Early Childhood

• Ages from 2 to 6 is referred to as early childhood
• It's a time of continued rapid growth especially in language & cognition areas
• Those in early childhood have more control over their emotions & begin to pursue activities reflecting personal interests
• Parents continue to be very important in the child's development, as well as teachers & peers
• Physical Development


  Growth in early childhood
• Nutrition


  • Appetite
  • Eating Habits
• Young children who grow accustomed to a high fat, very sweet, and salty flavors may have trouble eating foods that have subtler flavors such as fruits and vegetables
• Assure that

  • the child will not starve
  • the child will receive adequate nutrition
• Preschoolers can experience iron deficiencies if not given well-balanced nutrition & if given too much milk
• Brain Maturation


  • The brain continually reorganizes itself by forming new neural connections throughout life
  • This phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity
• Motor Skill Development


  • "look at me" Improved gross motor skills as they run & jump frequently ask caregivers to observe while they hop or roll down a hill
  • "Itsy Bitsy spider"- Fine motor skills involve smaller action muscle coordination. They're being refined in activities such as pouring water into a container, drawing, coloring, and using scissors
• Toilet Training


  1. Typically occurs first 2 years (24- 36 months)

  2. Most children have control over both bladder & bowels between 3 - 4 yo

  3. Some children experience elimination disorders that may require intervention (enuresis and encopresis)
• Cognitive Development

  Piaget's preoperational stage of cognitive development
• Pretend Play


  • Pretending is a favorite activity
  • Reflects changes in their conceptions or thoughts
  • Children learn as they pretend & Experiment
• Egocentrism


  Refers to the tendency of young children to think that everyone sees things in the same way as them. A boy may select an Iron Man action figure for his sister, thinking that if he likes the toy, his sister will too
• Classification Errors


  Preoperational children have difficulty in this area. Classification is the ability to identify the properties of categories (color, shape, etc)
• Conservation Errors


  Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity
• Cartoons frequently show objects that appear alive and take on lifelike qualities. Young children do seem to think that objects that move may be alive but after age 3, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk,2007)
• Zone of Proximal Development & Scaffolding


  • Lev Vygotsky's best-known concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
  • Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can almost perform a task, but not quite on their own without assistance
  • Scaffolding is the temporary support that parents or teachers give a child to do a task, AKA guided participation
  • With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully
• Sociocognitive Development


  • Self-Concept
  • Self-Control
  • Play
  • Imaginary Companions
  • Family Life
• Self-Control


  Self-control is a multifaceted phenomenon. It includes response initiation, response inhibition, and delayed gratification
• Delayed gratification


  "Marshmallow Test" Originally: Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on delayed gratification in 1972 led by psychologist Walter Mischel
• Play


  Freud, Vygotsky, and Piaget all saw play as providing positive outcomes for children
• Imaginary Companions


  • Researchers differ in how they define what qualifies as an imaginary companion
  • Some studies include only invisible characters that the child refers to in conversation, or plays with for an extended period of time
  • Other researchers also include objects that the child personifies, such as a stuffed toy or doll, or characters the child impersonates every day
  • Estimates of the number of children who have imaginary companions vary greatly
• Family Life


  Baumrind (1971) offers a model of parenting that is four styles and measured along levels of responsiveness
• Grow about 3 inches in height each year
• Gain about 4 to 5 pounds in weight each year
• Age 3: will have all 20 of their primary teeth.

  Age 4: may have 20/20 vision

  Age 6: torso has lengthened & body proportions have become more like those of adults
• • Self-concept is our self-description according to various categories, such as our external and internal qualities.
• Response initiation the ability to not initiate a behavior before you have evaluated all the information
• Response inihibition the ability to stop a behavior that has already begun
• Delayed gratification the ability to hold out for a larger reward by forgoing a smaller immediate reward
• According to Baumrind, what are the four styles of parenting?

  • A: Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, and Uninvolved.
• Oedipus complex a drama played out in the imaginaton and should not be taken literally
• Initiative vs Guild Children approach the world and create/select iwn goals
• Purpose: Children set goals and develop a conscience
• Inhibition: Children become compulsively moralistic and over controlled
• Solitary play involves children playing alone without interaction with others, while associative play involves interaction and sharing toys but not a common goal.
• Which play type is characterized by children working together to achieve a common goal?*A: Cooperative play.
• In which type of play do children observe others and may make suggestions but not join in?*A: Onlooker play.