DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY │ EARLY CHILDHOOD
During the first few years of life, brain development is rapid and
CHAPTER 7:
PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD
Physical Development
BODILY GROWTH AND CHANGE
Children grow rapidly between ages 3 and 6, but less quickly than
before. At about 3, children normally begin to lose their babyish
roundness and take on the slender, athletic appearance of
childhood.
SLEEP PATTERNS AND PROBLEMS
The majority of sleep problems are behavioral in nature and most
commonly include refusing to go to bed, taking a long time to go
to sleep, or frequent night waking.
Most children stay dry, day and night, by age 3 to 5, but enuresis,
repeated, involuntary urination at night by children old enough to
be expected to have bladder control, is not unusual. About 10 to
15 percent of 5-year-olds, more commonly boys, wet the bed
regularly, often while sleeping deeply. More than half outgrow
bed-wetting by age 8 without special help.
BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Preoperational stage
profound. By age 3, the brain is approximately 90 percent of adult
weight. From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid brain growth occurs in In Piaget’s theory, the second major stage of cognitive
the frontal areas that regulate planning and goal setting, and the development, in which symbolic thought expands but children
density of synapses in the prefrontal cortex peaks at age 4. cannot yet use logic effectively.
MOTOR SKILLS
Preschool children make great advances in gross motor skills,
such as running and jumping, which involve the large muscles.
Handedness, the preference for using one hand over the other, is
usually evident by about age 3. Because the left hemisphere of the
brain, which controls the right side of the body, is usually
dominant, 90 percent of people favor their right side.
Health and Safety
Main Problems in Early Childhood
● Obesity
● Food Security
● Undernutrition ADVANCES OF PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT
● Food Allergies
● Oral Health Advances in symbolic thought are accompanied by a growing
● Deaths and Accidental Injuries understanding of space, causality, identities, categorization, and
number.
Other main issues:
The Symbolic Function
● Socioeconomic Status and Race/Ethnicity
● Homelessness
● Being able to think about something in the absence of
● Exposure to Environmental Pollutants sensory or motor cues characterizes the symbolic
function. Children who have attained symbolic function
can use symbols, or mental representations, such as
Cognitive Development words, numbers, or images to which a person has
attached meaning.
● Preschool children show the symbolic function through
Piagetian Approach deferred imitation, pretend play, and language.
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY │ EARLY CHILDHOOD
● Another marker of symbolic function is pretend play. In
pretend play, also called fantasy play, dramatic play, or
imaginary play, children use an object to represent
something else
● The most extensive use of the symbolic function is
language. Language, at its heart, is a system of symbols.
Object Space
● In addition to their growing ability to use the symbolic
function, children also begin to be able to understand
the symbols that describe physical spaces, although this
process is slow.
Causality
● Piaget maintained that preoperational children cannot
yet reason logically about cause and effect. Instead, he
said, they reason by transduction. They mentally link
two events, especially events close in time, whether or
not there is logically a causal relationship.
Identities and Categorization
● The world becomes more orderly and predictable as
preschool children develop a better understanding of
identities: the concept that people and many things are
basically the same even if they change in outward form,
size, or appearance.
● Categorization, or classification, requires a child to
identify similarities and differences. By age 4, many
children can classify by two criteria, such as color and
shape.
● One type of categorization is the ability to distinguish
living from nonliving things. When Piaget asked young
children whether the wind and the clouds were alive,
their answers led him to think they were confused. The
tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive is
called animism.
Number
● Multiple lines of research have shown that infants have
a rudimentary sense of number.
● The cardinality principle, where children understand
that the number of items in a set is the same regardless
of how they are arranged and that the last number
counted is the total number of items in the set
regardless of how they are counted, starts to develop at
about 2½ years of age.
● The use of gestures—most notably pointing—helps
children count more effectively, and children intuitively
develop such strategies to scaffold their early skills
(Gordon et al., 2019)
● Socioeconomic status and preschool experience affect
how rapidly children advance in math.
● Numerical competence is important: How well children
understand numbers in kindergarten predicts their
academic performance in math through third grade
(Jordan et al., 2010), and deficient number sense has
been associated with mathematical learning
disabilities.
THEORY OF MIND
➔ the awareness of the broad range of human mental
states—beliefs, intents, desires, dreams, and so forth—
and the understanding that others have their own
distinctive beliefs, desires, and intentions. Having a
theory of mind allows us to under- stand and predict
the behavior of others and makes the social world
understandable.
Knowledge about Thinking and Mental States
● Between ages 3 and 5, children come to understand
that thinking goes on inside the mind, that it can deal
with either real or imaginary things and that thinking is
different from seeing, talking, touching, and knowing (
False Beliefs and Deception
● The understanding that people can hold false beliefs
flows from the realization that people can hold
incorrect mental representations of reality.
