Physical Development in Early Childhood
Terms
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Height and Weight
in Early Childhood -
Avg child grows 2.5"/year (2 important contributors to difference is ethnic origin and nutrition)
Avg child gains 5-7 lbs/year - Brain
- Between 3-5 yrs old, brain grows 75-90% of adult size
- Reason for brain increase
- # and size of nerve ednigs within and between brain areas and myelination
- Most brain growth occurs...
- In the fontal lobes, which are important for planning, organizing new actions and maintaining attn to tasks.
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Motor Development
Gross Motor Skills -
3 yrs old: MOST ENERGY in life; run, jump, hop for the fun of it; s/b able to ride tricycle
4-5 yrs old: Are more confident, more adventurous, they're organized in their motro skills...s/b able to ride bicycle -
Motor Development
Fine Motor Skills -
3 yr olds: can pick up small things and place puzzle pieces, but are rough in doing it
4 yr olds develop better fine motor skills: can build towering block towers that are straight
5 yrs olds don't want to build block towers,rather more detailed structures - Nutrition
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Avg preschooler needs 1700 c a day
BMR (basal metabolism rate) min energy required at rest by person. - Leading cause of deaths in early childhood in the USA
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car accidents
drownings
falls
poisenings - Leading cause of deaths world wide
- dehydration and malnutrition due to diarrhea
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Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
Piaget's Preoperational Stage
Overall... -
2-7 years old
Stabel concepts are formed
Mental reasoning emerges
Egocentrism weakens - Operational skill is to be able to
- do mentally the opeation before doing it physically
- Two stages of Preoperational 2 substages
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Symbolic Function: 1st stage
occurs between 2-4 year olds
Child is able to represent an object that is not present
Intuitive Thought Substage: (the 'why' stage) occurs between 4-7 yr olds. Start using primative reasoning -
Piaget's Preoperational substage
Symbolic Function -
-Egocentrism: (terrible twos) Inability to distinguish between one's own perspective and someone els's perspective
Animism: belief that inanimate objects have 'lifelike'qualities and are capable of action -
Piaget's Preoperational substage
Intuitive Thought -
Centration-focus, attn centers on one characteristic and exludes all others
Conservation: the awareness tht altering an objects or substances appearances does not change it's basic properties. INABILITY to reverse actions - Vygotsky's Theory of Developement
- a range of tasks too difficult for children to master alone
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Vygotsky's Theory of Developement
Scaffolding - like in ZPD use of skilled person to get the task done, and changing the level of support as you go
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Vygotsky's Theory of Developement
Use of Language: Private speech -
talk to self in helping 'self-regulate' in order to be able to plan, guide and monitor.
Important tool for cognitive development, whereas Piaget thought it was egocentric and immature. -
Vygotsky's Theory of Developement
Teaching strategies -
-use of ZPD
-use of scaffolding
-use of more skilled peers as teachers
-monitor and encourage Privatge speech
Assess the childs ZPD not IQ - Piaget vs Vygotsky
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P-more indivudal
V-more collaborative
P-ends w/formal op's thought
V-end can differ depending on which skills are considred to be the most importan in a particular culture -
Information Processing
2 major aspects - attention and memory
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Information Processing
Attention -
Control of attention: toddlers wander from 1 activity to another, by preschool age, the focus on one item
salient vs. relevent dimensions, planfulness: Salient prop are what stand (clown ex)out and are not necesarily relevant to the solution -
Information Processing
Memory - The retention of info over time is a central process in childrens' development
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Information Processing
Short-term Memory - retain info up to 30 sec (assuming no rehearsal)
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Information Processing
Memory-Span -
task used to assess short term memory: short list of stimuli are prsented rapidy and recall is measured:
span increased from 2 digits in 2-3 yr olds to 5 in 7 yr olds -
Information Processing
Memory
How accurate is long-term memory in early childhood? -
With cue and prompts they can remember;
Rehearsal and organization are 2 strategies