Chapter 7

• Physical Development in Early Childhood

  • Average child grows 2 1/2 inches in height and gains 5-7 pounds per year
  • Boys are slightly taller and heavier than girls, but average differences are small
  • Body fat shows a slow, steady decline during preschool years
  • Girls may have more fatty tissues, boys have more muscle tissue
• Sleep Patterns and Problems in Early Childhood

  • Should get 11-13 hours of sleep each night
  • Sleep terror - child may scream, sit up, breathe rapidly, but remember nothing
  • Walking and talking during sleep are typical
  • Nightmares are common, often due to staying up late or heavy meals before bed
  • Enuresis - repeated, involuntary urination at night, common in early childhood
• Brain Development in Early Childhood

  • Brain is 3/4 adult size by age 3, 95% adult size by age 6
  • Most rapid growth in frontal lobe areas involved in planning, organizing, and attention
• Myelination


  • Increases speed and efficiency of information traveling through nervous system
• Gross Motor Skill Development

  1. 3 years - enjoy simple movements

  2. 4 years - become more adventurous, perform stunts

  3. 5 years - running back and forth, jumping, hopping
• Fine Motor Skill Development

  1. 3 years - can pick up tiny objects, but still somewhat clumsy

  2. 4 years - fine motor coordination improves substantially, more precise

  3. 5 years - hand, arm, and body move together under better eye control
• Systems of Action


  Increasingly complex combination of skills, allowing wider or more precise range of movement and more control of environment
• Handedness


  Preference for using a particular hand, evident by age 3
• Artistic Development


  1. 2 years - scribbling in patterns

  2. 3 years - drawing shapes

  3. 4-5 years - pictorial stage begins
• Nutrition and Exercise


  • Eating habits affect skeletal growth, body shape, disease susceptibility
  • Routine physical activity should be a daily occurrence
  • Iron deficiency anemia is a common nutritional problem
• Cognitive Advances in Early Childhood

  • Use of symbols - can think about objects not present
  • Understanding of identities - superficial changes don't alter nature
  • Understanding of cause and effect
  • Ability to classify objects, people, events
  • Understanding of number
  • Empathy - more able to imagine others' feelings
  • Theory of mind - more aware of mental activity
• Piaget's Preoperational Stage


  1. 7 years - children begin to represent world with words, images, drawings, and reason, but cannot use logic yet
• Immature Aspects of Preoperational Thought

  • Centration - inability to decenter
  • Irreversibility - failure to understand reversible operations
  • Focus on states rather than transformations
  • Transductive reasoning - jumping from one particular to another
  • Egocentrism - assuming everyone thinks/feels the same
  • Animism - attributing life to non-living objects
  • Inability to distinguish appearance from reality
• Substages of Preoperational Stage

  1. Symbolic function substage (2-4 years) - egocentrism and animism

  2. Intuitive thought substage (4-7 years) - begins using primitive reasoning, wants answers
• Centration and Limits of Preoperational Thought

  Centration evidenced in lack of conservation - awareness that altering appearance doesn't change basic properties
• Vygotsky's Theory


  • Children develop thinking and understanding through social interaction
  • Cognitive development depends on cultural tools and context
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)


  Range of tasks too difficult for child to master alone, but can be learned with adult guidance and assistance
• Scaffolding


  More skilled person adjusts guidance to fit child's current performance
• Language and Thought


  Children use language to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior
• Private Speech


  Use of language for self-regulation
• Memory Development


  • Short-term memory span increases, but also becomes more accurate
  • Attention improves significantly, focusing on relevant task dimensions
  • Executive attention - action planning, error detection, progress monitoring
  • Sustained attention - focused, extended engagement
• Basic Memory Processes


  1. Encoding - preparing information for long-term storage

  2. Storage - retaining information for future use

  3. Retrieval - accessing stored information
• Memory Storehouses


  • Sensory memory - temporary storage of sensory information
  • Working memory - short-term storage of actively processed information, with executive function control
  • Long-term memory - virtually unlimited storage of information for long periods
• Recognition and Recall


  • Recognition - identifying a previously encountered stimulus
  • Recall - reproducing material from memory
• Forming and Retaining Childhood Memories

  1. Generic memory - scripts of familiar routines to guide behavior, begins at age 2

  2. Episodic memory - long-term memory of specific experiences

  3. Autobiographical memory - memory of specific life events
• Social Interaction Model


  Children construct autobiographical memories through conversation with adults about shared events
• Early Childhood Education


  • Child-centered Kindergarten
  • Montessori Approach
  • Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP)