The Importance of Play
JayLee23
DevelopmentalCh5-1.pptxEarly Childhood: Body and Mind
chapter five
Invitation to the Life Span
Kathleen Stassen Berger | Fourth edition
1
Body Changes (part 1)
Growth Patterns
Weight and height increases and the relationship between these measurements changes.
Average body mass index (BMI) is lower than at any other time of life.
Children become slimmer as the lower body lengthens.
Center of gravity moves from the breastbone down to the belly button.
BMI = ratio of weight to height.
By the end of early childhood, the infant’s protruding belly, round face, short limbs, and large head are distant memories.
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Body Changes (part 2)
Nutrition
Children in food-insecure households are more likely as adults to overeat when they are not hungry.
In low-income family cultures, parents tend to guard against undernutrition and rely on fast foods, so their children are especially vulnerable to obesity.
Many parents of overweight children believe their children are thinner than they actually are.
Appetite decreases between ages 2 and 6 because young children naturally grow more slowly than they did as infants.
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Body Changes (part 3)
Nutrition
Weight gain in early childhood is fluid and may be influenced by parental and child care dietary choices for children.
Oral health
Teeth are influenced by diet and health.
Tooth decay correlates with obesity.
Infected teeth may indicate or create health problems.
Allergies
Food allergies
About 3 to 8 percent of all young children have a food allergy, usually to a healthy, common food.
Cow's milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, and shellfish are frequent culprits.
Diagnostic standards and treatments vary.
5
Brain Development (part 1)
Size
By age 2, a child's brain weighs 75 percent of what it will in adulthood.
The brain reaches 90 percent of adult weight by age 6.
Myelin development contributes to this increased weight.
This brain scan of a 38-year- old depicts areas of myelination (the various colors) within the brain. As you see, the two hemispheres are quite similar, but not identical. For most important skills and concepts, both halves of the brain are activated. Myelin is a fatty coating on the axons that speeds signals between neurons. A gradual increase in myelination makes 5-year-olds much quicker at thinking than 3-year-olds, who are quicker than toddlers.
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Brain Development (part 2)
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 decrease or subside.
Uncontrollable laughter and tears are less common.
Inside the Brain: Connected Hemispheres
Corpus callosum
Is part of the brain that grows and myelinates rapidly during early childhood.
Consists of a band of nerve fibers that connects the left and right sides of the brain.
Facilitates communication between the two brain hemispheres.
Lateralization
Begins with genes.
Refers to the specialization in certain functions by each side of the brain, with one side dominant for each activity.
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The Left-Handed Child
Left-handedness
Shown in some newborns
Discouraged and not accommodated in many cultures or contexts
Is advantageous in some professions
Can you identify any of these?
Dexterity in Evidence She already holds the pen at the proper angle with her thumb, index finger, and middle finger — an impressive example of dexterity for a 3-yearold. However, dexter is Latin for “right” — evidence of an old prejudice that is no longer apparent here.
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Impulsiveness and Perseveration
Brain maturation (innate) and emotional regulation (learned) eventually allow most children to focus and switch as needed within their culture.
Before such maturation, many young children jump from task to task; they cannot stay quiet.
Other children engage in perseveration.
No young child is perfect at regulating attention, because immaturity of the prefrontal cortex makes it impossible to moderate the limbic system. Impulsiveness and perseveration follow
Engaging perseveration, some children persevere in, or stick to, one thought or action, unable to quit.
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Stress and the Brain
Relationship between stress and brain activity depends on age and degree of stress.
Developmentally appropriate stress aids cognition.
Excessive stress-hormone levels early in life may permanently damage brain pathways, especially in maltreated children.
Shrinkage of various brain regions and white matter
Thinking During Early Childhood (part 1)
Piaget: Preoperational thought
Preoperational means “before (pre) logical operations (reasoning processes).”
The child's verbal ability permits symbolic thinking and explains animism.
Preoperational thought is symbolic and magical, not logical and realistic.
Symbolic thought: A major accomplishment of preoperational intelligence that allows a child to think symbolically, including understanding that words can refer to things not seen and that an item, such as a flag, can symbolize something else (in this case, a country).
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 2)
Obstacles to logic
Centration
Characteristic of preoperational thought, whereby a young child focuses (centers) on one idea, excluding all others
Egocentrism
Young children's tendency to think about the world entirely from their own personal perspective
Focus on appearance
Characteristic of preoperational thought, whereby a young child ignores all attributes that are not apparent
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 3)
Obstacles to logic
Static reasoning
Characteristic of preoperational thought, whereby a young child thinks that nothing changes; whatever is now has always been and always will be.
