Chapter 5- Early Childhood
Body and Mind
Body Changes
Growth Patterns
• Children become slimmer as the lower
body lengthens.
• Each year from age 2 through 6, wellnourished children add almost 3 inches in
height and gain about 4 1⁄2 pounds in
weight.
• Center of gravity moves from the
breastbone down to the belly button.
Body Changes
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Nutrition
Children need far fewer calories per pound of body
weight than infants do.
Obesity is a more frequent problem than
malnutrition.
Children in low-income families are especially
vulnerable to obesity because their cultures still
guard against undernutrition and their parents may
rely on fast foods.
Overfeeding is causing an epidemic of illnesses
associated with obesity, such as heart disease
and diabetes.
Body Changes
• Many children want foods that are high in
fat, salt, and sugar.
• Adults frequently give in, even rewarding
children with candy.
– Too much sugar and too little fiber rot the
teeth.
– Tooth decay is the most common disease of
young children in developed nations
– affects more than one-third of all children
under age 6 in the United States .
Body Changes
“Just Right”
• Some children insist on eating only certain foods,
prepared and presented in a particular way. This rigidity,
known as the “just-right” phenomenon, would be
pathological in adults but is normal in children under age
6.
• When 1,500 parents were surveyed about their 1- to 6year-olds (Evans et al., 1997), their responses indicated
that over 75 percent of the 3-year-olds (the peak age)
evidenced some just-right tendency, in that they:
– Preferred to have things done in a particular order or in a certain
way
– Had a strong preference to wear (or not wear) certain clothes
– Prepared for bedtime by engaging in a special activity, routine,
or ritual
– Had strong preferences for certain foods
Body Changes
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Motor Skills
Children develop all their motor skills
spontaneously and diligently as they play.
By age 6, most North Americans ride
tricycles; climb ladders; pump their legs on
swings; and throw, catch, and kick balls.
Muscle growth, brain maturation, and guided
practice advance every gross motor skill.
Practice improves dexterity and advances
fine motor skills, which involve small body
movements.
Brain Development
• By age 2, a child’s brain weighs 75
percent of what it will in adulthood, and
extensive sprouting and then pruning of
dendrites has already taken place.
• The brain reaches 90 percent of adult
weight by age 6.
Brain Development
Brain Development
Speed of Thought
• The primary reason for faster thinking is
new and extensive myelination.
• Myelin is a fatty coating on the axons that
speeds signals between neurons.
• A gradual increase in myelination makes
5-year-olds much quicker than 3-yearolds, who themselves are quicker than
toddlers.
Brain Development
• One part of the brain that grows and myelinates
rapidly during early childhood is the corpus
callosum, a band of nerve fibers that connects the
left and right sides of the brain.
• Growth of the corpus callosum makes
communication between the two brain
hemispheres more efficient.
• Lateralization- Literally, sidedness, referring to
the specialization in certain functions by each side
of the brain, with one side dominant for each
activity.
Brain Development
The Prefrontal Cortex
• Maturation of the prefrontal cortex gradually
enables children to focus attention and curb
impulsiveness.
• Before such maturation, many young children
jump from task to task; they cannot stay
quiet.
• Others act in the opposite way: In a
phenomenon called perseveration, some
children persevere in, or stick to, one thought
or action, unable to quit.
Brain Development
From ages 2 to 6, maturation of the
prefrontal cortex has several notable
benefits:
● Sleep becomes more regular.
● Emotions become more nuanced and
responsive.
● Temper tantrums subside.
Brain Development
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Emotions and the Brain
Limbic System- parts of the brain that are crucial
in the expression and regulation of emotions
Amygdala- A tiny brain structure that registers
emotions, particularly fear and anxiety.
Hippocampus- A brain structure that is a central
processor of memory, especially memory for
locations.
Hypothalamus- A brain area that responds to the
amygdala and the hippocampus to produce
hormones that activate other parts of the brain and
body.
Prolonged stress may lead to emotional and
cognitive impairment.
Thinking During Early Childhood
Piaget: Preoperational Thought
• Preoperational means “before (pre)
logical operations (reasoning processes).”
• The child’s verbal ability permits symbolic
thinking. Language frees the child from
the limits of sensorimotor experience.
Thinking During Early Childhood
Characteristics of preoperational thought:
• Centration- A characteristic of preoperational
thought whereby a young child focuses
(centers) on one idea, excluding all others.
• Egocentrism- Piaget’s term for young
children’s tendency to think about the world
entirely from their own personal perspective.
• Focus on appearance- A characteristic of
preoperational thought whereby a young child
ignores all attributes that are not apparent.
Thinking During Early Childhood
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Characteristics of preoperational thought:
Static reasoning- A characteristic of preoperational
thought whereby a young child thinks that nothing
changes. Whatever is now has always been and
always will be.
Irreversibility- A characteristic of preoperational
thought whereby a young child thinks that nothing can
be undone. A thing cannot be restored to the way it
was before a change occurred.
Conservation- The principle that the amount of a
substance remains the same (i.e., is conserved) when
its appearance changes.
Animism- The belief that natural objects and
phenomena are alive.
