Lifespan Psych Chapter 7

1. Physical and
Cognitive
Development in
Early Childhood
Chapter 7
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2. 7 - 2
Chapter Outline
• Physical changes
• Cognitive changes
• Language development
• Early childhood education
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

3. 7 - 3
Physical Changes
• Body growth and change
• Motor development
• Sleep
• Nutrition and exercise
• Illness and death
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

4. 7 - 4
Body Growth and Change
• Height and weight
– Average growth is 2.5 inches and 5 to 7 pounds
per year during early childhood
– Growth patterns vary individually
– Two most important contributors to height
differences
• Ethnic origin and nutrition
– Growth hormone deficiency: Produced by the
pituitary gland to stimulate the body to grow
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

5. 7 - 5
Body Growth and Change
• The brain
– Brain growth slows during early childhood
• Brain reaches 95% of adult volume by 6 years
• Changes in child’s brain structure
– Myelination: Nerve cells are covered and
insulated with a layer of fat cells
– Rapid, distinct spurts of growth especially in the
frontal lobes
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

6. 7 - 6
Motor Development
• Gross motor skills
– Simple movements at age 3
– More adventurous at age 4
– Hair-raising risks at age 5
• Fine motor skills
– Still clumsy at 3 years
– Improved fine motor coordination at 4 years
– Body coordination by 5 years
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

7. 7 - 7
Sleep
• Should sleep 11-13 hours each night without
interruption
• Can experience narcolepsy, insomnia, and
nightmares
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

8. 7 - 8
Sleep
• Children’s sleep problems and negative
developmental outcome
– Alcohol use problems in adolescence
– Attention problems
– Impaired brain development
– Overweight
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

9. 7 - 9
Nutrition and Exercise
• Overweight young children
– Serious health problems in early childhood
– Strongly influenced by caregivers’ behavior
– Categories for obesity, overweight, and at risk for
being overweight
• Determined by body mass index (BMI)
– U.S. has second highest rate of childhood obesity
• Exercise should be a daily occurrence
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

10. 7 - 10
Nutrition and Exercise
• Malnutrition in young children from low-
income families
– 11 million preschool children are experiencing
malnutrition
– Biggest problem is iron deficiency anemia
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

11. 7 - 11
Illness and Death
• The United States
– Leading causes of death in U.S. children are:
• Motor vehicle accidents
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
– Children’s safety
– Environmental tobacco smoke
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

12. 7 - 12
Illness and Death
• State of illness and health of the world’s
children
– Devastating effects of health occur in countries
with high poverty rates
– Dramatic increase in deaths due to HIV/AIDS,
especially in poor countries
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

13. 7 - 13
Cognitive Changes
• Piaget’s preoperational stage
• Vygotsky’s theory
• Information processing
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

14. 7 - 14
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Preoperational stage
– Piaget’s second stage
– Ages 2 to 7 years
– Children represent the world with words, images,
and drawings
• Form stable concepts and begin to reason
• Cognitions are dominated by egocentrism and magical
beliefs
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

15. 7 - 15
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Operations: Reversible
– Mental actions that allow children to do mentally
what they formerly did physically
• Symbolic function substage: Child gains the
ability to mentally represent an object that is
not present
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

16. 7 - 16
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Egocentrism: Inability to distinguish one’s
own perspective from someone else’s
• Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have
lifelike qualities and are capable of action
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

17. 7 - 17
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
• Intuitive thought substage: Children use
primitive reasoning and want to know the
answers to questions
• Centration and the limits of preoperational
thought
– Centration: Centering attention on one
characteristic to the exclusion of all others
– Conservation: Altering a substance’s appearance
does not change its basic properties
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

18. 7 - 18
Figure 7.6 - Piaget’s Conservation
Task
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

19. 7 - 19
Figure 7.7 - Some Dimensions of
Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

20. 7 - 20
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Children think and understand primarily
through social interaction
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD): Range
of tasks that are too difficult for the child
alone but that can be learned with guidance
• Scaffolding - Changing the level of support
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

21. 7 - 21
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Language and thought
– Children use speech to communicate socially and
to help them solve tasks
– Private speech - Use of language for self-
regulation
– Inner speech becomes their thoughts
– More private speech = more social competence
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

22. 7 - 22
Vygotsky’s Theory
• Teaching strategies - Vygotsky’s theory can be
applied to education
– Assess child’s ZPD
– Use the child’s ZPD in teaching
– Use more-skilled peers as teachers
– Place instruction in a meaningful context
– Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

23. 7 - 23
Information Processing
• Attention – Focusing of mental resources on
select information
– Executive attention
• Action planning
• Allocating attention to goals
• Error detection and compensation
• Monitoring progress on tasks
• Dealing with difficult circumstances
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

24. 7 - 24
Information Processing
– Sustained attention: Focused and extended
engagement with:
• Object, task, event, or other aspect of the environment
– Deficiencies in attention
• Salient versus relevant dimensions
• Planfulness
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

25. 7 - 25
Information Processing
• Memory - Retention of information over time
– Short-term: Individuals can retain information up
to 30 seconds with no rehearsal
– Assessing short-term memory - Memory-span task
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

26. 7 - 26
Figure 7.12 - Developmental Changes
in Memory Span
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

27. 7 - 27
Information Processing
• How accurate are young children’s long-term
memories?
– There are age differences in children’s
susceptibility to suggestion
– There are individual differences in susceptibility
– Interviewing techniques can produce substantial
distortions in children’s reports about highly
salient events
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

28. 7 - 28
Information Processing
• Theory of mind: Awareness of one’s own
mental process and the mental processes of
others
– Developmental changes
• Age 18 months–3 years - Children begin to understand
three mental states
– Perceptions, desires, and emotions
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

29. 7 - 29
Information Processing
• Age 3 to 5 years - Children understand false beliefs
• Age 5 to 9 years - Appreciation of the mind
• Age 7+ years - Understand the beliefs and thoughts of
others
– Individual differences
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

30. 7 - 30
Understanding Phonology and
Morphology
• During preschool years, children:
– Become sensitive to the sounds of spoken words
– Produce all the sounds of their language
– Demonstrate a knowledge of morphology rules
• Use plurals, possessives, prepositions, articles, and verb
forms
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

31. 7 - 31
Changes in Syntax and Semantics
• Learn and apply rules of syntax
• Children learn the words
– They hear most often
– For things and events that interest them
– Better in responsive and interactive contexts than
in passive contexts
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.