PHYSICAL AND SENSORY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Rapid growth in weight due to myelination By age 5 brain is 90% of adult weight Visual skills Improved attention and visual processing skills Specialization of hemispheres

THE BRAIN
Left-brained Logical, problem solving, language, and mathematical computations Right-brained Visual-spatial functions, recognition of faces, discrimination of color, aesthetic and emotional responses, understanding metaphors, and creative mathematical reasoning Functions overlap Myelination of corpus callosum

MOTOR SKILLS
Gross motor skills
Involve large muscles used in locomotion

Differences in gross motor development

Little sex differentiation More individual differences

Physical activity
Rough and tumble play Activity levels Genetic and environmental factors interact to determine individual level

FINE MOTOR
Childrens drawing
Progression

scribbles placement shape design pictorial stages

PHYSICAL GROWTH
Large muscles develop before small muscles. Muscles in the body's core, legs and arms develop before those in the fingers and hands. Children learn how to perform gross motor skills such as walking before they learn to perform fine motor skills such as drawing. The center of the body develops before the outer regions. Muscles located at the core of the body become stronger and develop sooner than those in the feet and hands.

 Development goes from the top down, from the head to the toes. This is why babies learn to hold their heads up before they learn how to crawl.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
4 stages:
Sensorimotor stage Preoperational stage Concrete operational stage Formal operational stage