Irreversibility
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.
Thinking During Early Childhood (part 4)
Conservation and logic
Conservation
Principle stating that the amount of a substance remains the same (i.e., is conserved) when its appearance changes
Easy questions; obvious answer
(above left) Sadie, age 5, carefully makes sure both glasses contain the same amount. (above right) When one glass of pink lemonade is poured into a wide jar, she triumphantly points to the tall glass as having more. Sadie is like all 5-year-olds; 7-year-olds know better.
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 5)
One Logical Concept (Conservation), Many Manifestations
According to Piaget, until children grasp the concept of conservation at (he believed) about age 6 or 7, they cannot understand that the transformations shown here do not change the total amount of liquid, checkers, clay, and wood.
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 6)
Vygotsky: Social learning
Every aspect of children's cognitive development is embedded in the sociocultural context.
Children learn from guided participation through mentors.
Mentors
Present challenges
Offer assistance (without taking over).
Add crucial information.
Encourage motivation.
Most shirts for 4-year- olds are wide- necked and without buttons, so preschoolers can put them on themselves. But the skill of buttoning is best learned from a mentor, who knows how to
increase motivation.
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 7)
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
Vygotsky's term for the skills 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 (part 8)
Overimitation
Universal
Tendency of children to copy an action that is not a relevant part of the behavior to be learned
Common among 2- to 6-year-olds who will imitate adult actions that are irrelevant and inefficient
Thinking During Early Childhood (part 9)
Language as a tool
Vygotsky considered language pivotal.
Private speech involves internal dialogue when talking to self.
Social mediation advances and expands understanding
STEM learning
Practical use of Vygotsky’s theory concerns STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education.
Social mediation function of speech occurs as mentors guide mentees in their zone of proximal development, learning numbers, recalling memories, and following routines.
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Thinking During Early Childhood (part 10)
Executive function
Involves cognitive ability to organize and prioritize the many thoughts that arise from the various parts of the brain
Is comprised of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control
Allows the person to anticipate, strategize, and plan behavior
Relates closely to emotional regulation throughout life
Thinking During Early Childhood (part 11)
Contrast between Piaget and Vygotsky
Piaget highlighted the child’s own curiosity and brain maturation in learning.
Vygotsky stressed mentors, especially parents and teachers, in guiding children’s learning.
But…both theories recognized that young children are prodigious learners who strive to understand their world.
Children’s Theories (part 1)
Theory-theory
Children naturally attempt to explain everything they see and hear.
They develop theories about intentions before they employ their impressive ability to imitate.
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Children’s Theories (part 2)
Theory of mind
Person's theory of what other people might be thinking
Emergent ability, slow to develop but typically beginning in most children at about age 4
Can be seen when young children try to escape punishment by lying
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.
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Children’s Theories (part 3)
Brain and context
Child's ability to develop theories correlates with the maturity of the prefrontal cortex and with advances in executive processing.
Executive functions lead to better understanding of false belief.
Context, experience, and culture are relevant.
A View from Science: Witness to a Crime
Younger children
Are sometimes more accurate than older witnesses who are influenced by prejudice and stereotypes.
May confuse time, place, person, and action.
Can develop false ideas from words, expressions, and scaffolding memories.
May believe an abusive act is OK is an adult says it is.
Optimizing witness effectiveness
Reducing stress, especially toxic stress
Balancing arousal and reassurance
Using appropriate interviewing techniques
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Language Learning (part 1)
A Sensitive Time
Brain maturation, myelination, scaffolding, and social interaction make early childhood ideal for learning language.
Early childhood is a sensitive period (or best time) to master vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
Language is pivotal to every kind of cognition in early childhood.
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Language Learning (part 2)
Vocabulary explosion
The average child knows about 500 words at age 2 and more than 10,000 at age 6.
Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and many nouns are mastered.
Fast-mapping
Speedy and sometimes imprecise way in which children learn new words by tentatively placing them in mental categories according to their perceived meaning
Picture books offer opportunities to advance vocabulary though scaffolding and fast-mapping.
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Language Learning (part 3)
Logical extension
Closely related to fast-mapping
Occurs when children use a word to describe other objects in the same category
Bilingual children
Often code-switch in the middle of a sentence
Realize which language to use by age 5
Language Learning (part 4)
Acquiring grammar
Grammar of a language
Structures, techniques, and rules that communicate meaning
Overregularization
Application of rules of grammar even when exceptions occur
Makes language seem more “regular" than it actually is
Pragmatic
Practical use of language, adjusting communication to audience and context (words, tone, grammatical form)
Difficult aspect of language
Evident by age 4
By age 4, many children overregularize the final s for pluralization, talking about foots, tooths, and mouses. This is actually evidence of increasing knowledge:
Many children first say words correctly (feet, teeth, mice), repeating what they have heard.
