Early Childhood

EARLY CHILDHOOD
3 to 6 years old
PHYSICAL
DEVELOPMENT
• Grow rapidly but less quickly than before
• At about 3, children begin to lose their
babyish roundness and take on the slender,
athletic appearance of childhood
• Trunk, arms, and legs grow longer
• Muscular and skeletal growth progresses
• These changes, coordinating by the still-maturing
brain and nervous system, promote the
development of a wide range of motor skills
• They improve in running, hopping, skipping,
jumping, throwing balls
• They also becoming better at tying shoelaces,
drawing with crayons, and begin to show a
preference for either the right hand or the left
hand
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
• PREOPERATIONAL STAGE – in
Piaget’s theory, the second major
stage of cognitive development , in
which children become more
sophisticated in their use of symbolic
thought but are not yet able to use
logic
1. Use of symbols – children do not need to be in
sensorimotor contact with an object,
person, or event in order to think
about it
2. Understanding of identities – children are aware that
superficial alterations do
not change the nature of
things
3. Understanding of cause and effect – children realize that
events have causes
4. Ability to classify – children organize objects, people,
and events into meaningful
categories
5. Understanding of number – children can count and deal

with quantities
6. Empathy – children become more able to imagine how

others might think
7. Theory of mind – children become more aware of mental

activity and the functioning of the mind
Immature Aspects of
Preoperational Thought
• Centration: Inability to decenter – children focus on one
aspect of a situation
and neglect others
• Irreversibility – children fail to understand that some

operations or actions can be reversed,
restoring the original situation
• Focus on states rather than transformations – children

fail to understand the significance of the
transformation between states
• Transductive reasoning – children do not use deductive
or inductive reasoning; instead
they jump from one particular
to another and see cause
where non exists
• Egocentrism – children assume everyone else thinks,

perceives, and feels as they do
• Animism – children attribute life to objects not alive
• Inability to distinguish appearance from reality – children

confuse what is real with outward
appearance
Psychometric Approach
• The 2 most commonly used psychometric
intelligence test for young children are the
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and
Weschler Preschool and Primary Scale of
Intelligence
• Intelligence test scores may be influenced
by a number of factors, including the home
environment and SES
Language Development
• During early childhood, vocabulary increases
greatly, and grammar and syntax become fairly
sophisticated. Children become more competent in
pragmatics
• Private speech is normal and common; it may aid in
the shift to self-regulation and usually disappears
by age 10.
• Causes of delayed language development are
unclear. If untreated, language delays may have
serious cognitive, social, and emotional
consequences
Psychosocial Development
• The self-concept undergoes major change
in early childhood
• Understanding of emotions directed
toward the self and of simultaneous
emotions develops gradually
• According to Erikson, the developmental
conflict of early childhood is initiative vs
guilt. Successful resolution of this conflict
result in the “virtue of purpose
• Gender identity is an aspect of the
developing self-concept
• The main gender differences in early
childhood is boys’ greater
aggressiveness. Girls tend to be more
empathic and prosocial and less prone
to problem behavior
• Children learn gender roles at an early age
through gender typing (socialization
process whereby children, at an early age,
learn appropriate gender roles)
• Gender stereotypes (preconceived
generalizations about male or female role
behavior) peak during the preschool year
Play: The Business of
Early Childhood
• Play has physical, cognitive, and
psychosocial benefits. Changes in the
types of play children engage in
reflect cognitive and social
development
Cognitive Levels of Play
• Functional – play involving repetitive
muscular movements
• Constructive – play involving use of objects
or materials to make something
• Pretend – play involving imaginary people or
situations; also called dramatic, fantasy, or
imaginative play
• According to Piaget, children progress
cognitively from functional play to
constructive play, pretend play, and then
formal games with rules. Pretend play
becomes increasingly common during early
childhood and helps children develop social
and cognitive skills. Rough-and-tumble play
also begins during early childhood
• Children prefer to play (and play
more socially with) others of their
sex
• Cognitive and social aspects of play
are influenced by the culturally
approved environments adult create
for children
Discipline?????
• Discipline – refers to methods of
molding character and teaching self-
control and acceptable behavior
• It can be a powerful tool for
socialization with the goal of
developing self-discipline
Forms of Discipline
• Reinforcement
- External
- Internal
• Punishment
- Corporal
• Power assertion – designed to discourage
undesirable behavior through physical or
verbal enforcement of parental control
• Induction – designed to induce
desirable behavior by
appealing to a child’s
sense of reason and fairness
• Withdrawal of love – involves ignoring,
isolating, or showing
dislike for a child
Parenting Styles
• Authoritarian – emphasizes control
and obedience
• Permissive – emphasizes self-expression
and self-regulation
• Authoritative – blending respect for a
child’s individuality with an
effort to instill social
values
• Neglectful or uninvolved
• The roots of altruism and prosocial
behavior appear early. This may be an
inborn disposition, which can be cultivated
by parental modeling and encouragement
Altruism – behavior intended to help
others out of inner concern and without
expectation of external reward
Prosocial behavior – any voluntary
behavior intended to help other
• Instrumental aggression – (aggressive
behavior used as a means of achieving a
goal) first physical, then verbal is most
common in early childhood
• Most children become less aggressive
after age 6 or 7, but hostile aggression
intended to hurt others) proportionally
increases. Boys tend to practice overt
aggression , whereas girls often engage in
relational aggression (covert or indirect)
• Preschool children show temporary
fears of real and imaginary objects
and events; older children’s fears
tend to be more realistic

Early Childhood

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EARLY CHILDHOOD

5. Understanding of number – children can count and deal

6. Empathy – children become more able to imagine how

7. Theory of mind – children become more aware of mental

• Irreversibility – children fail to understand that some

• Focus on states rather than transformations – children

• Egocentrism – children assume everyone else thinks,

• Inability to distinguish appearance from reality – children

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