EARLY AND MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

• Physical development in early childhood

  • Rapid growth between ages 3 and 6
  • Growth rate slower compared to earlier years
  • Around age 3, children lose babyish roundness and develop a more slender, athletic appearance
  • Abdominal muscles strengthen, tightening the toddler potbelly
• Body proportions in early childhood

  • Trunk, arms, and legs elongate
  • Head remains relatively large, but other body parts catch up gradually, resulting in more adult-like proportions
• Gender differences in physical development

  • Boys tend to be slightly taller and heavier than girls
  • Boys have more muscle mass per pound, while girls have more fatty tissue
  • Both boys and girls grow about 2 to 3 inches in height annually
  • Weight gain is approximately 4 to 6 pounds per year
  • Boys maintain slight edge in height and weight until puberty, then a growth spurt during puberty changes this dynamic
• Muscular and skeletal growth in early childhood

  • Progression makes children stronger
  • Cartilage undergoes faster ossification, bones become harder
• Coordination of physical changes in early childhood

  • Maturing brain and nervous system coordinate growth, facilitating development of motor skills
• Sleep patterns in early childhood


  • Sleep patterns change throughout childhood
  • By age 5, most U.S. children average about 11 hours of sleep at night and give up daytime naps
• Cultural variations in sleep

  Sleep timing may vary across cultures (e.g. Gusil of Kenya, Javanese in Indonesia, Zuni in New Mexico, Canadian Hare)
• Sleep problems in preschoolers

  • Frequent night waking
  • Talking while asleep
• Causes of sleep disturbances

  • Accidental activation of motor control system
  • Incomplete arousal from deep sleep
  • Disordered breathing
  • Restless leg movements
• Sleep disturbances


  Often associated with separation anxiety, may run in families
• Sleep terrors

  Common in children, typically occur between ages 3 and 13, affecting boys more than girls
• Sleepwalking and nightmares


  Common in early childhood, interruptions may confuse and frighten the child
• Enuresis (bedwetting)


  • Common in children, about 10-15% of 5-year-olds wet the bed regularly, more common in boys
  • Reassure children and parents that enuresis is common and not serious
  • Punishment is not appropriate
  • Persistent bedwetting after ages 8 to 10 could indicate low self-esteem or other emotional issues
• Brain development in early childhood

  • Myelination of pathways for hearing is completed during this time
  • By age 6, the brain has attained about 95 percent of its peak volume, with up to a 50 percent difference in brain volume between children of the same age
  • From ages 6 to 11, rapid growth occurs in areas supporting associative thinking, language, and spatial relations
  • Myelination of the corpus callosum continues until age 15, facilitating integration between hemispheres and improving coordination of senses, attention, arousal, speech, and hearing
• Motor skill development in early childhood

  • Development of sensory and motor areas of the cerebral cortex allows better coordination between desires and abilities
  • Preschoolers show significant progress in gross motor skills, involving large muscles, and fine motor skills, like buttoning shirts and drawing
  • Only a small percentage of 4-year-olds can throw or catch a ball well, most children under 6 may not be ready for organized sports
  • Physical development flourishes best in active, unstructured free play, allowing children to explore and develop their motor skills in a supportive environment
  • Preschoolers merge existing abilities with new ones to develop complex "systems of action", demonstrating the integration and refinement of motor skills
• Handedness


  • Preference for using one hand over the other, typically evident by age 3
  • The left hemisphere of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, is usually dominant, leading most people to favor their right side
  • In individuals with more functionally symmetrical brains, the right hemisphere may dominate, resulting in left-handedness
  • Boys are more likely to be left-handed than girls
• Genetic vs environmental influences on handedness

  • Debate exists, with some arguing for genetic explanations and others suggesting environmental influences like low birth weight and difficult deliveries
  • Studies suggest the prenatal environment may influence handedness, with twins and triplets more likely to be left-handed than singletons
• Artistic development in early childhood

  • Rhoda Kellogg's study revealed a universal progression of changes in children's drawings reflecting brain and muscle maturation
  • At age 2, children scribble in patterns like vertical and zigzag lines
  • By age 3, they draw shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles, progressing to more complex designs
  • The pictorial stage typically begins between ages 4 and 5, where children transition from abstract to representational drawing
  • The shift from abstract to pictorial drawing reflects a change in the purpose of children's drawings, indicating the development of representational ability
  • Kellogg emphasizes that developmental progression occurs internally, with less adult involvement being preferable, as adult intervention may encourage greater accuracy but stifle children's creativity and freedom
  • Vygotsky's perspective highlights the role of social interactions in artistic development, and cultural variations exist in children's drawing patterns
• Childhood health challenges


