Download Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Physical and Cognitive Development
in Early Childhood
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Dr. Kuther's Chalk Talks: Part III
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Compared to infancy and toddlerhood, growth
is slower during early childhood.
• From ages 2-6: The average child grows 2 to 3
inches and gains nearly 5 pounds in weight
each year.
• Average 6-year-old child: Weighs 45 pounds
and is about 46 inches tall.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Factors Influencing Growth
– Genetics
• Parents’ height
• Hormones
– Growth hormone is secreted from birth and influences growth
in nearly all parts of the body.
• Ethnic differences
– Children of African decent tend to be the tallest, followed by
those of European decent, then Asian, then Latino.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Factors Influencing Growth
– Nutrition
• From ages 2-6, appetites tend to decline.
• Children may become picky eaters. May have an adaptive
value.
• Most picky eaters become more accepting of different foods
with age, although picky eating can be a relatively stable
individual trait.
• Dietary deficiencies are not limited to developing nations,
although chronic malnutrition is much higher in these
countries.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Factors Influencing Growth
– Nutrition
• Malnourished children show cognitive deficits, as well
as impairments in motivation, curiosity, and the ability
to interact with the environment.
• Low-income families in the United States and other
developed countries have difficulty providing children
with the range of foods needed for healthy growth and
development.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Between ages 3 and 6, children make
significant gains in gross and fine motor skills.
– Gross motor skills involve the large muscles and
include skills like running and jumping.
• Gross motor skills involve advances in brain
development, as well as physical development.
– Children from low-SES backgrounds are at-risk for poor gross
motor skills.
– Practice and context contribute to these gains.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Growth and Motor Development
in Early Childhood
• Fine motor skills include the ability to button a
shirt, pour milk into a glass, put puzzles
together, and draw pictures.
– Involve eye-hand and small muscle coordination.
– Contribute to increased independence.
– Fine motor skills can be difficult for younger
children, as they involve both hands and both
sides of the brain.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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VIDEO CASE
Fostering Gross Motor Skills in Early Childhood
In early childhood, children make impressive gains in both gross and fine
motor development. Both practice and contextual factors help advance
young children’s motor development. Notice how gross motor practice, as
well as instruction in yoga, supports multiple domains of development—
physical, cognitive, and socioemotional.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Table 7.1: Gross
and Fine Motor
Skill Development
in Young Children.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• At age 2, the brain reaches 75% of its adult
weight, and 90% by age 5.
• Increases in brain matter, pruning, early
experience, and myelination contribute to
advances in children’s motor and cognitive
abilities.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Lateralization
– The process of the hemispheres becoming
specialized to carry out different functions is
called lateralization.
– Lateralization begins before birth and is influenced
by both genes and early experiences.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Lateralization
– Hemispheric dominance: for most people, the left
hemisphere dominates over the right.
– Handedness is an example of hemispheric dominance, with
90% of people in Western nations being right-handed.
– The corpus callosum connects the left and right
hemispheres of the brain and allows them to
communicate and coordinate processing.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Plasticity
– The human brain has a capacity to change its
organization and function in response to
experience throughout the life span, which is
known as plasticity.
– The brain contains an overabundance of neurons and
synapses, allowing it to receive as much sensory and motor
stimulation as possible.
– Pruning of synapses is important for plasticity.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Plasticity
– The brain is most plastic early in life.
– How well a young child’s brain compensates for an
injury depends on the age at the time of injury,
site of the injury, and brain areas and capacities
compromised.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Brain-Based Education
– Views learning as multidimensional and includes
more than just academics.
– Children are encouraged to develop physical,
musical, creative, cognitive, and other abilities.
– Because the brain changes and is plastic, everyday
enrichment can alter children’s brains.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Brain Development in Early Childhood
• Brain-Based Education
– Some education emphasizes teaching different
parts of the brain separately.
– Emphasizes active learning (consistent with
Piaget’s theory).
– Critics argue that integrating neurological research
into the classroom is not supported with
evidence.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Perspective:
Preoperational Reasoning
– Preoperational reasoning (ages 2-6): characterized
by a dramatic leap in the use of symbolic thinking,
permitting young children to use language,
interact with others, and play using their own
thoughts and imaginations to guide their behavior.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Perspective:
Preoperational Reasoning
– Young children show dramatic gains in
representational thinking, but they are unable to
grasp logic and cannot understand complex
relationships.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Perspective:
Preoperational Reasoning
– Common Errors
• Egocentrism: Inability to take another person’s point of
view or perspective.
» Three Mountain Task
• Animism: Belief that inanimate objects are alive and
have feelings and intentions.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Figure 7.2: Three Mountains Task
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Common Errors
– Centration: Tendency to focus on one part of a
stimulus or situation and exclude all others.
– Irreversibility: Inability to understand that reversing a
process can often undo it and restore the original
state.
– Conservation: Understanding that the quantity of a
substance is not transformed by changes in its
appearance, that a change in appearance can be
reversed.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Figure 7.4: Additional Conservation Problems
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Evaluation and Research on Piaget’s
Preoperational Reasoning Stage
– Piaget’s tests of preoperational reasoning
underestimated the skills of young children.
– Success on Piaget’s tasks depend more on
language than actions.
– Young children are less egocentric than Piaget
believed.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Evaluation and Research on Piaget’s
Preoperational Reasoning Stage
– Although some animism exists, young children do not
often describe inanimate objects with life-like qualities.
– When taught how to solve conservation tasks and
when tasks are simplified, young children show
evidence of reversibility and can distinguish
appearance from reality.
– Piaget too often focused on what children cannot do,
rather than what they can do.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• The Development of Children’s Drawing Abilities
– Young children’s skills in drawing and writing illustrate
the interaction of cognitive and motor domains of
development.
– Drawing skills progress through a predictable
sequence:
•
•
•
•
Scribbles (Second year of life)
Tadpole-like forms (Universal; Ages 2-3)
Representational forms (Ages 3+)
Actual objects (4-5)
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
– Children’s learning develops through collaboration
with others.
– More skilled partners serve as models and provide
instruction.
– Guided participation: Form of teaching in which
the partner is attuned to the needs of the child
and helps him or her to accomplish more than the
child could do alone.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
– Scaffolding: The expert partner provides support
that allows the child to bridge the gap between his
or her current competence level and the task at
hand.
– Zone of proximal development: The gap between
the child’s competence level, what he can do
alone, and what he can do with assistance.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
Information Processing Skill
Description
Attention
Young children are better able to focus and sustain attention and
complete task, but have difficulty with complex tasks that require
switching attention among stimuli.
Memory
Limited working memory affects performance on memory and
problem solving tasks. Young children show gains in recognition
memory and the ability to use scripts but they do not use memory
strategies effectively.
Theory of Mind
Theory of mind refers to children’s awareness of their own and
other people’s mental processes. Young children’s understanding of
the mind grows and changes between ages 2 and 5.
Metacognition
Young children demonstrate a growing ability for metacognition,
understanding the mind. However, abilities are limited and they
tend to fail false-belief and appearance-reality tasks.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Information Processing
– Attention
• Children become better at planning and focusing their
attention; they continue to have difficulty with more
complex tasks.
– Memory
• Episodic memory: Memory for events.
• Recognition memory: Ability to recognize a stimulus one has
encountered before.
• Recall memory: Ability to generate a memory of a stimulus
encountered before without seeing it again.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Information Processing
– Memory
• Memory strategies: Cognitive activities that make us
more likely to remember.
– Chunking: Grouping similar items together so they can be
remembered. Begins in preschool.
• Memory for scripts: Descriptions of what occurs in a
particular situation.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Information Processing
– Autobiographical memory: Memory of personally
meaningful events that took place at a specific
time and place in one’s past.
• Infantile amnesia: A phenomenon in which most
people have no memories prior to age 3.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Information Processing
– Young children recall more details about events
that are unique or new.
– Language and social experiences contribute to
young children’s developing memory capacities.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Applying Developmental Science: Children’s
Susceptibility
– Can young children accurately recall events that
they have experienced or witnessed, such as
abuse, maltreatment, and domestic violence?
• Repeated questioning, as well as young children’s
natural trust in others, may increase suggestibility.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– Theory of mind: Children’s awareness of their own
and other people’s mental processes.