Thinking During Early Childhood
Thinking During Early Childhood
Vygotsky: Social Learning
• Every aspect of children’s cognitive
development is embedded in the social
context.
• Apprentice in thinking- Vygotsky’s term for
a person whose cognition is stimulated
and directed by older and more skilled
members of society.
Thinking During Early Childhood
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)Vygotsky’s term for the skills—cognitive as
well as physical—that a person can
exercise only with assistance, not yet
independently.
• Scaffolding- Temporary support that is
tailored to a learner’s needs and abilities
and aimed at helping the learner master
the next task in a given learning process.
Thinking During Early Childhood
• Private speech- The internal dialogue that
occurs when people talk to themselves
(either silently or out loud).
• Social mediation- Human interaction that
expands and advances understanding,
often through words that one person uses
to explain something to another.
Thinking During Early Childhood
Children’ Theories
• Theory-theory- The idea that children
attempt to explain everything they see and
hear.
• Theory of mind- A person’s theory of what
other people might be thinking. In order to
have a theory of mind, children must realize
that other people are not necessarily thinking
the same thoughts that they themselves are.
That realization is seldom achieved before
age 4.
Language
Vocabulary
• Language is pivotal to every kind of
cognition in early childhood.
• Early childhood is a sensitive period, the
best time to master vocabulary, grammar,
and pronunciation.
• The average child knows about 500 words
at age 2 and more than 10,000 at age 6.
Language
• The naming explosion (explained in
Chapter 3) becomes more general: Verbs,
adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions, as
well as many more nouns, are mastered.
• Fast-mapping- The speedy and
sometimes imprecise way in which
children learn new words by tentatively
placing them in mental categories
according to their perceived meaning.
Language
Basic Grammar
• The grammar of a language includes the
structures, techniques, and rules that
communicate meaning. Word order and word
repetition, prefixes and suffixes, intonation
and emphasis—all are part of grammar.
• Overregularization- The application of rules
of grammar even when exceptions occur,
making the language seem more “regular"
than it actually is.
Early Childhood Education
Child-Centered Programs
• Stress children’s natural inclination to learn through play
rather than by following adult directions.
• Encourage self-paced exploration and artistic
expression.
• Show the influence of Vygotsky, who thought that
children learn through play with other children and
through cultural practices that structure life.
• Montessori schools emphasize individual pride and
accomplishment, presenting literacy-related tasks (such
as outlining letters and looking at books).
• Reggio Emilia approach- A famous program of earlychildhood education that originated in the town of Reggio
Emilia, Italy; it encourages each child’s creativity in a
carefully designed setting.
Early Childhood Education
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Teacher-Directed Programs
Stress academic subjects taught by a teacher
to an entire class.
Children learn letters, numbers, shapes, and
colors, as well as how to listen to the teacher
and sit quietly.
Make a clear distinction between work and
play.
Are much less expensive, since the
child/adult ratio can be higher.
Early Childhood Education
Intervention Programs
• Project Head Start- The most widespread
early-childhood education program in the
United States, begun in 1965 and funded
by the federal government.
• At first, the program was thought to be
highly successful at raising children’s
intelligence; ten years later, early gains
were said to fade.
Injuries and Maltreatment
Accidents
• Accidents are the leading cause of death
worldwide for people under age 40.
• Among 2- to 6-year-olds in the United States,
four times more children die in accidents than
die of cancer, which is the second most
common cause of death.
• Injury control/harm reduction- Practices
that are aimed anticipating, controlling, and
preventing dangerous activities.
Injuries and Maltreatment
• Primary prevention- Actions that change overall
background conditions to prevent some unwanted
event or circumstance, such as injury, disease, or
abuse.
• Secondary prevention- Actions that avert harm in a
high-risk situation, such as stopping a car before it hits
a pedestrian or installing traffic lights at dangerous
intersections.
• Tertiary prevention- Actions, such as immediate and
effective medical treatment, that are taken after an
adverse event (such as illness, injury, or abuse)
occurs and that are aimed at reducing the harm or
preventing disability.
Injuries and Maltreatment
Maltreatment
• 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.
Injuries and Maltreatment
Injuries and Maltreatment
Consequences of Maltreatment
• Severely maltreated children suffer
physiologically, academically, and socially in
every culture.
• The worst consequence is that maltreated
children come to consider other people to be
hostile and exploitative. That belief makes
them fearful, aggressive, and lonely.
• The earlier their abuse starts and the longer it
continues, the more trouble they have with
peers and adults.
Injuries and Maltreatment
Three Levels of Prevention Again
• Primary prevention includes any measure that
reduces financial stress, family isolation, and
unwanted parenthood.
• Secondary prevention may include home visits
by nurses, high-quality day care, and preventive
social work—all designed to help high-risk
families.
• Tertiary prevention reduces harm when
maltreatment has already occurred. Requires
permanency planning, an effort to find a longterm solution to the problem.
Injuries and Maltreatment
• Foster care- A legal, publicly supported
system in which a maltreated child is
removed from the parents’ custody and
entrusted to another adult or family, which
is reimbursed for expenses incurred in
meeting the child’s needs.
• Kinship care- A form of foster care in
which a relative of a maltreated child,
usually a grand -parent, becomes the
approved caregiver.