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ESSENTIALS OF LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT, 5e
JOHN W. SANTROCK

Physical and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

Chapter Outline

Physical changes
Cognitive changes
Language development
Early childhood education

Physical Changes

Body growth and change
Average growth is 2½ inches and 5-7 pounds per year
Gender differences
Girls are slightly smaller and lighter than boys
Girls have more fatty tissue, boys have more muscle tissue
Trunk of the body lengths
Body fat shows a slow, steady decline

Physical Changes

The brain
Continuing development of brain and nervous system
Increasing brain maturation linked to emerging cognitive abilities
Rapid, distinct growth spurts
Most rapid growth in the prefrontal cortex from 3-6 years

Physical Changes

Myelination: Process through which axons are covered with a layer of fat cells
Increases speed and efficiency of information traveling through the nervous system
Linked to attention, hand-eye coordination, higher-level thinking skills
Children with higher cognitive ability showed increased myelination by 3 years of age
Poverty and parenting are linked to the development of the brain
Higher levels of maternal sensitivity in early childhood associated with higher total brain volume

Figure 5.1 - The Prefrontal Cortex

Physical Changes

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
More precise fine motor coordination at 4 years
Coordination continues to improve by 5 years

Physical Changes

Overweight young children
Serious health problems in early childhood
Strongly influenced by caregivers’ behavior
Determined by body mass index
U.S. has second highest rate of childhood obesity
Viewing as little as one hour of television daily was associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) between kindergarten and first grade
Malnutrition
When mothers participate in prenatal and early childhood WIC programs, young children showed short-term cognitive benefits
Children showed longer-term reading and math benefits

Physical Changes

Exercise

Guideline: young children get average of 15 or more minutes physical activity per hour over a 12-hour period

Or about 3 hours per day total

Vigorous physical activity linked to lower probability of being overweight or obese

Sixty minutes of physical activity per day in preschool academic contexts improved early literacy

Physical Changes

Illness and death
Leading causes of death in early childhood in U.S. are:
Accidents
Cancer
Cardiovascular disease
Safety influenced by:
Children’s own skills and safety-related behaviors
Characteristics of their family, home, school, peers, and community
Parental smoking is a major danger to children’s health

Figure 5.2 – Characteristics That Enhance Young Children’s Safety

Cognitive Changes

Piaget’s Preoperational Stage (ages 2-7)
Children represent the world with words, images, and drawings
Children form stable concepts and begin to reason
Cognitions are dominated by egocentrism and magical beliefs
Children do not yet perform operations – reversible mental actions

Cognitive Changes

Symbolic function substage (ages 2-4): Child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not present
Two important limitations:
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

Figure 5.3 - The Three Mountains Task

Cognitive Changes

Intuitive thought substage (ages 4-7): Children use primitive reasoning and want to know the answers to questions
“Why?” questions signify an interest in reasoning
Two important limitations:
Centration: Centering attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others
Conservation: Altering a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties

Figure 5.4 - Piaget’s Conservation Task

Figure 5.5 - Some Dimensions of Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length

Cognitive Changes

Vygotsky’s social constructivist approach
Emphasizes social contexts of learning
Construction of knowledge 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
More-skilled person adjusts amount of support to fit child’s current performance level

Cognitive Changes

Language and thought
Children use speech to communicate socially and to help them solve tasks
Private speech - Use of language for self-regulation
Important tool of thought during early childhood
Children internalize inner speech, which becomes their thoughts
More private speech = more social competence

Figure 5.7 – Comparison of Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s Theories

Cognitive Changes

Evaluating Vygotsky’s theory
Vygotsky was not specific enough about age-related changes
Overemphasized the role of language in thinking
How much is too much collaboration and guidance?