• Although Piaget believed that children under the age of
6 could not understand the distinctions among dreams,
fantasy, thoughts, and reality, follow-up research
reveals that even very young children have some
understanding of the mind.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– False Belief: Three-year-old children tend to
perform poorly on false belief tasks.
– Three year-olds confuse present knowledge with
the memories for prior knowledge, a finding that
is found across procedures and cultures.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early
Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– Developmental Transition in False Belief
Understanding
• By age 3: Children understand that two people can believe
different things.
• Four-year-olds: Understand that people who are
presented with different versions of the same event
develop different beliefs.
• By age 4 or 5: Children become aware that they and other
people can hold false beliefs.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– Factors Influencing False Belief Understanding
• Advanced cognition, including gains in executive
function—cognitive abilities, such as attention,
memory, and inhibitory control.
• Language development
• Parent-child interactions
• Cultural contexts
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– Metacognition: Knowledge of how the mind works
and the ability to control the mind.
• Between ages 2 and 5, children’s understanding of the
mind grows.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Theory of Mind and Metacognition
– They understand that they can know something
that others do not, that their thoughts can be
observed, and that there are individual differences
in mental states.
– However, young children do not understand that
we think even when inactive and they have
limited knowledge of memory functions.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Table 7.4: Cognitive Advances in Early Childhood
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Vocabulary
– At age 2, most children know about 500 words; by
age 3, vocabulary grows to 900-1000 words. By
age 6, the average child uses about 2,6000 words
and can understand more than 20,000.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Vocabulary
– How does vocabulary expand so rapidly?
• Fast mapping
• Frequent adult-child conversations
• Logical extension: When learning a word, children
extend it to other objects in the same category.
• Mutual exclusivity assumption: The assumption that
new words are labels for unfamiliar objects.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Early Grammar
– By age 3, children can use plurals, possessives,
and past tense. They also demonstrate an
understanding of the pronouns, I, you, and we.
– Four and five year olds can use 4- to 5-word
sentences and can express declarative,
interrogative, or imperative sentences.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Early Grammar
– Context influences the acquisition of grammar.
• As with vocabulary development, parent-child
conversations contribute to children’s understanding of
grammar.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Early Grammar
– Overregularization errors are common. Children
apply grammatical rules too stringently, such as
when they say foots instead of feet or mouses
instead of mice.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Private Speech
– Private speech, or self-talk, accounts for 20-50
percent of the utterances of children ages 4 to 10.
• Piaget referred to children’s self-talk as egocentric
speech, reflecting the egocentrism that characterizes
the preoperational stage.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Young Children’s Language Development
• Private Speech
– Vygotsky argued that private speech serves
important developmental functions, a belief that
is strongly supported by research.
• Private speech guides behavior, fosters new ideas, and
plays an important role in self-regulation.
• With age, private speech become internalized.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive capacities, combined with skills in
theory of mind, influence moral reasoning—
how children make judgments in their social
world.
– Age 2: Children describe behaviors as “good” or
“bad.”
– By age 3: Children can identify that a child who
intentionally knocks another child off a swing is
worse than one who does so accidentally.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Age 4: Children understand the difference
between truth and lies.
• By age 5: Children are aware of many moral
rules and demonstrate conceptions of justice.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Social Learning Theory
– Moral behavior is acquired through reinforcement
and modeling.
– Adults and peers serve as important models,
demonstrating appropriate and even
inappropriate actions and verbalizations.
– Children are more likely to imitate behavior when
the model is competent and powerful.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– Views moral development through a cognitive lens
and examines reasoning about moral issues.
– Young children’s reasoning about moral problems
changes with development as they construct
concepts about justice and fairness from their
interactions in the world.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– Piaget studied moral development using
observation and the clinical interview.
• Morality of constraint: Children are aware of rules and
see them as sacred and unalterable.
• Moral behavior is consistent with the rules that
authority figures set.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– Lawrence Kohlberg investigated moral
development by posing hypothetical dilemmas
about justice, fairness, and rights that place
obedience to authority and law in conflict with
helping someone.