  • Vaccine-preventable diseases still affect many children in developing nations
  • Obesity has become a significant problem among preschoolers, particularly in low-income families, with environmental factors playing a major role
  • Undernutrition remains a significant issue, particularly in South Asia, impacting growth, physical well-being, cognitive, and psychosocial development
  • Food allergies, particularly among children, have increased over the past decade, with reactions ranging from mild symptoms to life-threatening emergencies
  • Accidental injuries, including burns, drownings, falls, and poisonings, are a leading cause of childhood deaths worldwide
• Piaget's pre-operational stage


  Occurs from approximately ages 2 to 7, during which children develop symbolic thought, although they are not yet capable of logical mental operations
• Symbolic function in the pre-operational stage

  • Enables children to think about and represent objects, actions, and ideas in their minds without the need for sensory or motor cues, demonstrated through deferred imitation, pretend play, and language
• Deferred imitation


  The ability to imitate an action observed at an earlier time, requiring children to retain a mental representation of the observed action and reproduce it later
• Pretend play


  Involves using objects to represent something else, demonstrating children's ability to create and understand symbolic representations
• Language


  The most extensive use of the symbolic function in children, as words represent objects, actions, and ideas, allowing for complex communication
• Understanding of objects in space in the pre-operational stage


  • Children begin to understand symbols that represent physical spaces, but this process is slow, with most children not reliably grasping the relationships between pictures, maps, or scale models and the objects or spaces they represent until at least age 3
  • Older preschoolers can use simple maps and transfer spatial understanding between models and maps
• Transduction

  Mentally linking two events, especially if they occur close in time, regardless of logical causation, which Piaget believed pre-operational children used instead of logical reasoning about cause and effect
• Understanding of identities and categorization in the pre-operational stage


  • Preschool children develop a better understanding of identities, realizing that people and many things remain the same despite changes in outward appearance
  • This understanding underlies the emerging self-concept and is mirrored in their understanding of others' identities
  • Preschool children also develop improved categorization abilities
• 1 year-olds vs 4-year-olds in spatial understanding task

  • 90% of 5-year-olds successful, only 60% of 4-year-olds successful
  • Shows gradual development of spatial understanding in preschool children
• Transduction


  Mentally linking two events, especially if they occur close in time, regardless of logical causation
• Research shows young children do grasp cause and effect in appropriate situations, demonstrating flexible causal reasoning
• Preschool children's understanding of identities

  • Realizing that people and many things remain the same despite changes in outward appearance
  • Underlies the emerging self-concept and is mirrored in their understanding of others' identities
• Categorization


  The ability to identify similarities and differences
• Categorization in preschool


  • By age 4, many children can classify by two criteria, such as color and shape
  • Children use categorization to order aspects of their lives, such as categorizing people as "good," "bad," "nice" or "mean"
• Animism


  The tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive
• Animism in young children

  • Often attribute life to objects that share characteristics with living things, such as movement, sounds, or lifelike features like eyes
  • Piaget observed children sometimes attribute life to objects like the wind or clouds
• Understanding of number in preschool children

  • Infants as young as 4½ months have a rudimentary concept of number, understanding basic addition
  • Ordinality, the concept of comparing quantities, begins around 9 to 11 months
  • By age 4, most children can compare quantities using words and solve simple ordinality problems
  • Most children don't consistently apply the cardinality principle in counting until age 3½ or older
  • Some evidence suggests children as young as 2½ use cardinality in practical situations
• Development of numerical skills

  • By age 5, most children can count to 20 or more and understand the relative sizes of numbers 1 through 10
  • Children intuitively develop strategies for addition, such as counting on their fingers or using objects
  • By elementary school, most children have developed basic number sense, including counting, number knowledge, transformations, estimation, and recognition of number patterns
• Factors influencing numerical development

  • Socioeconomic status (SES) and preschool experience impact children's mathematical advancement
  • Children from middle-income families tend to have better number skills than those from low SES backgrounds
  • Preschool teachers' involvement in "math talk" and activities like counting days on a calendar can enhance children's numerical knowledge
  • Playing number board games can help bridge the gap between low and middle-income children in numerical competence
  • Numerical competence in kindergarten predicts academic performance in math through 3rd grade
• Cognitive domains where preschool children demonstrate understanding

  • Symbols: Language and symbolic play
  • Space: Understanding of spatial relationships and the use of maps
  • Causality: Flexible reasoning about cause and effect
  • Identities: Developing understanding of identity in self and others
  • Categorization: Ability to classify objects based on similarities and differences
  • Number: Development of numerical concepts and counting skills
• Centration


  Pre-operational children tend to focus on one aspect of a situation and neglect others, limiting their thinking about social and physical relationships