the sound system of a language, including the sounds that are used and how they may be combined
Morphology -- the units of meaning involved in word formation
plural and possessive forms of nouns
appropriate endings on verbs
use prepositions, articles, and various forms of the verb “to be”
Refer to study by children’s language researcher Jean Berko (1958)

How do you know the answer to this question? This relates to early language learning of rules of our spoken and written language. How might other languages answer be different?

Changes in Syntax and Semantics
Rules of syntax -- the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences
Semantics -- the aspect of language that involves the meaning of words and sentences
Pragmatics -- the appropriate use of language in different contexts
(Marchman & Thal, 2005)

Young Children’s Literacy
Build on what children already know about oral language, reading, and writing
Include language skills, phonological and syntactic knowledge, letter identification, and knowledge about print and its functions

Variations in Early Childhood Education
Child-centered kindergarten emphasizes the education of the whole child and concern for his or her physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development
Each child follows a unique developmental pattern
Young children learn best through firsthand experiences with people and materials
Play is extremely important in the child’s total development

Variations in Early Childhood Education
The Montessori Approach is a philosophy of education in which children are given considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities
Teacher is facilitator rather than director
Shows the child how to perform intellectual activities
Demonstrates interesting ways to explore curriculum materials
Offers help when the child requests it

Developmentally Appropriate Education
Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is education that focuses on the typical developmental patterns of children and the uniqueness of each child
Desired outcomes include:
Thinking critically
Working cooperatively
Solving problems
Developing self-regulatory skills
Enjoying learning

Education for Young Children Who Are Disadvantaged
Project Head Start -- a compensatory program designed to provide children from low-income families the opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences important for success in school
Evaluations support the positive influence of high-quality early childhood programs on both the cognitive and social worlds of disadvantaged young children

Controversy Over Curriculum
Currently there is controversy about what the curriculum of U.S. early childhood education should be
Child-centered, constructivist approach along the lines of developmentally appropriate practice versus an academic, direct instruction approach

A Combined Approach
Many high-quality programs include both academic and constructivist approaches
Experts like Lilian Katz worry about academic approaches that place pressure on young children to achieve and don’t provide any opportunities to actively construct knowledge
Programs should focus on cognitive development and socioemotional development, not just on cognitive development
Another controversy is whether preschool education should be instituted for all U.S. 4-year- old children

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