Lifespan Development Module # 5: Early Childhood

Learning Outcomes: Physical Development in Early Childhood 5.1: Describe physical changes in early childhood
5.1.1: Summarize overall physical growth and nutrition during early childhood
5.1.2: Understand nutrition concerns during early childhood
5.1.3: Describe changes in the brain during early childhood
5.1.4: Give examples of gross and fine motor skill development in early childhood<br>

Growth and Nutrition in Early Childhood Children between ages of 2 and 6 years tend to grow about 3 inches in height each year and gain 4-5 pounds in weight each year and start to lose some baby fat
1 in 5 American children between ages 2 and 5 are overweight or obese
Caregivers need to keep in mind that they are setting up taste preferences in early childhood
By providing adequate, sound nutrition and limiting sugary snacks and drinks, the caregiver can be assured that the child will not starve and will receive adequate nutrition<br>

Physical Development in Early Childhood, continued By age 6, the brain is at 95% of its adult weight and the development of myelin (myelination) and new synapses continues to occur in the cortex
Synaptic pruning is the loss of synapses which are unused and will increase as neural processes become quicker and more complex
The prefrontal cortex will see greater development with more planning and complexity in thinking and emotional control
Language (left hemisphere) increases significantly, spatial skills (right hemisphere) continue to improves, and the connection between the hemispheres (corpus callosum) undergoes a growth spurt
Visual pathways become more mature
Gross motor skills (large muscle groups) and fine motor skills (more exact movements) both develop<br>

Sexual Development in Early Childhood Sexuality beings in childhood as a response to physical states and sensation and cannot be interpreted as similar to that of adults
Boys and girls are capable of erections and vaginal lubrication even before birth with stimulation used for comfort or tension relief and not to reach orgasm
Self-stimulation and curiosity about bodies is a natural part of early childhood
As children grow, they are more likely to show their genitals to siblings or peers and masturbation is common
It is important for caregivers to take the time to talk with their children about when it is appropriate for other people to see or touch them<br>

Practice Question 1 Mandy has been reading a lot of child development books and websites. She is becoming confused about what she should be looking for with her 3 year old child’s physical growth. Which of the following is true about a child’s physical growth during early childhood?’

The child will grow about 5 inches in height per year.
The child will have all 20 primary teeth.
The child will stop napping completely by age 3.
By age 3 children have body proportions similar to that of an adult.<br>

Practice Question 2 Howard’s mother is taking a psychology course in college. She is concerned that her three-year-old is capable of sexual arousal but better understands his behavior after learning about modern sexual development theory. According to the theory, three-year-old Howard is capable of sexual arousal that includes:

seduction
power
physical arousal
lust<br>

Cognitive Development in Early Childhood<br>

Learning Outcomes: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood 5.2: Explain cognitive changes in early childhood
5.2.1: Describe Piaget’s preoperational stage of development
5.2.2: Illustrate limitations in early childhood thinking, including animism, egocentrism, and conservation errors
5.2.3: Explain theory of mind
5.2.4: Explain language development and the importance of language in early childhood
5.2.5: Describe Vygotsky’s model, including the zone of proximal development<br>

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The preoperational stage (ages 2– 7): children are learning to use language and think about the world symbolically helping to develop the foundations needed for the next stage
Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency to think that everyone sees things in the same way as the child
Precausal thinking describes the way in which children in this stage use their own existing ideas or views to explain cause-and-effect relationships and includes:
Animism: the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities
Artificialism: the belief that environmental characteristics can be attributed to human actions or interventions
Transductive reasoning: when a child fails to understand the true cause and effect relationships
Syncretism: the tendency to think that two events occurring simultaneously had a causal relationship<br>

Cognition Errors Centration is the act of focusing all attention on one characteristic or dimension of a situation and disregarding others (pieces of cake vs. size of pieces)
Conservation is the awareness that altering a substance’s appearance does not change its basic properties (sandwich cut in half)
Irreversibility is the young child’s difficulty mentally reversing a sequence of events
Centration, conservation errors, and irreversibility reflect the young child’s reliance on visual representations
Preoperational children lack the basic logic and the ability to use previous knowledge to determine the missing piece (transitive inference)<br>

