Early Childhood

Development
DR. LINDA BAÑAGA-CAMPOPOS, RGC
Early Childhood
Early childhood (2 year to 6 years) is a critical period in the
development of the human potential. Foundations for all
aspects of development are laid during this stage. It is the
period of the development of initiative. The child acts on his
needs. If these attempts are supported and are quite
successful, he develops a sense of confidence in himself. It is
also referred to as preschool age. His acquisition of language
and understanding of concepts influence his intellectual
development. His social interactions with his family and
significant others determine how he progresses socially and
emotionally.
Characteristics of Early Childhood
1. Activity Age — a healthy child engages in all kinds of tasks.
2. Discovery Age — the young child starts to learn many things about himself
and is environment
3. Exploration Age — the child manipulates his body and his environment.
4. Socialization Age — the child begins to meet people in his neighborhood and
community.
5. Imitation Age — the child copies just any model who gets his attention.
6. Play Age — the child engages in different kinds of play activities
7. Vocabulary Age — the child accumulates vocabulary from his interactions.
8. Curiosity Age — the child tries to understand his environment.
9. Inquisitive or Questioning Age — the preschool always asks about the
varied things in his environment.
10. Troublesome Age — if the child is not properly guided, his explorations
sometimes create trouble for him and his family.
Physical Development during Early
Childhood
All parts of the body grow, but at different rates. In the head,
the forehead area develops faster than the lower parts of the
face. The reason for this is the very rapid growth of the brain.
The more muscle tissue a child develops, the stronger he
becomes. The stronger he becomes, the more energetic and
active he is.
A. CHILDREN’S ILLNESSES
Illnesses are common during the preschool years than when the child grows older. Even
healthy children experience some of these illnesses Respiratory tract disorders ad digestive
upsets are the common problems. If they have been immunized, they will not or have only very
mild cases of chicken pox, measles, poliomyelitis and diphtheria.
B. PHYSICAL DEFECTS
Children with physical defects should be taught in an early age to accept their
conditions. They should be treated as much as if they were normal. They should be given
every chance to learn to do things like normal children. They should learn to do things for
themselves. Then they, too, can lead independent, useful lives.

Accidents, which sometimes are the reasons for physical

defects, can be prevented by making the home and school as
accident-proof as possible.
Motor Development
Motor development depends to a great extent on the child’s physical condition.
When a child is healthy, he strengthens all his muscles, establishes his
coordination, acquires balance, fine tunes the movements of his small muscles,
and learns to move for specific purposes progressively.
Handedness is established between ages 3 – 6 years. During this period,
children abandon the tendency to shift from the use of one hand to use of the other
hand. They begin to concentrate on learning skills with one hand as the dominant
hand and the other as auxiliary hand.
Parents and nursery school teachers are advised to train and encourage the
child to use his right hand because he is born into a right – handed world.
However, there are cases in which the child persists in being ambidextrous or
in using the left hand. In this case the adult should allow the child to pursue his
natural pattern of development. Forcing the child to shift from left to right may
imprint some negative attitude that may persist in the child later.
Intellectual Development
1. Deferred imitation — the preoperational child can imitate
what he has previously observed but which is now not
present.
2. Symbolic play — children often play games of
“pretending”. They reenact some experiences common to
them like being put to bed, scolded, or hugged using a doll
to represent themselves.
3. Drawing — serves as an imitative expression of what they
have been seen.
4. Mental image — this is an internalized kind of imitation.
5. Verbal evocation — children use a word or two to signify
a past event in their experience.
The Preconceptual Period (2 – 4 years)
During the preconceptual subperiod, children begin to use
language to direct their behavior. However, adults should be
aware of the child’s unique thought pattern characterized by
egocentrism, animism, and transductive reasoning.
Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish between how one
experiences events and how others experience them.
Animism or the attribution of lifelike properties to inanimate
objects, the “moon walks”, his toy needs food, and so on.
Transductive reasoning or reasoning from particular to
particular. This takes the form of “if object or event X has
properties A and B, and object or event Y has property A, then
it must als have property B.”
The Intuitive Period (4 – 7 years)

Centration or the tendency to concentrate on one

aspect of a stimulus and ignore others. Another
characteristic of this stage is irreversibility. Children
do not recognize that many actions performed on
objects can be reversed. Once an act is done, it
cannot be undone. He does not acknowledge that
functions or relationships can be reversed.
Emotional Development
Early childhood is characterized by heightened emotionality. Emotions
like love, fear, joy and anger are experienced by the child just like the
adult. However, young children’s emotions are usually felt more strongly
and expressed more openly than those of adults. Children’s emotions last
only for a few minutes, unlike the adults’ which may drag on for hours or
days. Children are easily stimulated to experience love, joy, jealousy, fear
and anger.

Children’s Fear
Among two-year-olds, common sources of fear are noise, objects that
make noise, and strange objects, persons and situations, while four-year-
olds manifest fear of darkness, imaginary creatures, and being alone, and
experience dreams that give rise to fear reaction.
Social Development
The family, playmates, teachers, classmates and peer
group exert a great influence in forming the child’s self-
concept during childhood. They constitute his or her primary
group which forms part of what is called significant others.

By the time the child is four years old, he has a fairly well-
defined concept of who he is. The parents should note that
their remarks about the child usually reinforce that which the
child hears about himself. If he hears that he is good, or
smart, he acts correspondingly. If he is called makulit, matigas
ang ulo, mahina, he behaves as such.
KEY IDEAS
1. Early childhood is the foundation age for the development
of the human potential.
2. Growth and development follow a predictable pattern.
3. Growth and development are unique for each individual.
4. The preschool child should be given as much physical
experience as possible and play activities to learn by
doing, to develop his intellectual capacity.
5. The family and the significant others including the
preschool have to give their support, modeling, instruction,
love and encouragement to help the child develop his full
potential.