Physical and
Cognitive
Development in
Early Childhood
Chapter 7
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Chapter Outline
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Physical changes
Cognitive changes
Language development
Early childhood education
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Physical Changes
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Body growth and change
Motor development
Sleep
Nutrition and exercise
Illness and death
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Body Growth and Change
• Height and weight
– Average growth is 2.5 inches and 5 to 7 pounds
per year during early childhood
– Growth patterns vary individually
– Two most important contributors to height
differences
• Ethnic origin and nutrition
– Growth hormone deficiency: Produced by the
pituitary gland to stimulate the body to grow
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Body Growth and Change
• The brain
– Brain growth slows during early childhood
• Brain reaches 95% of adult volume by 6 years
• Changes in child’s brain structure
– Myelination: Nerve cells are covered and
insulated with a layer of fat cells
– Rapid, distinct spurts of growth especially in the
frontal lobes
7-5
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.1 - A Myelinated Nerve Fiber
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Motor Development
• Gross motor skills
– Simple movements at age 3
– More adventurous at age 4
– Hair-raising risks at age 5
• Fine motor skills
– Still clumsy at 3 years
– Improved fine motor coordination at 4 years
– Body coordination by 5 years
7-7
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Sleep
• Should sleep 11-13 hours each night without
interruption
• Can experience narcolepsy, insomnia, and
nightmares
7-8
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Sleep
• Children’s sleep problems and negative
developmental outcome
– Alcohol use problems in adolescence
– Attention problems
– Impaired brain development
– Overweight
7-9
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Nutrition and Exercise
• Overweight young children
– Serious health problems in early childhood
– Strongly influenced by caregivers’ behavior
– Categories for obesity, overweight, and at risk for
being overweight
• Determined by body mass index (BMI)
– U.S. has second highest rate of childhood obesity
• Exercise should be a daily occurrence
7 - 10
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Nutrition and Exercise
• Malnutrition in young children from lowincome families
– 11 million preschool children are experiencing
malnutrition
– Biggest problem is iron deficiency anemia
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Illness and Death
• The United States
– Leading causes of death in U.S. children are:
• Motor vehicle accidents
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
– Children’s safety
– Environmental tobacco smoke
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.2 - Main Causes of Death in
Children 1 through 4 Years of Age
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Illness and Death
• State of illness and health of the world’s
children
– Devastating effects of health occur in countries
with high poverty rates
– Dramatic increase in deaths due to HIV/AIDS,
especially in poor countries
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Cognitive Changes
• Piaget’s preoperational stage
• Vygotsky’s theory
• Information processing
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Preoperational stage
– Piaget’s second stage
– Ages 2 to 7 years
– Children represent the world with words, images,
and drawings
• Form stable concepts and begin to reason
• Cognitions are dominated by egocentrism and magical
beliefs
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Operations: Reversible
– Mental actions that allow children to do mentally
what they formerly did physically
• Symbolic function substage: Child gains the
ability to mentally represent an object that is
not present
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish one’s
own perspective from someone else’s
• Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have
lifelike qualities and are capable of action
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OinqFgsI
bh0
7 - 18
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.4 - The Three Mountains
Task
7 - 19
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Intuitive thought substage: Children use
primitive reasoning and want to know the
answers to questions
• Centration and the limits of preoperational
thought
– Centration: Centering attention on one
characteristic to the exclusion of all others
– Conservation: Altering a substance’s appearance
does not change its basic properties
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.6 - Piaget’s Conservation
Task
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.7 - Some Dimensions of
Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Children think and understand primarily
through social interaction
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD): Range
of tasks that are too difficult for the child
alone but that can be learned with guidance
• Scaffolding - Changing the level of support
7 - 23
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Language and thought
– Children use speech to communicate socially and
to help them solve tasks
– Private speech - Use of language for selfregulation
– Inner speech becomes their thoughts
– More private speech = more social competence
7 - 24
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Teaching strategies - Vygotsky’s theory can be
applied to education
– Assess child’s ZPD
– Use the child’s ZPD in teaching
– Use more-skilled peers as teachers
– Place instruction in a meaningful context
– Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas
7 - 25
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Evaluating Vygotsky’s theory
– Social constructivist approach: Emphasizes social
contexts of learning and asserts that knowledge is
mutually built and constructed through social
interaction
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.10 - Comparison of Vygotsky’s
and Piaget’s Theories
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Information Processing
• Attention – Focusing of mental resources on
select information
– Executive attention
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•
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Action planning
Allocating attention to goals
Error detection and compensation
Monitoring progress on tasks
Dealing with difficult circumstances
7 - 28
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Information Processing
– Sustained attention: Focused and extended
engagement with:
• Object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
– Deficiencies in attention
• Salient versus relevant dimensions
• Planfulness
7 - 29
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Information Processing
• Memory - Retention of information over time
– Short-term: Individuals can retain information up
to 30 seconds with no rehearsal
– Assessing short-term memory - Memory-span task
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.12 - Developmental Changes
in Memory Span
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Information Processing
• How accurate are young children’s long-term
memories?
– There are age differences in children’s
susceptibility to suggestion
– There are individual differences in susceptibility
– Interviewing techniques can produce substantial
distortions in children’s reports about highly
salient events
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPgpRw9tiu
M
7 - 32
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Information Processing
• Executive functioning:
Umbrella-like concept that consists of:
• Higher-level cognitive processes linked to the
development of the brain’s prefrontal cortex
– Managing one’s thoughts to engage in goaldirected behavior and self-control
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Figure 7.14 - Developmental Changes in
False-Belief Performance
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Language Development
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Understanding phonology and morphology
Changes in syntax and semantics
Advances in pragmatics
Young children’s literacy
7 - 35
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Understanding Phonology and
Morphology
• During preschool years, children:
– Become sensitive to the sounds of spoken words
– Produce all the sounds of their language
– Demonstrate a knowledge of morphology rules
• Use plurals, possessives, prepositions, articles, and verb
forms
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Changes in Syntax and Semantics
• Learn and apply rules of syntax
• Children learn the words
– They hear most often
– For things and events that interest them
– Better in responsive and interactive contexts than
in passive contexts
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Changes in Syntax and Semantics
– Best in contexts that are meaningful
– Best when they access clear information about
word meaning
– Best when grammar and vocabulary are
considered
7 - 38
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Early Childhood Education
• Variations in early childhood education
• Education for young children who are
disadvantaged
• Controversies in early childhood education
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Variations in Early Childhood
Education
• Child-centered kindergarten: Education of the
whole child and concern for his or her
physical, cognitive, and socioemotional
development
• Montessori approach: Child is given freedom
and spontaneity in choosing activities
7 - 40
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Early Childhood Education
• Education for young children who are
disadvantaged
– Project head start: Compensatory program
designed to provide children from low-income
families:
• Opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences
important for success in school
– Controversies in early childhood education
• Curriculum controversy
• Universal preschool education
7 - 41
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.