This document summarizes physical, cognitive, and motor development during the preschool years from ages 2-6. Key points include: physical growth trends, motor milestones like running and balancing, theories of cognitive development from Piaget and Vygotsky, influences on learning like socioeconomic status and television exposure, and debates around early childhood education programs.

1. 5-1
Chapter 5
Physical and Cognitive Development in the
Early Childhood (Pre-School) Years

2. 5-2
Development during the Preschool
Years

3. 5-3
Physical Development
Girls slightly smaller and lighter than boys
during these years [next]
Body fat also shows a slow, steady
decline
Environmental experiences
urban, middle-SES, and firstborn children
tend to be taller than rural, lower-SES, and
later-born children
Brain material in some areas can nearly
double in a year [next]

4. 5-4
Relative growth of
synapses and dendrites

5. 5-5
Physical Development: Height & Weight

6. 5-6

7. 5-7
Motor Development: 2-3 Years
• Less tripping
• Running, Hopping, Jumping
• Walk up and down stairs alone
• Balance on one foot for a few seconds; stand on tip toes
• Can throw and kick balls
• Can walk on a balance beam
Gross Motor
Fine Motor
• Can “draw,” including copying lines and circles
• Can cut with scissors
• Can string beads (supervised!) or popcorn
• Can take things apart and put them back together
(e.g., jars, lids, toys, boxes, stacks)

8. 5-8
Nutrition: Feeding the Preschooler

9. 5-9
Weight and Health
Categories determined by body mass index
(BMI)
More overweight young children
By age 5
Type II diabetes
associated with
lower S-E
More fruit juice associated
with higher incidence of
Type II diabetes

10. 5-10
Diabetes Prevalence

11. 5-11

12. 5-12
Health & Illness During the Preschool
Years
The majority of children in the United States are
reasonably healthy.
Average American child > common cold is the most
frequent (and most severe) illness.
Poor nutrition associated with low income
Nutrition linked to cognitive and
physical growth
Underfed children > often less
supervised, less stimulated,
and less educated
Health Problems in Elementary School

13. 5-13

14. 5-14
Dangers that Preschoolers Face
High levels of physical activity (they can get around on their own now).
Poison, drowning in tub (~350/yr)/pools (~250/yr), falls, burns (2nd most common among
preschoolers)
falls
poisoning
Boys have higher injury rates.
Economic and ethnic differences
Poverty = 2x higher risk
Cultural differences in supervision, gender roles
Head injury is leading cause of death for preschoolers
Motor vehicle accidents account for
38% (2011), but…

15. 5-15
Socioeconomic Status
Health status of children correlates with
income
“Approximately 11 million U.S. preschool
children are malnourished and have lowered
resistance to diseases”
(Howell, Pettit, & Kingsley, 2005; Ramey, Ramey, & Lanzi, 2006) (Olson, Tang, & Newacheck,
2005)
How are data collected?
In 2009 census, only 21 million under 5 total.

16. 5-16
Handedness
Historically, left-handers were forced to write
with their right hand
Origin of handedness
genetic
right-handedness is dominant in all cultures
Left-handers
more likely to have reading problems
tend to have better visual-spatial skills
Left-handedness more common than expected
among mathematicians, musicians, architects,
and artists

17. 5-17
Motor Development: 4 - 6 Years
• Rides a tricycle
• More coordinated hopping, jumping, skipping
• Throw and catch balls
• Swing on a swing with pumping
• Climbs ladders; uses slide independently
• Runs around obstacles seamlessly
• Skates
• Jumps rope
• More or less accident prone?
Gross Motor

18. 5-18
Motor Development: 4 - 6 Years
Fine Motor
• Can “copy” figures
• Can cut with scissors on a line
• Brushes teeth; combs hair, washes, dresses
• Prints letters and numbers
• Establishes hand preference
• Laces and then ties shoes
• Colors within lines
• Cuts and pastes
• Uses mouse on computer accurately

19. 5-19
Cognitive Changes:
Intellectual Development
Begin to represent the world with
words, images, and drawings
Use of concepts; mental reasoning
Egocentrism and magical beliefs
Child does not yet perform
operations > reversible mental
actions
Characterized by symbolic thinking
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage: 2 to 7

20. 5-20
Hart and Risley (1995)
Economic level a significant factor in
amount of parental interactions
types of language children were exposed to
kinds of language used.
Poverty related to lower IQ scores by age
five.
The longer children live in poverty, the more
severe the consequences.

21. 5-21
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
CENTRATION - concentrating on one limited aspect
of a stimulus and ignoring other aspects.
Demonstrated centration by experiments with
CONSERVATION

22. 5-22
Egocentric Thought
The inability to take the perspective of others; takes two forms:

23. 5-23
Preoperational Thought:
Intuitive Thought Substage
B/T ~4 and 7
Primitive reasoning and many questions
Questions signal the emergence of interest in reasoning
and in figuring out why things are the way they are
“Intuitive” b/c children seem sure about their knowledge
and understanding

24. 5-24
Critics of Piaget’s Approach to
Cognitive Development
(revisited)
Piaget underestimated capabilities.
Cognition develops in a continuous manner, not in
stages.
Training can improve performance in conservation
tasks.
Focused too much on the deficiencies of young
children's thought.

25. 5-25
Vygotsky’s Theory
Social constructivist approach
ZPD -- zone of proximal development
scaffolding
Which child has a larger ZPD?

26. 5-26
Do improved language abilities in
preschoolers lead to
improvements in thinking ability, or
is it the reverse?

27. 5-27
Differential Language Exposure

28. 5-28
Teaching Strategies Based on
Vygotsky’s Theory
Assess the child’s ZPD
Use ZPD in teaching
Use more-skilled peers as teachers
Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech
(Private speech facilitates learning)
Place instruction in a meaningful context

29. 5-29
Comparing Piaget’s and
Vygotsky’s Theories
Vygotsky’s emphasis
on the importance of
inner speech in
development
Students need many
opportunities to learn
with a teacher and
more-skilled peers
Piaget’s view that such
speech is immature
Children need support
to explore their world
and discover
knowledge

30. 5-30
Review Page 151/134

31. 5-31
Criticizing Vygotsky
Overemphasized 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

32. 5-32
Information-Processing
Approach
Attention -- the focusing of cognitive resources
Memory -- the retention of information over time

33. 5-33
(1) Understanding of Numbers

34. 5-34
Early childhood and TV
• 40% of 3-month-olds
• 90% of 2-yr-olds
• median age > 9 mos

35. 5-35
Television
How does television affect
cognitive dev’t of preschoolers?

36. 5-36
Television: learning from the
media?

37. 5-37
ECE
Three-quarters of children in
U.S. are enrolled in some
kind of care outside the
home.
What makes for successful
ECE?

38. 5-38
Is Head Start Successful?

39. 5-39
Head Start Funding

40. 5-40