Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part III Chapter Eight
The Play Years: Biosocial Development
Body Changes
Brain Development
Injuries and Abuse
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield
Tattoon, M.A.
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The Play Years: Biosocial Development
Children grow bigger and stronger…
become more skilled at tasks… by
age 6, they can skip, write, and much
more, as long as they have had
enough practice.
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Body Changes
– 1-year-olds are cute and chubby, while 6
year olds are “grown up”
– …the body and brain develop according
to powerful epigenetic forces,
biologically driven as well as socially
guided, experience-expectant and
experience-dependent…
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– during the play years:
• children become slimmer
• the lower body lengthens
• baby fat turns to muscle
– at age 5 the body mass index is lower than at
any other age in the entire life span
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– during the play years:
• gone is the protruding belly
• round face
• short limbs
• large head (that characterize the toddler)
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– children increase in height and weight
• Each year from age 2–6, well-nourished
children add almost 3 inches and gain
about 4 ½ pounds
• 6-year-olds weigh about 46 pounds
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– A typical 6-year-old:
• is at least 3 ½ feet tall
• weighs between 40 and 50 pounds
• looks lean, not chubby
• has adult-like body proportions
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– ethnic groups living together in the same
developed nation, children of:
• African descent tend to be the tallest, then
• European descent
• Asian descent
• Latino descent
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Body Changes
• Growth Patterns
– “Over the centuries, low-income families
encourage their children to eat, so that they
would have a reserve of fat to protect
themselves in times of famine.”
– by 2020 it is predicted that more than 228
million adults worldwide will have diabetes as a
result of unhealthy eating habits acquired in
childhood
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Body Changes
• Eating Habits
– Infants and young children today play
outside less than their parents or
grandparents did
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Body Changes
• Eating Habits
– Nutritional deficiencies
• children in developed nations consume
enough calories but lack iron, zinc, and
calcium
• most cultures encourage their children to
eat sweets
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Body Changes
• Eating Habits
– Just right
• “just right” or “just so” phenomenon is
normal and widespread among children
• most young children’s food preferences
and rituals are far from ideal
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Body Changes
• Eating Habits
– Just right
• 75% of 1500 parents reported that their
children’s just-right phase peaked at about age
3...
– have things done in a particular order or in a
certain way
– strong preference to wear or not wear cerain
clothes
– prepare for bedtime by engaging in a special
activity, routine, or ritual
– strong preference for certain foods
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Body Changes
• Eating Habits
– Just right
• by age 6 the “just right” fades
• parents should be patient until the “just
right” obsession fades
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Brain Development
“Brains grow rapidly even before birth.”
• by age 2 the brains increase in size
– a great deal of pruning of dendrites has
already occurred
– brain growth after infancy is a crucial
difference between humans and other
animals
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Brain Development
• Speed of Thought
– after infancy, continued proliferation of the
communication pathways (dendrites and axons)
results in some brain growth
– the effects of myelination are most noticeable in
early childhood
• Myelination is the process by which axons
become coated with myelin, a fatty substance
that speeds the transmission of nerve impulses
from neuron to neuron
– parent must be patient when listening to young
children talk or when helping them get dressed
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Brain Development
• Connecting the Brain’s Hemispheres
– corpus callosum
• a long band of nerve fibers that connect the left
and right hemispheres of the brain
– lateralization
• literally, sidedness; the specialization of certain
functions by each side of the brain, with one
side dominant for each activity
– the left side of the brain controls the right side of the
body, and vice versa
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Brain Development
• The Left-Handed Child
– infants and toddlers usually prefer one hand
over the other
– For centuries, parents who saw a preference
for the left-hand forced their children to be
right-handed
• since most people are right-handed the
assumption was that right-handedness was
best
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Brain Development
• The Left-Handed Child
– developmentalist advise against trying
to switch a child’s handedness… not
only because of parent-child conflict but
because it might interfere with the
natural and necessary process of
lateralization
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Brain Development
• The Whole Brain
– The left half controls the right side of the body
and contains the areas dedicated to logical
reasoning, detailed analysis, and the basics of
language.
– The right half controls the left side of the body
and contains the area dedicated to
generalized emotion and creative impules,
including appreciation of most music, art, and
poetry.
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Brain Development
• The Whole Brain
– The left side notices details and the right
side grasps the big picture
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Brain Development
• The Whole Brain
– severely brain-damaged people are
exclusively left-brained or right-brained
– every cognitive skill requires both sides of the
brain
– Because older children have more myelinared
fibers in the corpus callosum, they have better
thinking and less clumsy actions are possible
for them
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Brain Development
• Planning and Analyzing
– the prefrontal cortex or frontal cortex is
an area in the front part of the brain’s
outer layer under the forehead.
