Development in Early Childhood ECD 101 Periods of Early Childhood Development Periods of Early Childhood Development Domains of Development • • • • • Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Cognitive Language and Literacy Social Emotional Development of Creative and Aesthetic Appreciation • Approaches to Learning Perceptual and Physical Development • Health, safety, and nutrition includes children’s physical well-being depends on several factors, including their knowledge and use of safe, healthy behaviors and routines. Children’s ability to keep themselves safe and healthy, such as communicating to adults when they are hungry or sick, is extremely important and contributes to learning and development in all areas. • Sensory and Perceptual Development: – Development of the five senses through visual, auditory, olfactory and kinesthetic experiences – Learning to control and coordinate their reflexes – Coordination of sensory perceptions and simple motor behaviours – Display awareness of location and spatial relationship Physical Motor Development • Gross motor skills refer to moving the whole body and using larger muscles, such as those in the arms and legs. In infancy, gross motor skills include gaining control of the head, neck, and torso to achieve a sitting or standing position. They also include locomotor skills that emerge in toddler years, such as walking, throwing, and stretching. Preschoolers gain even greater control over their bodies. This contributes to their increasing confidence and ability to engage in social play. • Fine motor skills refer to use of the small muscles found in individual body parts, especially those in the hands and feet. Children use their fine motor skills to grasp, hold, and manipulate small objects, such as cups, or to use tools, including scissors and paint brushes. As they gain hand-eye coordination, preschoolers learn to direct the movements of their fingers, hands, and wrists to perform more complex tasks, including drawing fine details or stringing small beads. Cognitive Development • Cognition, or cognitive development, includes reasoning, memory, problem-solving, and thinking skills. Young children use these abilities to make sense of and organize their world. By the time children reach the preschool years, their cognitive skills have grown so much that they can engage in complex mathematical thinking and scientific reasoning. • Infants and toddlers play an active role in their own cognitive development by exploring and testing the world around them. Through these explorations and experiments, and with the support of parents, teachers, and other adults, infants and toddlers begin to understand basic mathematical, spatial, and causal relationships. Cognitive Development • Mathematics Development in preschoolers refers to understanding numbers and quantities, their relationships, and operations, such as what it means to add to and take away. Mathematics also includes shapes and their structure, reasoning, measurement, classification, and patterns. • Scientific Reasoning is the emerging ability to develop scientific knowledge about the natural and physical worlds. Children begin to learn scientific skills and methods and continue developing reasoning and problem-solving skills. For preschoolers, scientific investigation includes making observations, recording them, talking about them, and analyzing them. Language and Literacy • Language development refers to children’s emerging abilities to understand and use language. Language skills are receptive—the ability to listen to and understand language—and expressive—the ability to use language to communicate ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Children's language ability affects learning and development in all areas, especially emerging literacy. • Emerging literacy refers to the knowledge and skills that lay the foundation for reading and writing. For infants and toddlers, emerging literacy is embedded in the Language and Communication domain. This reflects how closely connected these emerging literacy skills are to very young children’s beginning receptive, expressive, and vocabulary skills. For preschoolers, Language and Literacy are distinct domains. They reflect children’s growing skills as they begin to grasp differences between spoken and written language, as well as how they are connected. Social and Emotional Development • Positive social and emotional development in the early years provides a critical foundation for lifelong development and learning. • Social development refers to a child’s ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships with adults and other children. • Development of self concept; self control; self help skills; • Develop initiative and curiosity; independence and autonomy; • Emotional development is a child’s ability to express, recognize, and manage his or her emotions, as well as respond appropriately to others’ emotions. • Development of attachment, and emotional bonding with adults • Develop empathy, learn to control feelings and express emotions in relevant manner • Both social and emotional development are important for young children’s mental health. Development of Creative and Aesthetic Appreciation • Representing objects, events and ideas in the form of drawing, clay modelling and other art forms • Develop expression, enjoyment and disposition for music and movement • Demonstrate creativity and innovativeness with materials Approaches to Learning • Focuses on how children learn. It refers to skills and behaviors that children use to engage in learning. It incorporates emotional, behavioral, and cognitive selfregulation as well as initiative, curiosity, and creativity. • Children differ in how they approach new tasks, difficult problems, or challenges. • Some children persist in engaging with activities and continue to attend to the task and complete it despite distractions while others soon give up. • Some show more initiative and creativity in new and challenging situations as compared to others, using flexible and varied strategies to deal with problems. • They have motivation and enthusiasm for learning. Approaches to Learning • An important part of becoming a successful learner is developing the ability to self-regulate in a variety of situations. This ability is also essential to early childhood mental health. In infancy, building emotional, behavioral, and cognitive self-regulation is part of consistent, responsive relationships. As children get older, they become better able to regulate on their own, though adults still provide guidance. • Cognitive self-regulation skills are also known as executive functioning. These skills include the ability to maintain attention, control impulses, and think in flexible ways. Another related skill is working memory, the ability to hold information in mind and use it to perform tasks. Executive functioning skills begin to emerge in the infant and toddler years and develop even more in the preschool years. Reference • https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/schoolreadiness/effective-practice-guides/effectivepractice-guides