Later, when they grasp the grammar and try to apply it, they overregularize, assuming that all constructions follow the regular path
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Language Learning (part 5)
Learning two languages
Early childhood is the best time to learn a new language.
For children to develop two languages, they must speak as well as hear two languages
Mastering two language before age 6 seems to contribute to lifelong neurological benefits.
If English fluency is lacking, language-minority children often have lower school achievement, diminished self-esteem, and inadequate employment.
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Language Learning (part 6)
Language losses and gains
Language shifts
Becoming more fluent in the school language than in their home language
Balanced bilingual
Being fluent in two languages, not favoring one over the other
Occurs if adults talk frequently, listen carefully, and value both languages
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Language Learning (part 7)
Five effective strategies for children of all income levels, languages, and ethnicities
Code-focused teaching
Book-reading
Parent education
Language enhancement
Preschool programs
1. Code-focused teaching. In order for children to read, they must “break the code” from spoken to written words. It helps if they learn the letters and sounds of the alphabet (e.g., “A, alligators all around” or, conventionally, “B is for baby”).
2. Book-reading. Vocabulary as well as familiarity with pages and print will increase when adults read to children, allowing questions and conversation.
3. Parent education. When teachers and other professionals teach parents how to stimulate cognition (as in book-reading), children become better readers. Adults need to use words to expand vocabulary. Unfortunately, too often adults use words primarily to control (“don’t touch” or “stop that”), not to teach.
4. Language enhancement. Within each child’s zone of proximal development, mentors can expand vocabulary and grammar based on the child’s knowledge and experience.
5. Preschool programs. Children learn from teachers, songs, excursions, and other children. (We discuss variations of early education next, but every study finds that preschools advance language acquisition, especially if the home language is not the majority language.)
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Early-Childhood Education (part 1)
Research on costs and benefits
Program research focused on children from low- SES families; all provided intense education from well- trained teachers.
Perry (High/Scope) program
Abecedarian
Child-Parent Centers
Early-Childhood Education (part 2)
Research on costs and benefits
Conclusion
Early education, when done well, results in benefits that become most apparent when children are in the third grade or later
Early-Childhood Education (part 3)
International early-childhood education
Currently, in most developed nations, over 90 percent of 3- to 5-year- olds attend school paid for by the government.
In nations where major government funding is scarce, preschools that are privately or religiously funded proliferate.
Norway heavily subsidizes preschool education for every child from age 1.
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Early-Childhood Education (part 4)
Home versus preschool
Quality matters.
If the home educational environment is poor, a good preschool program aids health, cognition, and social skills.
If a family provides extensive learning opportunities and encouragement, the quality of the preschool is less crucial.
Early-Childhood Education (part 5)
Child-centered or developmental programs
Emphasize 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 (children learn through play with other children with adult guidance) and Piaget (emphasis children will discover new ideas if given a chance).
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Early-Childhood Education (part 6)
Examples of child-centered programs
Montessori schools emphasize individual pride and accomplishment, presenting literacy-related tasks.
Reggio Emilia approach is a famous Italian early-childhood education program that encourages each child's creativity in a carefully designed setting.
Waldorf programs emphasize creativity, social understanding, and emotional growth; prize imagination.
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Early-Childhood Education (part 7)
Teacher-directed programs
Stress academic subjects taught by a teacher to an entire class.
Help children learn letters, numbers, shapes, and colors, as well as how to listen to the teacher and sit quietly.
Are often influenced by behaviorism.
Are much less expensive, since the child/adult ratio can be higher.
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Early-Childhood Education (part 8)
Project Head Start
Federally funded in early 1960s to provide preschool education for 4-year-olds from low-SES families or with disabilities
Current goals shifted from lifting families out of poverty to promoting literacy, providing dental care and immunizations, and teaching standard English
Early-Childhood Education (part 9)
Project Head Start
New 2016 requirements include 6 hour days and 180 days yearly with priorities for children who are homeless, have special needs, or are learning English.
Historical data suggest most Head Start children advanced in language and social skills, but non-Head Start children caught up in elementary school
Head Start children maintained superiority in vocabulary.
Opposing Perspectives: Comparing Child-Centered and Teacher-Directed Preschools
