PHYSICAL &

COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Developmental Psychology | Ms. Hayag
 OBJECTIVES

Identify physical Summarize how

01 changes in early
childhood 03 language develops
in early childhood

Describe 3 views of Evaluate different

02 the cognitive
changes that occur
in early childhood
04 approaches to
early childhood
education
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Physical Language
01 Changes 03 Development

Cognitive Early
Childhood
02 Changes 04 Education
Physical
Changes 01
 BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE
HEIGHT & WEIGHT

● 2 ½ inches and 5 to 7 pounds

● Preschool year - boys & girls' bodies
lengthen
● End of preschool years - lost their top-
heavy look
● fatty tissue - girls
● muscle tissue - boys
 BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE
HEIGHT & WEIGHT

Growth hormone deficiency

● the absence or deficiency of growth
hormone produced by the pituitary gland
to stimulate growth
● It affects between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in
10,000 people
 BODY GROWTH AND CHANGE
THE BRAIN
● 3 years of age - three-quarters of
adult size
● 6 years of age - 95% of adult size
● Myelination - nerve cells are covered
and insulated with a layer of fat cells
○ 4 years of age - hand-eye
coordination
● 3 - 15 years of age - brain undergoes
dramatic anatomical changes
● 4 years of age - brain experiences
spurt of growth
MOTOR & PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Gross Fine Motor Perceptual

Motor Skills Development
Skills
 GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
Simple movements: hopping,
3 years of age
jumping & running; pride &
accomplishment

4 years of
age Adventurous; Athletic prowess

5 years of
age
Stunts; races; climbing objects
 FINE MOTOR SKILLS

4 or 5 years Can move their eyes efficiently

of age
 SLEEP
● 11 to 13 hours of sleep
● Amount of sleep and uninterrupted
sleep is important
● Bedtime resistance associated with
conduct problems and hyperactivity
● Sleep duration linked to overweight
 SLEEP PROBLEMS

01 02 03
narcolepsy insomnia nightmare

extreme daytime difficulty getting to

sleepiness sleep or staying
asleep
NUTRITION
● Overweight Young Children
○ Saturated and trans fat - raise
cholesterol and increase heart
○ 430 calories - ⅓ of calorie intake
recommended for 4 to 8 years old
IMPROVE CHILDREN'S EATING BEHAVIOR

Model eating
Predictable
healthy food
schedule
1 2

3 4
Make
Engage in
mealtimes
certain
pleasant
feeding styles
occasion
NUTRITION
● Body Mass Index (BMI)
○ 97th percentile - obese
○ 95th percentile - overweight
○ 85th percentile - at risk of overweight
Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in Children: Landscape Analysis and Priority
Actions
Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in Children: Landscape Analysis and Priority
Actions
EXERCISE
● 15 or more minutes of physical
activity per hour over a 12-hour
period; or
● 3 hours per day total
THE STATE OF ILLNESS & HEALTH OF
WORLD'S CHILDREN
1. Immunization 1. Hunger
2. Dehydration 2. Malnutrition
3. Availability of maternal & 3. Illness
child health 4. Inadequate access to
4. Income health care
5. Food availability 5. Unsafe water
6. Clean water availability 6. Lack of security
7. Safe sanitation
8. Security

Under-5 mortality 1 of every 5

rate is caused by nations in the
these factors world
Cognitive
Changes
02
PIAGET'S PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

2 to 7 years of age begin to represent the

world with words, images,
and drawings

form stable concepts and cognitive world is

begin to reason dominated by egocentrism
and magical beliefs
 PIAGET'S PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

● 4 to 7 years of age
● use primitive reasoning
● always asks questions
● 5 years old – asks “why”
symbolic function substage questions

● 2 to 4 years of age
● ability to represent an object that is
not present intuitive thought substage
● expands mental world
● scribbles, language and pretend play
● Limitations: egocentrism & animism
 LIMITATIONS
● inability to distinguish between
one’s own perspective and
someone else’s perspective
● THREE MOUNTAIN TASK:
children pick their view rather
than the doll’
● Preschool children show ability
to consider other’s perspective
● belief that inanimate objects
have lifelike qualities and are
capable of action
● example:
○ The three pushed the leaf off,
and it fell down.

EGOCENTRISM ANIMISM
CENTRATION & THE LIMITS OF
PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT

Centration – centering of attention on one characteristics

to the exclusion of all others

Conservation – awareness that altering an object’s or a

substance’s appearance does not change its basic
properties.
CONSERVATION
TASK
DIMENSIONS OF CONSERVATION
 VYGOTSKY' S THEORY

children are more develop ways of thinking &

described as social understanding primarily
creatures through social interaction

cultural context shape

their mind
ZONE OF PROXIMAL
DEVELOPMENT (ZPD)

● ZPD
○ range of tasks that are too
difficult for the child to master
alone but can be learned with
the guidance of a more
knowledgeable other
SCAFFOLDING

● changing the level of support

● adjusting the amount of guidance to fit the
child’s current performance
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
● Use of dialogue – role of language in child’s development
● Speech – to communicate and solve tasks
● Language – to plan, guide, and monitor their behavior
● Private speech - for self-regulation
● 3 to 7 years old – transition from external to internal
speech
● involves talking to oneself
● Inner speech
○ internalized egocentric speech
○ act without verbalizing
○ thoughts
● Self- talk – egocentric
○ reflects immaturity
 TEACHING STRATEGIES

1 2 3
Assess the child's Use the child's Use more-skilled
ZPD ZPD in teaching peers as teachers