Theory of Mind The theory of mind is the understanding that the mind holds people’s beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions
By age 4, children’s theory of mind allows them to understand that people think differently, have difference preferences, and may mask their true feelings
The awareness of the existence of mind is part of social intelligence and helps develop self-awareness and the ability to anticipate the needs of others
Those on the autism spectrum typically show an impaired ability to recognize other people’s minds
Autism is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts as well as restrictive behaviors and interests<br>

Theory of Mind, continued While the majority of parents notice the child’s behaviors between 18 and 24 months, diagnoses comes later
Typical signs of autism include:
No babbling by 12 months
No gesturing by 12 months
No single words by 16 months
No tow-word phrases by 24 months
Loss of any language or social skills, at any age
The Sally-Anne test is used to determine whether someone lacks the theory of mind and includes a story about a ball being moved when one child leaves with children younger than 4 and those with autism generally answering incorrectly<br>

Language Development From ages two to six, a child’s vocabulary expands from about 200 words to over 10,000 through fast-mapping
Words are easily learned through connections between new words and existing concepts
Children learn the rules of grammar as they learn the language with some rules taught explicitly and others intuitively
Children can overregulate grammar rules because they intuitively discover a rule then overgeneralize it when they are taught to do something in school (add “ed” to end of words for past tense)<br>

Language Development, continued Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky) is the range of material that a child is ready to learn if proper support and guidance are given
Scaffolding (Chomsky) is a process in which the guide provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned
Piaget interpreted talking to oneself as egocentric speech or a child’s inability to see things from other points of view
Vygotsky believed that this private speech seeks to solve problems or clarify thoughts
Research by Hart and Risley found that children from less advantaged backgrounds are exposed to millions fewer words in their first 3 years than those from higher socioeconomic groups
While there have been critics of Hart and Risley’s research, a replication of the original study found a word gap that was closer to 4 million words than the previously proposed 30 million<br>

Practice Question 3 A two-year old overhears a word when her parents are talking about an object they are pointing at. While the word is unknown, the child begins to use it within a day or two. This is an example of

fast-mapping
chance
scaffolding
overregulation<br>

Class Activity: Language Ability With a partner or group, discuss the following questions:
Have you spent time around infants and toddlers? Think about a time when you had a conversation with a younger child and words being used.
Was the child able to understand more than they could express? How did you know?
How would you engage in scaffolding to help the child build language skills? Create a plan with clear examples.
Share your ideas with the class.<br>

Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood<br>

Learning Outcomes: Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood 5.3: Describe key emotional and social developments of early childhood
5.3.1: Describe the development of a self-concept
5.3.2: Explain Freud’s psychodynamic theory as it applies to early childhood
5.3.3: Explain Erikson’s psychosocial theory as it applies to early childhood
5.3.4: Describe gender identity development in early childhood
5.3.5: Describe the impact of different parenting styles on children’s development
5.3.6: Apply principles of operant conditioning to parenting and behavior modification
5.3.7: Examine concerns about childhood stress and trauma<br>

Developing a Concept of Self Self-concept is the idea of who we are, what we are capable of doing, and how we think and feel
Looking-glass self (Cooley) involves looking at how others seem to view us and interpreting this as we make judgments about ourselves
Two parts of the self: the “I” that is spontaneous, creative, innate and not concerned about how others view us and the “me” or social definition of who we are
The socialized self begins when we are able to consider how one important person views us
As the child grows and is exposed to a variety of situations and cultural roles, she begins to view the self in the eyes of many others (taking the role of the generalized other), resulting in a sense of self with many dimensions<br>

