STUDIES IN CHILD AND
ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
UNIT 3: CHAPTER 5 (PAGES 179-185) AND CHAPTER 6
(PAGES 188-203)
EARLY CHILDHOOD: PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Wendy L. DuCassé
Berk, L.E., (2008). Infants, children, and adolescents. Boston, MA:
Pearson Learning Solutions.
GETTING STARTED
Welcome
 Microphone check
 Technical difficulties: 1-866-522-7747
 Discussion pointers: citations and references
 This units’ reading: pages 24-25
 Tonight: physical and cognitive development in
early childhood, Unit 4 project
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PHYSICAL
DEVELOPMENT
IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
The textbook identifies early childhood as “the
play years.” Related to this, I once heard that
play is the work of children. It is during this
“work” that we can so aptly observe both their
physical and cognitive milestones.
 Brain development
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By the end of this stage the brain will be 90% of its
adult weight.
 There is a peak in synaptic growth and myelination
by age 4, which also correlates to increased energy
needs, but shortly after this, synaptic pruning occurs.
This also affects brain plasticity.
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BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: HANDEDNESS
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By the end of the first year, children typically display
a hand preference, which will later correlate to
strengths in other skills because the opposite brain
hemisphere has a greater capacity to carry out skilled
motor action.
The brains of left-handers tend to be less strongly
lateralized than those of right-handers and lefthanders are often more ambidextrous.
There may be a small genetic contribution to
handedness, as well as prenatal contributions,
cultural impacts and practice effects.
More severely retarded and mentally ill people are
left handed, perhaps due to left hemisphere damage.
BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
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Brain development in the frontal lobe,
cerebellum, reticular formation, hippocampus,
and corpus callosum during early childhood leads
to
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Increased functioning of the CNS
Greater and smoother motor control
Improvements in sustained, controlled attention
Gains in memory and spatial understanding
An ability to use strategies to store and retrieve info
Expansion of autobiographical memory, ending
infantile amnesia
Drawing and reading maps
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
PIAGET’S THEORY: PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
 Encompasses
ages 2-7 years and is
marked by an extraordinary increase in
mental representation.
 Language plays a role by allowing
children to assign labels to internal
images based on sensorimotor
experiences, but Piaget did not regard
language as the primary ingredient in
childhood cognitive change.
PIAGET’S THEORY: LIMITATIONS OF
PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT
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Egocentrism: failure to distinguish the symbolic
viewpoints of others from one’s own. Examples?
Animistic thinking: the belief that inanimate objects
have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes,
feelings, and intentions. Examples?
Inability to conserve: conservation refers to the idea
that certain physical characteristics of objects remain
the same, even when their outward appearance
changes. This occurs in part because they center or
focus on one aspect neglecting other important
features, and because they lack the ability to
mentally reverse the steps of an action.
Field trip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg
PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT: FOLLOW-UP
RESEARCH
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Criticisms of Piaget suggest that young children are
more advanced than he thought, but his assessments
contain unfamiliar elements or too much info for
young children to handle. Specific areas looked at
include
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Egocentric thought
Animistic thinking
Magical thinking
Illogical thought
Categorization
Appearance versus reality
Operational thought is not absent at one point and
present at another, it is a gradually developing
capacity
MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY
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Make-believe play as a reflection of symbolic
mastery follows the following sequence:
Around age 2, play detaches from real-life conditions
associated with it and becomes more flexible.
 Play becomes less self-centered.
 Around age 2 ½ play includes more complex
combinations of schemes and sociodramatic play
develops.
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Sociodramatic play: children’s make-believe play
with others, which includes assigning and
negotiation of roles/activities
 Field trip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdOwvZwiYwk
&feature=related
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MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY
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Benefits of make-believe play
Play reflects AND contributes to cognitive
development
 Improves social competence in part because it
involves more children than other forms of play and
is more cooperative
 Improves attention, memory, logical reasoning,
language, literacy, imagination, creativity, behavior
control, perspective taking, and reflecting on one’s
own thinking
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Imaginary companions-do they reflect
maladjustment in young children?
MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY: WAYS TO ENHANCE
Provide sufficient space and play materials
 Supervise and encourage children’s play without
controlling it
 Offer realistic materials and those without clear
function
 Ensure that children have many rich, real-world
experiences to inspire positive fantasy play, while
also limiting television viewing.
 Help children solve conflicts constructively
 Any other ideas from your experience?
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VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY
This theory focuses on how culture is transmitted
across generations and emphasizes the necessity
of social interactions in helping children acquire
the ways of thinking and behaving that make up
a community’s culture. It also stresses the social
context of cognitive development.
 Private speech (Vgotsky) versus egocentric
speech (Piaget)
 Vygotsky emphasized the importance of language
as the foundation of all higher cognitive processes
including attention, memorization, recall,
categorization, planning, problem-solving, and
self-reflection.
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VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY
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Research supports that adults who are stimulating,
responsive, and supportive, they foster many
cognitive competencies – attention, language, complex
play, and perspective taking. This also predicts more
mature thinking and children’s effort.
While research shows that young children benefit
from working on tasks with same-age peers, their
planning and problem solving improve more when
their partner is an expert peer or adult.
Criticisms include that some cultures do not
emphasize verbal communication as much as
westerners and his theory does little to discuss basic
cognitive development that sets the path for socially
transmitted higher cognitive processes.
UNIT 4 PROJECT
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Prepare: unit readings and “Dual Earner Families”
video
Cover sheet
Brief introduction with thesis statement
Body that responds to the following:
Identify the challenges that Deb and Ron and their
children face due to the parents’ work schedules. How have
they handled these challenges? (35 points)
 Pretend that you are a child/family human service
professional and members of this family are your clients.
What would you tell them about their children’s social and
emotional needs? (40 points)
 Consistent with the previous section, what interventions
might you suggest that they try to stabilize their family?
(40 points)
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UNIT 4 PROJECT
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Brief conclusion
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Should summarize
Should restate thesis statement
Should not offer new information
Reference page
Writing
Structure: Paper includes a title page, introduction with
thesis statement, body, brief summary paragraph
rephrasing thesis, and in-text citations and reference page
using APA style. Paper is appropriate in length (paper
should be 3 pages, not including the title page or reference
page). (15 points)
 Mechanics: Uses Standard American English including
correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, complete
sentences and paragraphs, cohesive organization, highly
developed viewpoint, and is free of typographical errors.
(15 points)
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CLOSING
Tonight: physical and cognitive development in
early childhood, Unit 4 project
 Any questions?
 Next week: Unit 4
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Topic: Early Childhood: Social Emotional
Development
 Reading: Chapters 1 (bottom of page 14-18) and 7
(pages 232-245 and 248-264) of the textbook
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