4 5

Place instruction in Transform the

meaningful classroom with
context Vygotskian ideas
EVALUATION
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● ATTENTION
○ focusing of mental resources on select
information
○ improves during preschool years
○ 2 aspects: executive attention & sustained
attention
 TWO ASPECTS OF ATTENTION
● action planning ● extended engagement with
● allocating attention to goals
an object, task, event, or
● error detection
other aspect of the
● compensation
● monitoring progress on tasks environment
● dealing with novel or difficult
circumstances

executive sustained
attention attention
TWO WAYS A CHILD'S CONTROL OF
ATTENTION IS DEFICIENT
● children pay attention to
stimuli that stand out (salient)
● 6 to 7 years old – attend more
efficiently to stimuli that are
relevant
salient vs relevant
dimensions
● preschool children – use
haphazard comparison strategy
(not examining all details before
making a judgement)
● elementary school age –
use systematically comparison
strategy (compare details one at
a time)
planfulness
THE PLANFULNESS OF ATTENTION
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● MEMORY
○ retention of information over time
○ 2 TYPES:
■ implicit memory
■ explicit memory
 EXPLICIT MEMORY
● retain information for 30
seconds, if there is no rehearsal
of information
● rehearsal – repeating
information after it has been
presented
● memory-span task – way to
assess a short term memory;
hear a shot list of stimuli
presented at a rapid pace then,
you are asked to repeat the
digits.
short-term
memory
● memory becomes more accurate
● Factors that influence accuracy:
○ There are age differences in susceptibility
to suggestion.
■ preschoolers are more susceptible
○ There are individual difference in
susceptibility.
■ ability to produce a high quality
narrative was linked to their
resistance to attention
○ Interviewing techniques can produces
distortions in children’s report about highly
salient events
long-term
memory
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● STRATEGIES & PROBLEM SOLVING

○ Strategies- deliberate mental activities to improve the processing of
information
○ TWO TYPICAL STRATEGIES:
■ Rehearsing
■ Organizing information
○ 3 to 4 years old – cannot understand that a single stimulus can be
describe in incompatible ways from two different perspectives
■ “rule of color” ˃ the “red one” ˃ the rabbit
○ 4 years old – concept of perspectives : allows them to appreciate that a
single stimulus can be described in two different ways
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND

○ Theory of mind – awareness of one’s own mental
process and mental process of others
■ view children as “a thinker who is trying to explain,
predict, and understand people’s thoughts, feelings
and utterances.”
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND

○ Developmental changes (18 months to 3 years)
■ Perceptions
● 2 years of age - recognizes that we have
different perceptions
● Child realizes that looking leads to knowing
what's inside the container
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND

○ Developmental changes (18 months to 3 years)
■ Emotions
● Child can distinguish between positive (happy)
and negative (sad) emotions
■ Desires
● Recognizes that if people want something, they
will try to get it
● Recognizing that we have different desires
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● CHILD'S THEORY OF
MIND
○ Developmental changes (18
months to 3 years)
■ Between ages of 3 and 5
- false beliefs
INFORMATION PROCESSING

● CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND

○ Individual Differences
■ Executive Function
● describes several functions (inhibition and
planning) that are important for flexible, future-
oriented behavior
■ Autism
 Language
Development
03
UNDERSTANDING PHONOLOGY
& MORPHOLOGY
● PHONOLOGY
○ More sensitive to sounds of spoken words
● KNOWLEDGE ON MORPHOLOGY RULES:
○ Use of plural nouns
○ Use of possessive nouns
○ Put appropriate ending on verbs
○ Use prepositions
○ Use articles
○ Use verb to be
○ OVERGENERALIZATION OF THE RULES
CHANGES IN SYNTAX AND
SEMANTICS
● SYNTAX
○ WH- QUESTIONS ˃ AUXILIARY VERB ˃ SUBJECT
Where is going daddy?

○ auxiliary-inversion rule
WH- QUESTIONS ˃ AUXILIARY VERB ˃ SUBJECT
Where is daddy going?
CHANGES IN SYNTAX AND
SEMANTICS
● SEMANTICS
○ dramatic vocabulary development
○ between 18 months and 6 years of age - 1 new word
every waking hour
○ 14, 000 words by Grade 1
ADVANCES IN PRAGMATICS

● PRAGMATICS
○ engage in extended discourses
○ talk to things that are not here
○ change speech style to suit situation (4 to 5 years old)
YOUNG CHILDREN'S LITERACY

● IMPORTANT HOME LITERACY

EXPERIENCES
○ literacy experience
○ quality of mother's engagement with the child
○ provision of learning materials
 04
Early
Childhood
Education
 VARIATIONS IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
● CHILD-CENTERED KINDERGARTEN
○ emphasizes the education of the whole child and
concern for his or her physical, cognitive and
socioemotional development
○ 3 principles
■ Each child follows unique developmental
pattern
■ Young children learn best through first-hand
experiences with people & materials
■ Play is extremely important in the child's total
development
 VARIATIONS IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
● THE MONTESSORI APPROACH
○ educational philosophy in which children are given
considerable freedom and spontaneity in choosing
activities and are allowed to one from one activity to
another as they desire.
 VARIATIONS IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
● DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE
& INAPPROPRIATE EDUCATION
○ Developmentally appropriate approach –
education that focuses on the typical
developmental patterns of children (age-
appropriateness) and the uniqueness of each child
(age-appropriateness)
CONTROVERSIES IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

● CURRICULUM CONTROVERSY
○ child-centered, constructivist approach vs
academic, direct-instruction approach

● UNIVERSAL PRESCHOOL EDUCATION

 THANKS!
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