Developing a Concept of Self, continued One way to gain a clearer sense of self is to exaggerate qualities to be incorporated into the self
The exaggeration tends to be replaced by a more realistic sense of self in middle childhood as children learn to compare themselves to others to understand their capabilities
Self-control involves both response inhibition and delayed gratification
The ability to delay gratification has been assessed in young children with the “marshmallow test”
Recent research has linked poor delayed gratification in young children to poor eating self-regulation, particularly eating when not hungry<br>

Psychodynamic and Psychosocial Theories of Early Childhood Children pass through two stages of Freud’s theory during early childhood: stage 2 (anal stage) and stage 3 (phallic stage)
The anal stage (18mths – 3 y.o.): the libido source shifts from the mouth to the anus and the child gains pleasure from defecating, setting up difficulties in potty training
Parental reactions during potty training may result in a child who stubbornly holds onto feces or who purposefully makes a mess
In the phallic stage, the child develops an attraction to the parent of another sex, called the Oedipus Complex for boys and the Electra Complex for girls
When the child recognizes the parent of another sex as unavailable, the child learns to model behavior after the same-sex parent
Chodorow (a neo-Freudian) believed that mothering promotes gender stereotypic behavior
Both Freud and Chodorow assume that early childhood experiences result in lifelong gender self-concepts
Introjection (part of the phallic stage) is the process of learning right from wrong and occurs as children incorporate values from others into their value set<br>

Social Development: The Importance of Play The development of play holds a crucial role in providing a safe, caring, protective, confidential, and containing space where children can recreate themselves and their experiences through exploring
Early childhood play can be understood by observing the elements of fantasy, organization, and comfort
Six different types of play are observed in American children at free play:
Unoccupied play
Solitary (independent) play
Onlooker play
Parallel play (adjacent play)
Associative play
Cooperative play<br>

Erikson: Initiative vs. Guilt Erikson viewed the relationships people have as an influence personality development
Initiative vs. Guilt (begins at age 3) and builds upon the previous trust and autonomy in the previous stage into a desire to take initiative or think of ideas and initiate action
Parental guidance should help the child move towards the right actions
The goal is to find a balance between initiative and guilt, not a free-for-all where the parent allows the child to do anything wanted<br>

Gender and Early Childhood Preschool aged children become increasingly interested in finding out the differences between boys and girls both physically and in terms of acceptable activities
Gender identity is followed sometimes later with gender constancy
Children learn at a young age that there are distinct expectations for boys and girls with most children firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles by age 4 or 5
Gender stereotyping, involving overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men
Children who are allowed to explore different toys and exposed to non-traditional gender roles tend to have broader definitions of what is gender appropriate and may do less gender stereotying<br>

Gender and Early Childhood, continued Learning theorists suggest that gender role socialization is a result of the ways in which others send messages about what is acceptable or desirable behavior for males or females
Gender socialization begins as early as the moment a parent learns that a child is on the way
Children will most likely choose ”gender appropriate” toys even when cross-gender toys are available because of positive feedback for gender normative behaviors
Gender messages can be seen in parenting, school, and elsewhere in public settings and persist into adulthood
Gender differences in India can be a matter of life and death due to preferences for male children<br>

Family Life and Parenting Styles Baumrind offers a parenting model with three styles: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative
Authoritarian parenting is a traditional model in which parents make the rules and children are expected to be obedient, resulting in children fearing rather than respecting their parents
Permissive parenting involves being a friend to a child rather than an authority figure, resulting in children who may fail to learn self-discipline and may feel insecure because they do not know their limits
Authoritative parenting involves being appropriately strict, reasonable, and affectionate and allowing negotiation when appropriate
Uninvolved parenting reflects parents who are disengaged from their children, making no demands and being non-responsive<br>

Family Life and Parenting Styles, continued I Lemasters and Defrain looks closely at the motivations of the parent and suggests that parenting styles are designed to meet parent rather than the child’s needs
A martyr is a parent who will do anything for the child and may later be used to gain compliance from the child
A pal is like the permissive parent who wants to be the child’s friend and sets few limitations
The police officer/drill sergeant is similar to the authoritarian parent with a primary focus on obedience and may find it difficult to let the children learn and grow
The teacher-counselor parent pays a lot of attention to expert advice on parenting and seeks to rear a perfect child
Athletic coach style of parenting (Lemasters and Defrain): helps the child understand what needs to happen in certain situations and provides guidance<br>

