childhood period

• Childhood


  The period after infancy and before the child begins formal schooling, typically from ages 3 to 5 or 2 to 6 years
• This is a period of tremendous physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, and language development
• Experiences in early and middle childhood are extremely important for a child's healthy development and lifelong learning
• How a child develops during this time affects future cognitive, social, emotional, language, and physical development, which in turn influences school readiness and later success in life
• Research on a number of adult health and medical conditions points to pre-disease pathways that have their beginnings in early and middle childhood
• Early Childhood: Motor Development

  Changes in Gross and Fine Motor Skills in Early Childhood
• Gross Motor Skills at Age 2


  • Can kick a ball without losing balance
  • Can pick up objects while standing, without losing balance
  • Can run with better coordination
  • Able to turn a door knob
  • Can look through a book turning one page at a time
  • Can build a tower of 6 to 7 cubes
  • Able to put on simple clothes without help
• Gross Motor Skills at Age 3


  • Can briefly balance and hop on one foot
  • May walk up stairs with alternating feet (without holding the rail)
  • Can pedal a tricycle
  • Can build a block tower of more than nine cubes
• Fine Motor Skills at Age 3

  • Can easily place small objects in a small opening
  • Can copy a circle
  • Can draw a person with 3 parts
  • Can feed self easily
• Gross Motor Skills at Age 4


  • Shows improved balance
  • Hops on one foot without losing balance
  • Throws a ball overhand with coordination
• Fine Motor Skills at Age 4

  • Can cut out a picture using scissors
  • Can draw a square
  • Manages a spoon and fork neatly while eating
  • Puts on clothes properly
• Gross Motor Skills at Age 5

  • Has better coordination (getting the arms, legs, and body to work together)
  • Skips, jumps, and hops with good balance
  • Stays balanced while standing on one foot with eyes closed
• Fine Motor Skills at Age 5


  • Shows more skill with simple tools and writing utensils
  • Can copy a triangle
  • Can use a knife to spread soft foods
• Middle Childhood: Gross-Motor Skills


  • Better developed than fine-motor skills
  • Physical skills makes them feel independent
  • Full of energy to run, jump, skip, hop
  • Activities improve balance and coordination
  • Fearlessness may result in accidents
  • Visual-motor coordination improves
• Middle Childhood: Fine-Motor Skills


  • Hand-eye coordination improves
  • Dexterity improves
  • Writing skills are a combination of cognitive and physical development
  • Cutting, coloring, building, and playing electronic games all develop fine-motor skills
  • Self-care depends on fine-motor development
• Sleep


  During early childhood, there is wide variation in the number of hours of sleep recommended per day
• Sleep recommendations by age

  • Newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours
  • Infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours
  • Toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours
  • Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours
  • School age children (6-13): 9-11 hours
  • Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours
  • Younger adults (18-25): 7-9 hours
  • Adults (26-64): 7-9 hours
  • Older adults (65+): 7-8 hours
• Toilet Training


  • Typically occurs during the first two years of early childhood (24-36 months)
  • Some children show interest by age 2, but others may not be ready until months later
  • The average age for girls to be toilet trained is 29 months and for boys it is 31 months, and 98% of children are trained by 36 months
  • Most children master daytime bladder control first, typically within two to three months of consistent toilet training
  • Nap and nighttime training might take months or even years
  • The child's age is not as important as his/her physical and emotional readiness
• Health and Nutrition


  • The slowed pace of physical growth during early childhood is reflected in the decreased & at times finicky appetites
  • New levels of physical activity (increased motor development & control) place significant demands on the young body for appropriate amounts of sleep & nutrition
  • Nutritional views is influenced by culture, economic status, and new problems include childhood obesity
  • Caregivers need to keep in mind that they are setting up taste preferences at this age
• Preoperational stage


  Piaget's second stage, lasting from about 2 to 7 years of age, during which children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings, and symbolic thought goes beyond simple connections of sensory information and physical action; stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges, egocentrism is present, and magical beliefs are constructed
• Preoperational thought


  The beginning of the ability to reconstruct in thought what has been established in behavior
• Symbolic Function Sub-stage


  Piaget's first sub-stage of preoperational thought, in which the child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present (between about 2 and 4 years of age)
• Egocentrism


  The inability to distinguish between one's own perspective and someone else's (salient feature of the first sub-stage of preoperational thought)
• Animism


  The belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action
• Intuitive Thought Sub-stage


  Piaget's second sub-stage of preoperational thought, in which children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to all sorts of questions (between 4 and 7 years of age)
• Centration


  A centering of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others, evidenced in young children's lack of conservation
• Conservation


  The awareness that altering an object's or a substance's appearance does not change its basic properties
• Concrete Operational Stage


  The stage of major turning point in the child's cognitive development, because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought
• Inductive logic


  Going from a specific experience to a general principle
• Deductive logic


  Using a general principle to determine the outcome of a specific event
• Reversibility


  Awareness that actions can be reversed
• Conservation


  Understanding that when something changes in shape or appearance it is still the same
• Decentration


  The ability to focus on many parts of a problem
• Concrete operational stage


  Stage of development marked by decreases in egocentrism and the ability to focus on many parts of a problem (decentration)
• Decentration


  • Ability to focus on many parts of a problem, unlike the preoperational stage where children tend to focus on just one aspect
• The cognitive world of the preschool child is creative, free, and fanciful. Preschool children's imaginations work overtime, and their mental grasp of the world improves.
• Vygotsky's theory


  Emphasizes that children actively construct their knowledge and understanding through social interaction, with the tools and cultural context provided by society
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)


  Range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more-skilled children
• Scaffolding


  Changing the level of support provided by a more skilled person (teacher or advanced peer) to fit the child's current performance as their competence increases
• Private speech


  Children's use of language to plan, guide, and monitor their own behavior, which Vygotsky saw as an important tool of thought in early childhood