7 Physical and Cognitive
Development in Early
Childhood
This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law:
• any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network;
• preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or part, of any images;
• any rental, lease, or lending of the program.
Growth and Motor Development
• Changes in height and weight happen more
slowly during early childhood.
– Child adds about 2 – 3 inches and 6 pounds per year
• Steady progress in major locomotor skills
– Running, jumping, skipping
• Manipulative skills improve but less so than
major motor skills
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.1
Stages in Children’s Drawings
FIGURE TO COME
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.1
Stages in Children’s Drawings
(continued)
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
The Brain and Nervous System
Lateralization
• Growth of the Corpus Callosum
• Helps create functional specialization
of left and right hemispheres
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.2 Lateralization of Brain Function
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
The Brain and Nervous System
Myelinization
• Reticular formation
– Regulates attention and concentration
• Hippocampus
– Transfer of information to long term memory
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
The Brain and Nervous System
Handedness
• 83% right-handed
• 14% left-handed
• 3% ambidextrous
• Appears very early in life
• Research suggests a genetic link
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Health and Wellness
Eating patterns
• Often eat less than when babies
• Food aversions surface
• Eating behaviors bring on family conflicts
• May not consume the majority of daily calories at
mealtime
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Health and Wellness
Illnesses and Accidents
• Each year, 4 – 6 bouts of brief sickness
• High levels of family stress more likely to
produce sick children
• 25% of U.S. children under 5 have one
accident in any one year requiring medical
treatment
• More common among boys
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Child abuse
• Physical or psychological injury resulting from an adult’s
intentional exposure of a child to potentially harmful
stimuli, sexual acts, or neglect
• Responsible for about 10% of emergency room visits
• Between 1% and 5% of children suffer physical abuse.
• 2000 infants and children die each year as the result of
child abuse
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Risk factors
• Socio-cultural factors
– Personal or cultural values that regard physical abuse
as morally acceptable
– Arise from cultural traditions of children as property
– Living in communities that support these beliefs
increases abuse
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Risk factors
• Characteristics of the child
– Physical or mental disabilities
– Difficult temperaments
• Characteristics of the abuser
–
–
–
–
–
Depressed
Lacking in parenting skills and knowledge
History of abuse themselves
Substance abusers
Live-in male partners whose children are not theirs
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Risk factors
• Family stress
– Poverty
– Unemployment
– Interparental conflicts
• The presence of several factors in
combination increases likelihood of abuse
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Consequences of Abuse
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Delays in all domains of development
• Children removed from the abusive
situation appear to catch up
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Abuse and Neglect
Preventing abuse begins with education!
• Information to parents
• Parenting classes
• Identification of families at risk
• Protect children from further injury
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Cognitive Changes
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Increased proficiency in the use of
symbols
• Still have difficulty thinking logically
• Centration
– Child’s tendency to think of the world in
terms of one variable at a time
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Cognitive Changes
Egocentrism
• Child’s tendency to look at things from his
or her own perspective
• May create frustration in communication
• Piaget Three-mountain task
– See Figure 7.3
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.3 Piaget’s Three Mountain Task
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Cognitive Changes
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Animism
– The belief that inanimate objects are alive
• Irreversibility
– The inability to mentally reverse actions or
ideas
• Inability to solve conservation tasks
– See Figure 7.4
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.4
Piaget’s Conservation Tasks
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Challenges to Piaget’s Views
• Children as young as 2 and 3 seem to have at
least some ability to understand that another
person sees things or experiences things
differently than they do
• Flavell’s perspective-taking ability
– Level One – child knows that other people experience
things differently: begins at 2 – 3 years
– Level Two –child develops a series of complex rules
to figure out out precisely what the other person sees
or experiences: begins at 4 – 5 years
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Challenges to Piaget’s Views
• Young children do understand others’
emotions
• Can regulate their own emotions
• Appearance and Reality
– Older children understand the same object
can be represented differently, depending on
point of view
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Theories of Mind
• Understanding thoughts, desires, and
beliefs
– 18 months – rudimentary beginnings
– Age 3 – some aspects of link between
people’s thinking, feelings, and behavior
– Age 4 – basic principle that each person’s
actions are based on their representation of
reality
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Theories of Mind
• 4 – 5 year olds
– Can’t understand that others can think about them
– Don’t understand that most knowledge can be
derived from inference (this understanding develops
by age 6)
• 5 – 7 year olds
– Understand reciprocal nature of thought
• False Belief Principle
– Children can look at a problem from another’s point
of view and discern what information causes a
person to believe something that isn’t true
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Theories of Mind
• Influences on Development of a Theory of
Mind
– Correlated with performance on Piaget’s tasks
– Pretend play
– Shared pretense with other children
– Discussion of emotion-provoking events with
parents
– Language skills
– Some research suggests cross-cultural replication
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Alternative Theories of Early
Childhood Thinking
• Neo-Piagetian Theories: Robbie Case
– Short-term storage space (STSS)
• Refers to child’s working memory
– Operational efficiency
• Limited number of schemes to which a child can attend
• Improves through practice and brain maturation
– Matrix Classification
• Requires child to place a given stimulus in two categories
simultaneously
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.5
Neo-Piagetian Matrix Task
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Alternative Theories of Early Childhood Thinking
Information Processing Theories
• Metamemory
– Knowledge about and control of memory
processes.