Distinguishing between Appearance and Reality
● According to Piaget, not until about age 5 or 6 do
children begin to understand the distinction between
what seems to be and what is. Initial research seemed
to support this view; however, more recent studies have
found this ability emerging between 3 and 4 years of
age.
Distinguishing between Fantasy and Reality
● Sometime between 18 months and 3
years, children learn to distinguish
between real and imagined events.
Individual Differences in Theory of Mind
Development
● Some children develop theory-of-mind abilities earlier
than others. In part, this development reflects brain
maturation and general improvements in cognition.
Information-Processing Approach: Memory
BASIC PROCESSES AND CAPACITIES
Information-processing theorists focus on the processes that
affect cognition.
Memory
➔ a filling system that has three steps, or processes:
encoding, storage, and retrieval
● Encoding – process by which information is prepared
for long-term storage and later retrieval.
● Storage – retention of information in memory for
future use.
● Retrieval – process by which information is assessed
or recalled from memory storage.
Three types of storage:
Sensory memory
➔ temporary storehouse for incoming sensory
information
Working memory
➔ short-term storehouse for information a person is
actively working on, trying to understand, remember,
or think about.
Long-term memory
➔ storehouse of virtually unlimited capacity that holds
information for a long-period of time.
Executive function
➔ the conscious control of thoughts, emotions, and
actions to accomplish goals or to solve problems.
RECOGNITION AND RECALL
Recognition
➔ ability to identify something encountered before
Recall
➔ ability to reproduce knowledge from memory
FORMING AND RETAINING CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
Genetic Memory
➔ begins at about 2, produces a script of familiar,
repeated event
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY │ EARLY CHILDHOOD
Episodic memory
➔ refers to awareness of having experienced a particular
event at a specific time and place
◆ If repeated, it becomes generic memory
Autobiographical memory
➔ memories of distinctive experiences that forms a
person’s life history
◆ Generally emerges between ages 3 to 4
Social Interaction Model – based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural
approach.
Theorists argue that children construct autobiographical
memories with parents or other adults about shared events.
Intelligence: Psychometric and Vygotskian Approaches
Intelligence
➔ is the ability to think, to learn from experience, to solve
problems, and to adapt to new situations. Intelligence
is important because it has an impact on many human
behaviors.
● Psychometric measures of intelligence are standardized
tests designed to assess an individual's cognitive
abilities. They aim to provide a numerical score that
reflects a person's intellectual potential.
● Vygotsky's theory guides educators to create a
supportive learning environment that maximizes a
student's potential by considering their current abilities
and the assistance they need to reach higher levels of
development.
Language Development
● Vocabulary
● Grammar and Syntax
● Pragmatics and Social Speech
● Private Speech
Common Problems
● Delayed Language Development
● Media and Cognition
Early Childhood Education
TYPES OF PRESCHOOL
Preschools vary greatly in their goals and curriculums. Some ● Gender stereotypes are preconceived generalizations
programs emphasize academic excellence achievement and others about male or female behavior: “All females are passive
focus on social and emotional development. and dependent; all males are aggressive and
Montessori Method independent.”
➔ based on the beliefs that children’s natural intelligence
involves rational, spiritual, and empirical aspects.
Reggio Emilia Approach
➔ less formal model than Montessori
➔ teachers follow children’s interest and support them in
exploration
COMPENSATORY PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS
Since the 1960s, large-scale compensatory preschool programs
have been developed to help children who would otherwise enter
school poorly prepared to learn to compensate for what they have
missed and to prepare them for school. Teachers and researchers
in early childhood education generally work within a model of the
whole child, seeking not just to enhance cognitive skills but also
to improve physical health and to foster self- confidence and
social skills.
CHAPTER 8:
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD
The Developing Self
● The gradual movement of one's capabilities, traits,
features and qualities to gain maturity is referred as
self-development. Self-development is the capacity and
action to grow one's self-awareness, abilities, talents,
Play
and skills in order to improve one's quality of life.
● Play is ubiquitous, not just in young humans—who take
almost any opportunity they can to play—but also in the
Gender young of many species, especially intelligent ones
(Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2000; Graham & Burghardt,
2010).
Gender identity, awareness of one’s femaleness or maleness and ● It is also important to healthy development of the body
all it implies in one’s society of origin, is an important aspect of and brain. It enables children to engage with the world
developing self-concept. around them, to use their imagination, to discover
flexible ways to use objects and solve problems, and
PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER DEVELOPMENT to prepare for adult roles.
● In humans, early locomotor play is believed to support
gross motor skill and neuromuscular development.
