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Chapter 8:

Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood 

Physical Changes 

•         Children’s body growth and change:

–        Average growth is 2.5 inches and 5-7 pounds
a year during early childhood
(less for girls than for boys) 

–        Growth variation due to genetics, nutrition, prenatal problems, experiences, and SES 

–        Factors that affect child’s growth:

•         Growth hormone deficiency

•         Mother smoked during pregnancy 

–        Brain growth in early childhood is not as rapid as in infancy – changes occur in neurons 

•         Changes in child’s brain structure:

–        Increase in number and size of nerve endings

–        Increased myelination: better focus, coordination

–        Increased dopamine concentration and most rapid growth in frontal lobe during ages 3 to 6 years

–        Rapid growth spurt periods and drastic tissue loss of unneeded cells – brain is always “reorganizing” 

•         More research is needed to chart connections between cognitive development, brain structure,
and information processing 

•         Gross motor development in children:

–        Simple run-and-jump movements enjoyed at age 3

–        Child is more adventurous at age 4

–        Child is self-assured taking hair-raising risks at age 5  

•         Fine motor skills in children:

–        Picks up tiniest objects at age 3 but still a little clumsy

–        Has trouble building high towers with blocks at age 4

–        Has better eye, hand, and body coordination at age 5

–        Right-handedness is dominant in all cultures and appears to be genetically influenced

Development of Gross Motor Skills in Early Childhood

Development of Fine Motor Skills in Early Childhood

–        About 95% of right-handed people primarily process speech in left
hemisphere of brain 

–        Left-handers are

•         More likely to have reading problems

•         More common in musicians, mathematicians, architects, and artists 

•         Nutrition in children:

–        What is eaten affects skeletal growth, body shape, and susceptibility to disease

–        Average preschooler needs 1,700 calories per day

–        Energy needs of individual children of same age, sex, and size may vary

–        Calories from fat should be limited 

•         Child obesity is

–        A serious problem in the United States

–        Linked to diabetes, low levels of fitness, low self-esteem, and iron deficiency anemia

•         Leading causes of death in U.S. children are

–        Accidents

–        Cancer

–        Birth defects

–        Heart disease

•         Of concern for children’s safety today: exposure to tobacco smoke and its link to respiratory problems & vitamin C deficiency 

•         Poor health of children from low SES is of concern  

•         About 11 million children are malnourished and at higher risk for diseases and lead poisoning  

•         UNICEF’s annual reports of “under-5 mortality rate”

–        Nutritional health and knowledge of mothers

–        Levels of immunization, dehydration, income

–        Availability of health services, clean water

–        Overall safety of environment and sanitation 

Cognitive Changes 

•         A preschooler’s world is creative, free, and fanciful

–        Piaget’s preoperational stage: ages 2–7 years

•         Child cannot think without acting

•         Operations allow child to mentally rehearse
future physical acts, but thinking is still flawed

•         First substage of preoperational thought:

•         Symbolic functions include scribbled drawings representing real objects

•         Child at age 2–4, still very egocentric and animistic 

•         Second substage of preoperational thought

–        Intuitive thought: child uses primitive reasoning but is still centric in thought, lacks conservation abilities

•         Preoperational child’s inability to mentally reverse actions applies to numbers, length, volume, and area

•         Some claim Piaget’s views were not completely correct  

•         Between ages 3-5, children exhaust adults with “why” questions – the questions give clues to the child’s mental development and reflect intellectual curiosity  

•         Vygotsky’s theory:

–        Zone of proximal development (ZPD):

•         Lower limit can be achieved by child alone

•         Upper limit can be achieved by child’s skills    with adult guidance and instruction

•         Other limits can’t be achieved yet 

–         Scaffolding involves changing level of support during a teaching session – close, direct instruction is reduced

–        Language is used for social communication, solving tasks, and monitoring one’s own behavior 

•         Vygotsky claims that

–        Language and thought develop independently of each other and then merge

–        Child uses language to communicate with others before she/he can focus on inward thoughts

–        Transition to use of internal speech occurs between ages 3 and 7, and is followed by action without  speaking aloud 

•         Socially competent children use private speech more

•         Piaget: self-talk is egocentric and reflects immaturity

•         Research finds private speech is used more in difficult tasks; users are more attentive and perform better 

•         Vygotsky’s recommended teaching strategies:

–        Effectively assess child’s ZPD

–        Use the child’s ZPD in teaching

–        Used more-skilled peers as tutors

–        Monitor child and encourage private speech

–        Place instruction in meaningful context

–        Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas 

•         Using Vygotsky’s ideas, children from collaborative schools were more cooperative 

•         A child’s ability to pay attention changes significantly during preschool years  

•         Memory:

–        Short-term: one can retain information up to 30 seconds with no rehearsal – memory span increases (in digits) with age but varies between individuals 

–        Speed and efficiency of memory process improves with age and experience 

–        Young children can remember a great amount of information when given the right cues and prompts 

•         The young child’s theory of mind:

–        Age 2–3: children begin to understand three mental states – perceptions, desires, emotions 

–        Age 4–5: children understand “false beliefs” and that people can be mistaken 

–        Only beyond preschool years do children  have a deepening appreciation of the mind  

–        In middle and late childhood, children understand beliefs are “interpretive” 

Language Development 

•         As children develop through early childhood, they

–        Grasp the rules of grammar at a rapid rate

–        Make all sounds of their language

–        Use most parts of speech correctly

–        Overgeneralize the rules

–        Manipulate syntactic structures 

•         By age 6, the average child has a speaking vocabulary of 8,000 to 14,000 words 

•         At age 6, average child is learning 22 words per day and understands past, present, and future

Early Childhood Education 

•         Variations in early childhood education:

–        Child-centered kindergarten: focus on whole child

–        Montessori approach: teacher is facilitator, child has freedom, with emphasis on peer interaction

–        Reggio Emilia approach: mostly for special children in Italy, learning by investigation and exploration of topics 

•         Educational practices should be developmentally appropriate, taking into consideration the uniqueness of the child 

•         Project Head Start to help the disadvantaged:

–        Federally funded, created in 1965

–        Not all programs in the U.S. are equal

–        Seeks to intervene where there is a lack of enriched early childhood educational experiences  

•         Issues in early childhood education:

–        What should the curriculum be?

–        Does preschool matter?

–        When is a child ready for school?