Family Life and Parenting Styles, continued II The impact of class and culture is closely related to parenting style
African-American, Hispanic, and Asian parents tend to be more authoritarian than non-Hispanic whites while collectivist cultures see being obedient and compliant as favored behaviors
Working class parents are more likely than middle-class parents to focus on obedience and honesty
Between 1981 and 1997, the amount of time parents spent with their children increased overall
75% of children under age 5 are in child care programs with others cared by other family members or friends
Many factors determine the quality of child care including student/teacher ratio, the physical environment, provider skill<br>

Learning and Behavior Modification In operant conditioning, both reinforcement and punishment can be positive or negative
Positive reinforcement: something is added to increase the behavior likelihood (alarm clock)
Positive punishment: something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior (spanking)
Negative reinforcement: something (an aversive stimulus) is removed to increase the likelihood of behavior (horse training)
Negative punishment: something is removed to decrease the likelihood of behavior (time out for kids)
Using positive reinforcement is the most effective way of teaching a new behavior
Reinforcement can be continuous and occur after every desired action or intermittent, and the schedule impacts how long the behavior continues without reinforcement<br>

Childhood Stress and Development Stress in young children can be positive, tolerable, or toxic
Positive stress (eustress) is needed and promotes resilience and arises from brief, mild to moderate stress with buffers from caring adults
Tolerable stress is from adverse experiences more intense in nature but short lived and able to be overcome
Toxic stress refers to chronic, excessive stress that exceeds a child’s ability to cope, especially without supportive caregiving
Children who experience toxic stress or who live in extremely stressful situations of above over long periods can suffer long-lasting effects
If the brain is exposed to long periods of severe stress, it can develop a low threshold and create future stress hypersensitivity<br>

Childhood Stress and Development, continued Stress is encountered in four stages: stress causes alarm, the child attempts to find meaning from the event, the child seeks coping strategies, and the child executes coping strategies
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): childhood trauma that might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, parent of sibling treated violently, separation or incarceration of parents, or having a parent with a mental illness
Kaiser Permanent and the CDC study (1998): determined that traumatic experiences during childhood are a root cause for many social, emotional, and cognitive impairments leasing to increased risks for unhealthy self-destructive behaviors, violence, chronic health issues, low life potential, and premature death
Food insecurity happens when a family has limited or uncertain availability of safe, nutritious food<br>

Practice Question 4 For as long as Alesandro can remember his parents have been constantly arguing, often ignore him and his siblings for long periods of time, and he often does not get enough to eat. What sort of stress is Alesandro likely suffering from?

Tolerable stress
Eustress
Toxic stress
Basic stress<br>

Class Activity: Building Resiliency The list is long of the potential stressors that children might face during their early years.
Write down some practices and policies to implement that will help children remain resilient in early childhood.
Be sure to Include guidance from theory and provide examples of how your practices and policies would address either childhood stress that is toxic or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).<br>

Quick Review What are the key characteristics of physical growth and nutrition during early childhood?
What are the nutrition concerns during early childhood?
How does the brain change during early childhood?
What are some examples of gross and fine motor skill development in early childhood?
What characterizes Piaget’s preoperational stage of development?
What are some limitations in early childhood thinking, including animism, egocentrism, and conservation errors?
What is the theory of mind?
What happens in language development and what is the importance of language in early childhood?<br>

Quick Review, continued What is included in Vygotsky’s model, including the zone of proximal development
How does self-concept develop?
What are the key criteria of Freud’s psychodynamic theory as it applies to early childhood?
How does Erikson’s psychosocial theory apply to early childhood?
What does gender identity development look like in early childhood?
How does different parenting styles impact children’s development?
How do principles of operant conditioning apply to parenting and behavior modification?
What are some of the concerns about childhood stress and trauma?<br>