• this area underlies higher-order cognition
– planning and complex forms of goal-directed
behavior
• the prefrontal cortex is the executive part
of the brain… ruling all the other areas
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Brain Development
• Planning and Analyzing
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Brain Development
• Planning and Analyzing
– Maturation of the Prefrontal Cortex
• Notable benefits of maturation of the
prefrontal cortex occur from age 2 – 6
– sleep becomes more regular
– emotions become more nuanced and
responsive to specific stimuli
– temper tantrums subside
– uncontrollable laughter or tears become less
common
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Brain Development
• Planning and Analyzing
– Attention
• a major function of the prefrontal cortex
is to focus attention and thus curb
impulsiveness
– perseveration is the tendency to persevere
in, or stick to, one thought or action for a long
time
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Brain Development
• Emotions and the Brain
– amygdala
• a tiny brain structure that registers emotions,
particularly fear and anxiety
– hippocampus
• a brain structure that is a central processor of
memory, especially the memory of location
– hypothalamus
• a brain area that responds to the amygdala and
the hippocampus to produce hormones that
activate other parts of the brain and body
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Brain Development
• Emotions and the Brain
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Brain Development
• Emotions and the Brain
– stressful experiences… can foster growth if
the child has someone or something to
moderate the stress
– prolonged physiological responses to stress
and challenge put children at risk for a variety
of problems in childhood including:
• physical and mental disorders
• poor emotional regulation
• cognitive impairments
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Brain Development
• Motor Skills
– maturation of the prefrontal cortex
improves impulse control
– myelinaton of the corpus callosum and
lateralization of the brain permits better
coordination
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Brain Development
• Motor Skills
– Gross Motor Skills
• involves large body movement
– Fine Motor Skills
• involve small body movement (are harder to
master)
– hands and fingers
• many fine motor skills involve two hands… both
sides of the brain
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Brain Development
• Artistic Expression
– during the play years children are imaginative,
creative, and not yet very self-critical
– all forms of artistic expression blossom during
early childhood
– in every artistic domain, maturation of brain
and body is gradual and comes with practice
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Brain Development
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Brain Development
• Artistic Expression
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Injuries and Abuse
• more children die of violence, either
accidental or deliberate than from any
other cause
• in the U.S. out of every 100,000:
– 1 to 4-year-olds, 10.9 died accidentally
– 2.5 died of cancer (the leading fatal disease at
this age)
– 2.4 were murdered
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Injuries and Abuse
• young children are more vulnerable to
injuries and abuse than older children
– they are impulsive, yet depend on
others
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
– worldwide injuries cause millions of
premature deaths among young adults
as well as children
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
– injury control/harm reduction
• practices that are aimed at anticipating,
controlling, and preventing dangerous
activities;
– these practices reflect the beliefs that
accidents are not random and that injuries
can be made less harmful if proper controls
are in place
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
– three levels of prevention
• primary prevention
– actions that change overall background
conditions to prevent some unwanted event
or circumstances, such as injury, disease, or
abuse
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
– three levels of prevention
• secondary prevention
– actions that avert harm in a high-risk
situation, such as stopping a car before it hits
a pedestrian
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
– three levels of prevention
• tertiary prevention
– actions, such as immediate and effective
medical treatment, that are taken after an
adverse event such as illness or injury
occurs, and are aimed at reducing the harm
or preventing disability
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Injuries and Abuse
• Avoidable injury
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Child Maltreatment
• Maltreatment Noticed and Defined
– child maltreatment
• intentional harm to, or avoidable endangerment
of, anyone under 18 years of age
– child abuse
• deliberate action that is harmful to a child’s
physical, emotional, or sexual well-being
– child neglect
• failure to meet a child’s basic physical,
educational, or emotional needs
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Child Maltreatment
• Maltreatment Noticed and Defined
– reported maltreatment
• harm or endangerment about which
someone has notified the authorities
– substantiated maltreatment
• harm or endangerment that been
reported, investigated, and verified
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Child Maltreatment
• Warning Signs of Maltreatment
– The first signs of maltreatment are:
– delayed development
– slow grow
– immature communication
– lack of curiosity
– unusual social interaction
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Child Maltreatment
• Warning Signs of Maltreatment
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
– is a delayed reaction to a trauma or shock,
which may include hyperactivity and hypervigilance, displaced anger, sleeplessness,
sudden terror or anxiety, and confusion
between fantasy and reality
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Child Maltreatment
• Consequences of Maltreatment
– is effected by cultural context
• customs
– maltreatment compromises basic health
• abused and neglected children are often
injured, sick, hospitalized
– maltreated children and adolescents are often
bullies or victims or both
– these perspectives can last for a life span
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