● Gender roles are the behaviors, interests, attitudes, ● Pretend play has been linked to cognitive functions,
skills, and personality traits that a culture considers
such as creativity, flexible thinking, perspective taking,
appropriate for males or females. Historically, in most and exploring the bounds of fantasy and reality (Russ &
cultures, women have been expected to devote most of Wallace, 2013).
their time to caring for the household and children, ● Play fighting, which is often discouraged by adults, has
while men were providers and protectors. adaptive functions as children innovate story lines,
● Gender-typing, the acquisition of a gender role, takes practice controlled physical movements, and
place early in childhood (Iervolino, Hines, Golombok, experiment with themes of competition and aggression
Rust, & Plomin, 2005).
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY │ EARLY CHILDHOOD
● Researchers categorize children’s play in varying ways. some argue that adequate amounts of child-directed ● Authoritarian parenting
One common classification system is by cognitive free play are ○ emphasizes control and unquestioning
complexity. *Another classification is based on the necessary for optimal development. In other cultures, obedience.
social dimension of play. Research has also uncovered play may be viewed differently. ● Permissive parenting
gender and cultural influences on play ● Culture also influences the nature of play via peer ○ emphasizes self-expression and self-
interactions. Children who behave in ways that are regulation; make few demands
COGNITIVE LEVELS OF PLAY contrary to cultural values may be met with rejection ● Authoritative parenting
from peers, while those who embody those values are ○ emphasizes a child's individuality but also
Smilansky (1968) identified four levels of play: functional play, likely to be accepted (Chen, 2012). stresses limits.
constructive play, dramatic play, and formal games with rules. Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin added a fourth parenting style
Although there is a general developmental progression to the ● Neglectful/Uninvolved
types of play, this is not a stage theory.
○ parents neglect children; focus on their needs
● The simplest level, which begins during infancy, is
rather than those of the child
functional play (sometimes called locomotor play),
consisting of repeated practice in large muscular Parenting Styles
movements, such as rolling a ball (Bjorklund & Parenting
Pellegrini, 2002).
● The second level, constructive play (also called WARMTH
object play), is the use of objects or materials to make Discipline
something, such as a house of blocks or a crayon ➔ methods of molding character and of teaching self- High Low
drawing (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002). control and acceptable behavior.
● The third level, dramatic play (also called pretend
play, fantasy play, or imaginative play), involves CONTROL High Authoritative Authoritarian
FORMS OF DISCIPLINE
imaginary objects, actions, or roles. Reinforcement and Punishment
● External reinforcements – may be tangible or Low Permissive Neglectful
THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF PLAY intangible; it must be seen as rewarding and received
fairly consistently after showing desired behavior
In a classic study, Mildred B. Parten (1932) identified six types of ● Internal reinforcements – a sense of pleasure or SPECIAL BEHAVIOR CONCERNS
play. accomplishment
● Punishment, if consistent, immediate, and clearly tied Prosocial Behavior – voluntary, positive actions to help others
to the offense, may be effective. Altruism – motivation to help another person with no
➔ Corporal punishment – use of physical expectation of reward
force with the intention of causing a child to Aggression
experience pain, but not injury, for the ● Instrumental aggression – used aggression as a
purpose of correction or control of the child’s tool to gain access to a wanted object
behavior. ● Overt (Direct) aggression – boys; tend to openly
direct aggressive acts as a target
Three Categories of Discipline ● Relational Aggression – indirect social aggression;
Inductive techniques more subtle consists of damaging or interfering with
➔ designed to encourage desirable behavior or discourage relationships, reputation, or psychological well-being
undesirable behavior by setting limits, demonstrating Fearfulness
GENDER AND PLAY logical consequences of an action, explaining, and etc. ➢ Fears may come from hearing about other people’s
● Girls tend to select other girls as playmates, and boys Power assertion experiences or from “catching” their fear responses
prefer other boys, a phenomenon known as gender ➔ intended to stop or discourage undesirable behavior ➢ Also tied to negative events experienced directly by
segregation. through physical or verbal enforcement of parental children
● Sex-typed play preferences increase between control.
toddlerhood and middle childhood, and the degree of Withdrawal of love
sex-typed behavior exhibited early in life is a strong Relationships with Other Children
➔ include ignoring, isolating, or showing dislike for a
indicator of later gender-based behavior (Golombok et
child. SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS
al., 2008).
● Sibling disputes and their settlement are socialization
CULTURE AND PLAY PARENTING STYLES opportunities in which children learn to stand up for
● Cultural values influence beliefs about the importance principles and negotiate disagreements, in part because
of play. In Western cultures such as the United States, Baumrind’s Model of Parenting Styles
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY │ EARLY CHILDHOOD
the involuntary nature of the relationship ensures that
interactions will continue.
THE ONLY CHILD
● In the United States, approximately 18 percent of
families have only one child (Gao. 2015).
● Are only children selfish, lonely, or spoiled? Generally,
this stereotype of only children appears to be false. A
meta-analysis of 115 studies found that most “onlies” do
well.