Cognitive Changes

Attention - Focusing of mental resources on select information
Executive attention:
Action planning
Allocating attention to goals
Error detection and compensation
Monitoring progress on tasks
Dealing with novel or difficult circumstances
Sustained attention: Focused and extended engagement with object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
Children make advances in both forms of attention
Greatest increase in sustained attention during early childhood

Cognitive Changes

Deficiencies in attention
Salient versus relevant dimensions
Planfulness
Ability to control and sustain attention is related to school readiness

Cognitive Changes

Memory - Retention of information over time
Short-term memory: Individuals can retain information up to 30 seconds with no rehearsal
Increases during early childhood
Assessed with memory span task
Myelination in a number of brain areas was linked to young children’s processing speed
Memory span increases with age
Rehearsal - repeating information after it has been presented
Used more often as a memory strategy among older children
Speed and efficiency of processing also increases memory span

Figure 5.8 - Developmental Changes in Memory Span

Cognitive Changes

How accurate are young children’s long-term memories?
Age differences in children’s susceptibility to suggestion
Individual differences in susceptibility
Interviewing techniques can produce substantial distortions in children’s reports about highly salient events
Autobiographical memory
Memory of significant events and experiences in one’s life
Young children’s memories take on more autobiographical characteristics

Cognitive Changes

Executive function (EF):
Umbrella-like concept that encompasses higher-level cognitive processes:
Managing one’s thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior and self control
Secure attachment to mother during toddler years linked to higher levels of EF at 5 to 6 years of age
High levels of control by fathers predicted a lower level of EF in 3-year-olds
Peer problems in early childhood was linked to lower EF later in adulthood

Cognitive Changes

In early childhood, there are developmental advances in:
Cognitive inhibition
Cognitive flexibility
Goal-setting
Delay of gratification
Emergent literacy and vocabulary development
Advances in executive function linked to school readiness

Cognitive Changes

Sustained Attention: involves focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
Preschool sustained attention was liked to a greater linked to a greater likelihood of completing college at 25 years of age

Cognitive Changes

Theory of mind: Awareness of one’s own mental process and the mental processes of others
Ages 2 to 3 - Children begin to understand the following three mental states:
Perceptions
Emotions
Desires
Ages 4-5
Realization that others have false beliefs
Individual differences
Prefrontal cortex function and various aspects of social interaction
Secure attachment
Mental state talk
Having older siblings
Friends who engage in mental state talk

Figure 5.10 - Developmental Changes in False-Belief Performance

Cognitive Changes

Individual differences in ages in which children reach milestones of theory of mind
Parents who talk to children about feelings frequently
Children with autism
Symbolic skills
Language development

Language Development

Phonology: Sound system of a language, including the sounds used and how they may be combined
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
Morphology: Units of meaning involved in word formation

Language Development

Learn and apply rules of syntax
Syntax: Involves the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences
Growing mastery of complex rules for how words should be ordered
Semantics: Meaning of words and sentences
Pragmatics: Appropriate use of language in different contexts

Language Development

Young children’s literacy
Parents and teachers provide supportive atmosphere for developing literacy skills
Children should participate in a wide range of listening, talking, writing, and reading experiences
Instruction should be built on what children already know about language, reading, and writing
Strategies for using books effectively with preschool children
Use books to initiate conversation
Use what and why questions
Encourage children to ask questions about stories
Choose some books that play with language

Early Childhood Education

Child-centered kindergarten
Emphasizes education of the whole child and promoting physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development
Principles of child-centered kindergarten:
Each child follows unique developmental pattern
Learn best through firsthand experiences with people and materials
Play is important in child’s total development

Early Childhood Education

Montessori approach
Child is given freedom and spontaneity in choosing activities
Seeks to develop “self-regulated problem solvers who can make choices and manage time effectively”
Deemphasizes verbal interactions in socioemotional development
Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)
Based on typical developmental patterns of children within a particular age span (age-appropriateness)
Uniqueness of each child (individual-appropriateness)

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
Represents the largest federally-funded program for U.S. children
Improved parenting engagement and skills in the success of Head Start Program

Early Childhood Education

Controversies in early childhood education
Early childhood curriculum
Child-centered, constructivist approach, along the lines of developmentally appropriate practice
Academic, direct instruction approach
Universal preschool education