• Moral reasoning progresses through a universal order
or stages.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– Preconventional reasoning: Young children’s
behavior is guided by self-interest, avoiding
punishment, and gaining rewards.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– As early as age 3, children can differentiate
between moral imperatives, which concern
people’s rights and welfare, and social
conventions, or social customs.
• Example: Stealing an apple (a moral violation) is viewed
more harshly than eating with your fingers (a social
convention).
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Moral Development in Early Childhood
• Cognitive Developmental Theory
– Children in diverse cultures differentiate moral,
social conventional, and personal issues.
– Social experiences also contribute.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Education
– Preschool programs: Provide educational
experiences for children ages 2 to 5.
• Child-centered: Children choose among a variety of
activities and play as vehicles for learning.
• Academically-oriented: Children are provided with
structured learning environments through which they
learn letters, numbers, shapes, and academic skills via
drills and formal lessons.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Education
– Which type of program is most effective?
• The most effective early childhood education programs
include responsive and stimulating daily interactions
between teachers and children.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Education
– Effective early childhood education is defined and
influenced by cultural values.
• In the U.S., a child-centered approach is associated with
the most positive outcomes.
• In collectivist cultures, (e.g., Japan), preschool
programs emphasize social and classroom routines,
skills, and promoting group harmony.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Education
– Project Head Start: Created in 1965 by the federal
government, this program provides economically
disadvantaged children with nutritional, health,
and educational services during the early
childhood years.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Education
– Longitudinal research on early childhood
education interventions:
• Carolina Abecedarian Project
• Perry Preschool Project
– Both programs showed lasting benefits into adulthood.
– In their 30s and 40s, participants showed higher levels of
education and income.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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VIDEO CASE
Child-Oriented Preschool
Mark and Melody describe Ella’s preschool experiences, noting
characteristics of high-quality, child-oriented learning.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Ethical and Policy Applications of Life Span
Development: Project Head Start
– A primary goal is to give children living in poverty
a “head start” on their education.
– Most programs include 1-2 years of preschool, as
well as nutrition and health services.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Ethical and Policy Applications of Life Span
Development: Project Head Start
– Parent assistance is also provided, as well as an
emphasis on parent involvement.
– Research shows that Head Start improves
cognitive performance in children but over time,
their performance is similar to children who do
not attend the program.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Ethical and Policy Applications of Life Span
Development: Project Head Start
– Why do the benefits fade?
• Early intervention may not compensate for the
pervasive and long-lasting effects of poverty-stricken
neighborhoods and inadequate public schools.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Ethical and Policy Applications of Life Span
Development: Project Head Start
– The good news: There are lasting benefits that do
not show up on test scores. Children who attend
Head Start are:
• less likely to be held back a grade.
• less likely to be assigned to special education classes.
• more likely to graduate from high school.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Ethical and Policy Applications of Life Span
Development: Project Head Start
– Effective intervention and education programs
target young children very early in life; must treat
the whole child; encourage parent involvement;
and provide intervention beyond the preschool
years.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– In 2013, U.S. children under the age of 18
represented 33% of all people living in poverty.
• Young children under the age of 6 are at highest risk of
living in poverty.
– 25% of all children under the age of 6 live in poverty, with an
additional 23% raised in near poverty.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– Persistent poverty is associated with:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Malnutrition
Growth stunting in height and weight
Lower cognitive scores
Delayed language development
Learning difficulties
Emotional and behavior problems
High school dropout
Aggressive and delinquent behavior
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– Quality of home environment predicts children’s
outcomes.
• High-quality parenting, which is less common in
families affected by poverty, is associated with
enhanced social and emotional functioning and
linguistic competence.
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– Neighborhood conditions influence young
children indirectly through effects on parents,
family processes such as parenting behaviors,
stimulation, and learning opportunities, as well as
the quality of the home environment.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– Interventions
• Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)
• Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act
– Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
• Earned Income Tax Credit
Kuther, Lifespan Development. © 2017, SAGE Publications.
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Contextual Influences on
Development in Early Childhood
• Effects of Exposure to Poverty
– Interventions
• Welfare-to-work programs that increase employment
tend to have little effects on school achievement in the
preschool and early childhood years.
– However, programs that increase both employment and
income have beneficial effects on school achievement.
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