Physcial And Cognitive Development In Early Childhood Flashcards
Physical development facts
‣ There is a 5 pound annual increment at 5 years, the body weight is 6 times the birth weight
‣ Total body length is doubled by the 4th year
‣ Head circumference increases by about one-half inch per year, during the 3rd through the 5th year
Physical development in growth rate and body proportions
‣ Growth rate
• Normative
◦ Measures how a student’s performance changes over time compared to other students
• Individual
‣ Body proportions
• At this age the head will be bigger and the limbs will be smaller.
Physical skills male versus female
◦Males
‣ Gross motor
• Tend to be better than girls (skills involving muscles)
◦ Example is running in a straight line really fast, throwing a ball a long distance, long jump
‣ Fine motor
• Worse than girls at things like coloring.
◦ Females
‣ Gross motor
• Not quite as good as the boys, but a lot of individual variation. Something like soccer there is a reverse, and girls are better and do better
‣ Fine motor
• Girls tend to be better at coloring and skills like that
◦ Boys from the start will have more androgen so they will have denser, stronger bone
‣ Until puberty we don’t start to get big biological differences. We socially construct gender which also plays a role into this.
Lead poisoning in environmental factors
◦ Use to only worry about lead paint, not anymore
◦ Now we worry about old pipes.
‣ Example is in Michigan, they sent already dirty water through the pipes of lower minority people and made the water be effected by lead.
◦ Lead poisoning can lower IQ, decrease their ability to pay attention, and create an underperformance at school
Vaccinations in environmental factors
◦ Make sure kids are getting vaccines,
‣ Vaccines do not cause autism, they don’t cause nerves to demyelinate leading to autism either, as autism is not a demyelinating disease. Vaccines do however, cause anti-Vaxers to make some stuff up.
Hospital visits and death in children
◦ In death or hospital stays, for children under 5, most likely to be accidental
◦ The second leading cause of death in children under 5 relates to birth defects
◦ Homicides are the 3rd leading cause
◦ Gun-related deaths for children in this age group, most gun deaths are in the homicide category, but a sizable share are classified as accidental.
‣ Is the single biggest cause of child death overall
The Piagetian approach to cognitive development
‣ The sensorimotor stage
• Birth to 2 years, start to learn about the environment through their senses, and start to develop the ability to interact with the world in a purposeful way
‣ The preoperational stage
◦ Advances in the preoperationsl stage
‣ Mental representations
• The ability to represent the things they care about.
◦ Ability to use symbols, real life things, words, images, represent costumes and recreate them
‣ Pretend play
• Playing house, or store and pretending. Sometimes realistic items, others times real items.
‣ Sociodramatic play
• A child’s imaginative play where they use objects to represent other things and actively take on roles like a superhero, a parent, a teacher, or something else.
• When a child acts out something that it’s important to them. In a child who may be struggling you get them to engage in play, and work out what they a trying to cope with
an example of sociodramatic play in the preoperational stage
◦ One of her nephews, his brother was very destructive. He would climb on top of the vacuum “his rocket ship” he would act like he went into space then climb of see a ‘teddy bear’ and say beat the child and beat it (to get his anger out without smashing the real child creating the stress) then climb back onto the vacuum and come back.
Conservation problems of the preoperational stage - liquid
The same amount of water in two glasses, then pour one into a taller, narrower glass and see which they think has more
Conservation problems of the preoperational stage - number
Two equal lines of checkers, then spread one line out without removing any. Then ask which has more checkers (they will say the longer one)
Conservation problems of the preoperational stage - mass
Two equal balls of clay, then squeeze one into a longer, thin shape. Then ask which has more clay
Conservation problems of the preoperational stage - length
• Two sticks of equal length, then move one stick over. Then ask which is longer, the one that got moved to the right is typically picked
Centration
‣ Can only focus on width or height
• If you ask them to only give red squares they may start giving rectangles (probably due to working memory)
Irreversibility
‣ Do not understand what can be reversed and what can’t
• If they get a haircut and don’t like it, they may think that it will never be different but it will grow back. Then may not realize that something like a doll head may not grow back.
Transductive thinking
• Example: when child was about three, parents were talking about hosting a sofa party (a faculty potluck). The child then on the day of the event, began to sing happy birthday to the couch thinking that it was the couch’s birthday.
• Her daughter when she was 5. Her mother would point to grandma to tell her who he was talking about choosing partners and getting married. However, instead of being sad, she got upset and asked “what happened to the other dadies” and asked “did they have to stay in their cages”