• 2 – 6 year olds have poor strategies for memory
• Metacognition
– Knowledge about and control of thought
processes
• Enables the child to generate strategies to solve
problems
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Alternative Theories of Early Childhood Thinking
Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory
• Stages of Cognitive Development
– Primitive stage
• Infant possesses mental processes “similar to animals”
• Learns primarily through conditioning
– Naïve psychology stage
• Learns to use language to communicate but does not
understand symbols
– Private Speech stage
• Uses language as a guide to solve problems
• Internalized by 6-7
– Ingrowth stage
• Logical thinking results from internalization of speech
acquired from children and adults in a social world
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Changes in Language
• Fast-mapping
– Occurs about age 3
– Ability to categorically link new
words to real-world referents
– Rapidly form a hypothesis about a
new word’s meaning
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Grammar Explosion
• Inflections
– Additions that change meaning
– Earliest inflection in English is the addition of –ing: “Where
going?”
• Questions and Negatives
– Use particular sets of rules
• Overregularization
– Using rules when they don’t apply
• Complex sentences
– Use conjunctions to combine two ideas or using imbedded
clauses
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Phonological Awareness
• A child’s sensitivity to sound patterns that are
specific to a language
• Awareness of sounds being represented by letters
– Can be learned in school through formal instruction
– The greater a child’s phonological awareness, the
faster s/he learns to read
– Primarily develops through word play
• Nursery rhymes
• Games involving repetitive words
• Invented spelling – attempting to write
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.6
Invented Spelling
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Differences in Intelligence
Measuring Intelligence
• Alfred Binet
– Identify children who might have difficulty in school
• Lewis Terman
– Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
• Mental age/chronological age x 100 = IQ
• 2/3 of children exhibit an IQ between 85 and 115
• Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children
– Verbal scales
– Performance scales
– Working memory scales
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.7
The Normal Curve
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Differences in Intelligence
• Stability and Predictive Value of IQ Scores
– Correlation between IQ score and future grades is
about .50 – .60
– Consistent relationship within social classes and
racial groups
– IQ scores are quite stable
– BUT IQ tests do not measure underlying competence
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Origins of Individual Differences in Intelligence
• Heredity
– Twin and adoption studies show strong influence of heredity
• Family Influences
– Adoption studies also provide support for environmental
influences
• Children adopted in higher social class homes had higher IQ
scores
– Parents of higher social class provide interesting and complex
learning environments
•
•
•
•
•
Age-appropriate play materials
Warm and appropriate responses to behavior
Quick in answering questions
Talk to children often
Avoid being excessively restrictive, punitive, or controlling
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Origins of Individual Differences in Intelligence
Preschool Influences
• Formal education programs help
• Head Start aids poor children and supports
intellectual development
– Provide intellectual stimulation
– Help children to acquire new vocabulary
– Children show a gain of about 10 IQ points
– Long term impact on children
• Less likely to be placed in special education, repeat a grade
• More likely to graduate high school
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Figure 7.8
Early Education and IQ Scores
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Group Differences in Intelligence Test Scores
• Chinese and Japanese children
– Demonstrate higher performance on achievement tests
• African American children consistently score lower than
white children.
– Differences appear to be narrowing
– Fall within the reaction range of scores possible with different
environments
– May reflect poverty differences
– Mixed-race adoptions studies support environmental influence
– Flynn Effect: over last two centuries IQ scores have increased in
all groups; argues for environmental effects
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers
Questions to Ponder
• Piaget sees the child as the little scientist who
works on her own to discover knowledge.
Vygotsky suggests children learn from skilled
social partners in a social setting. Which theory
or combination describes children the best? Why?
• What makes Head Start a successful program?
© 2009 Allyn & Bacon Publishers