Chapter 7 Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Physical Development in Early Childhood Includes ages 3 6 years old Children slim down and shoot up o Their physical activity in school helps them lose their baby weight like running and climbing Their head is still larger than their body but it catches up Boys are typically taller and more heavier than girls at this age Children typically grow 2 3 inches and gain 4 6 pounds annually Sleep Patterns Motor Skills On average these children sleep 11 hours per night and by age 5 give up daytime naps Caregivers need to assess a child s sleep temperament o Early risers late sleepers needs more sleep after physical activity Sleep problems are often associated with separation anxiety Sleep terrors affect boys more than girls o This is when the child appears to awake abruptly from a deep sleep in a state of aggravation Walking talking and nightmares during sleep are common in early childhood Enuresis repeated urination in clothing or in bed during the night is normal Gross motor skills physical skills that involve large muscle groups o Running jumping climbing o Great advances in early childhood o Most children are not ready to play organized sports Nari disagrees Fine motor skills physical skills that involve the small muscle and eye hand coordination o Buttoning shirts drawing pictures o Gains in these skills allow children to take more responsibility of personal care Systems of action increasingly complex combinations of skills which permit a wider or more precise range of movement and more control of the environment o Ex like tying a knot and then a bow Handedness preference for using a particular hand Health Obesity is a serious problem in US preschoolers o Can be hereditary but mainly environmental o At 5 there is an increase in caloric intake and a decrease in physical activity because of school o Greatest increase is among low income families Because healthier food is more expensive o Overweight children become overweight adults o 3 factors critical to prevention of obesity Regularly eating an evening meal together as a family Getting adequate amounts of sleep Watching less than 2 hours of television a day Undernutrition is an underlying cause in more than half of all deaths before the age 5 90 of all food allergies can be attributed to 7 foods o Mild o Eggs o Peanuts o Tree nuts o Fish o Soy o Wheat Cognitive Development in Early Childhood Piagetian Approach Preoperational stage the second major stage of cognitive development in which symbolic thought expands but children cannot yet use logic o Ages 2 7 Preoperational Thought Advances is symbolic thought are accompanied by a growing understanding of space causality identities categorization and numbers Symbolic function using mental representations words numbers or images to which a child has attached meaning o Symbols help children remember things that are not physically present o Ex in a hot and humid room a 4 year old says I want ice cream o 1 Deferred imitation keeping a mental representation of a previously observed event using signs or symbols later on o 2 Pretend play play involving imaginary people and situations o 3 Language uses a system of symbols to communicate Understanding objects in space o Ex map Understanding causality o Can reason by transduction tendency to mentally link particular phenomena whether or not there is logically a causal relationship Ex a child may think his bad thoughts or behaviors cause his parents divorce Understanding identities o People and many things are basically the same even if they change in shape form or size etc Ex like hair curly or straight Understanding categorization o Good bad ugly pretty etc o Animism tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive Understanding numbers o Ordinarily the concept of comparing quantities more or less bigger or smaller o Cardinality principle of counting o Number sense counting number knowledge number transformations estimation number patterns they think bigger more Immature Aspects of Preoperational Thought Centration the tendency of children to focus on one aspect of a situation and neglect others o Ex brother gets 5 small presents sister gets 2 big presents sister gets mad even though they re actually equal Decenter to think simultaneously about several aspects of a situation o Ex size quantity and money Egocentrism inability to consider another person s point of view o Ex when a kid takes another child s toy Conservations the fact that two things that are equal remain so if their appearance is altered as long as nothing is taken away or added o Ex water in a glass then poured into a bowl Irreversibility failure to understand that an operation can go in two or more directions o Ex once the water gets poured back into the bowl he can understand the amount of water in both is the same Theory of Mind dreams Awareness and understanding of mental processes such as beliefs intents desires and Information Processing Approach Memory Development o Encoding process by which information is prepared for long term storage and o Storage retention of information in memory for future use o Retrieval process by which information is accessed or recalled from memory 3 steps of memory processing later retrieval storage 3 storehouses of memory o Sensory memory temporary holding tank for incoming sensory information Without encoding fades quickly o Working memory AKA short term memory short term storage of information being actively processed Trying to understand remember or think about Executive function conscious control of thoughts actions and emotions to accomplish goals or solve problems Enables children to carry out goal directed mental activity Central executive element of working memory that controls the processing of information encodes for transfer of long term memory o Long term memory storage of virtually unlimited capacity that holds information for long periods of time Recognition and Recall Types of retrieval o Recognition the ability to identify a previously encountered stimulus Ex picking out a missing mitten from a lost and found box o Recall the ability to reproduce knowledge from memory The more familiar the object the better recall Forming and Retaining Childhood Memories 3 types of childhood memories that serve different functions o Generic memory memory that produces scripts if familiar routines to guide behavior Script general remembered outline of a familiar repeated
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