Chapter 5

Early Childhood

Body and Mind

Body Changes

• Gone are the infant’s protruding belly, round

face, short limbs, and large head.
• By age 6, the average child in a developed
nation:
• is at least 3½ feet tall (more than 110
centimeters).
• weighs between 40 and 50 pounds
(between 18 and 23 kilograms).
• looks lean, not chubby.
• has adultlike body proportions (with legs
constituting about half the total height)
Nutrition

• Older adults often encourage

children to eat, protecting them
against famine that was common a
century ago. Unfortunately, that
encouragement may be destructive.
As family income decreases, obesity
increases—a sign of poor nutrition,
likely to reduce immunity and
increase later disease
Obesity and COVID
Oral Health

• Poor oral health in early

childhood harms those
permanent teeth (forming
below the first teeth) and
can cause jaw malformation,
chewing difficulties, and
speech problems.
Food Allergies

• An estimated 3 to 8 percent of
children are allergic to a
specific food, almost always a
common, healthy one: Cow’s
milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts
(such as almonds and walnuts),
soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish
are the usual culprits.
 Brain Development:
Maturation of the
Prefrontal Cortex

• Myelin
• The fatty substance coating
axons that speeds the
transmission of nerve impulses
from neuron to neuron.
• Sleep becomes more regular
• Emotions become more responsive
• Temper tantrums subside
• Uncontrollable laughter and tears are
less common
Impulsiveness and
Perseveration
• It is normal for young children to be
neurologically unbalanced
• Impulse Control
• The ability to postpone or deny the
immediate response to an idea or
behavior. – Young children don’t have
it!
• Perseveration
• The tendency to persevere in, or stick
to, one thought or action for a long
time. – Young children have a lot of it!
Stress and the Brain
 Preoperational Intelligence

Thinking • Piaget’s term for cognitive development between the ages

of about 2 and 6; it includes language and imagination

During Early (which involve symbolic thought), but logical, operational

thinking is not yet possible at this stage.

Childhood: Symbolic Thought

Piaget and • A major accomplishment of preoperational intelligence

that allows a child to think symbolically, including
understanding that words can refer to things not seen and
Preoperation that an item, such as a flag, can symbolize something else
(in this case, a country).

al Thought Animism

• The belief that natural objects and phenomena are alive,

moving around, with sensations and abilities that are
humanlike.
Obstacles to Logic
• Centration
• A characteristic of preoperational thought in which a
young child focuses (centers) on one idea, excluding all
others.

• Egocentrism
• Piaget’s term for children’s tendency to think about the
world entirely from their own personal perspective.

• Focus on Appearance
• A characteristic of preoperational thought in which a
young child ignores all attributes that are not apparent.

• Static Reasoning
• A characteristic of preoperational thought in which a
young child thinks that nothing changes. Whatever is
now has always been and always will be.

• Irreversibility
• A characteristic of preoperational thought in which a
young child thinks that nothing can be undone. A thing
cannot be restored to the way it was before a change
occurred.
Conservation and
Logic

Conservation
The principle that
the amount of a
substance remains
the same (i.e., is
conserved) even
when its
appearance
changes.
Vygotsky: Social Learning

• Mentors Present
• Challenges
• Offer assistance without
taking over
• Add crucial information
• Encourage motivation
Scaffolding

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Vygotsky’s term for intellectual arena
that is comprised of skills—cognitive
as well as physical— that a person
can learn with assistance.
• Scaffolding
• Temporary support that is tailored to a
learner’s needs and abilities and
aimed at helping the learner master
the next task in a given learning
process.
Language as a Tool

• Private Speech
• The internal dialogue that occurs
when people talk to themselves
(either silently or out loud).
• Social Mediation
• Human interaction that expands
and advances understanding,
often through words that one
person uses to explain something
to another.
Executive Function

• The cognitive ability to

organize and prioritize the
many thoughts that arise
from the various parts of the
brain, allowing the person to
anticipate, strategize, and
plan behavior.
 The contrast between Piaget and Vygotsky is apparent. But
both men recognized that young children are great learners,
striving to understand their world. Children do more than
master words and ideas; they develop theories to explain
what they observe.

Children’s
Theories
Theory-Theory
The idea that children attempt to explain everything they see and hear by
constructing theories.

Theory of Mind
A person’s theory of what other people might be thinking. In order to have a
theory of mind, children must realize that other people are not necessarily
thinking the same thoughts that they themselves are. That realization
seldom occurs before age 4.
Language
Learning The average child knows about Fast-Mapping
500 words at age 2 and more • The speedy and sometimes imprecise
than 10,000 at age 6. That’s way in which children learn new words by
more than six new words a day. tentatively placing them in mental
As with many averages in categories according to their perceived
meaning.
development, the range is vast:
The number of root words that
5-year-olds know ranges from
2,000 to 6,000.

Overregularization Pragmatics
• The application of rules of grammar even • The practical use of language that
when exceptions occur, making the includes the ability to adjust language
language seem more “regular” than it communication according to audience
actually is. and context.
Early Childhood
Education
• Home vs Preschool
• Is every child better educated in a
preschool of some sort than at home?
No! Quality matters. If the home
learning environment is poor, a good
preschool significantly advances
health, cognition, and social skills. If,
instead, a family provides excellent
early education but the preschool is
overcrowded, children may not
benefit from attendance.
 • Schools that offer early-childhood
Montessor education based on the philosophy of
Maria Montessori, which emphasizes
i Schools careful work and tasks that each young
child can do.

Child-Centered • A program of early-childhood education

(Learner Reggio that originated in the town of Reggio
Emilia, Italy, and that encourages each
Directed) Emilia child’s creativity in a carefully designed
setting.

Programs
• An early-childhood education program
than emphasizes creativity, social
understanding, and emotional growth. It
Waldorf originated in Germany with Rudolf
Steiner, and now is used in thousands
of schools throughout the world.
 Teacher-directed preschools stress academics, often taught
by one adult to the entire group. The curriculum includes
learning the names of letters, numbers, shapes, and colors.
Orderly, scheduled activities teach routines: Every child
naps, snacks, and goes to the bathroom at certain times.
Children learn to sit quietly and listen to the teacher. Praise
and other reinforcements are given for good behavior, and
time-outs (brief separation from activities) are imposed to
punish misbehavior.

Teacher-
Directed Head Start

Programs A federally funded early-childhood

intervention program for low-income
children of preschool age.
Teacher Directed vs Learner (Child)
Directed