CHAPTER 7
PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
RESOURCES-AT-A-GLANCE
Detailed Outline
Learning
Objectives
Instructor’s Resources
Test Bank
MyPsychLab Connections
Chapter Introduction pp. 151-152
PowerPoint Slides
1-4
Sketchnote Videos
Toddlerhood
Early Childhood
Physical Changes pp. 152-158
Growth and Motor Development
7.1
Lecture Enhancer
Why Do Children Play?
MC 1-30
FI 76–80
Watch
Early Childhood: The Growing
46–49
Differences in Intelligence
pp. 169-175
Measuring Intelligence
7.12
PowerPoint Slides
50–61
MC 65-75
FI 87–89
SA 99-102
Watch
Robert Sternberg on Intelligence,
p. 169
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In the years from 2 to 6, the period known as early childhood, the child changes from being a dependent
toddler, able to communicate only in very primitive ways, to being a remarkably competent,
Changes in height and weight are far slower in the preschool years than in infancy. Motor skills continue
to improve gradually, with marked improvement in large muscle skills and slower advances in small
muscle skills. Brain growth, synapse formation, and myelinization continue in early childhood, although
at a pace slower than in infancy. Neurological milestones, such as lateralization and handedness, happen
between 2 and 6. Health and wellness issues include diet, illness, stress, and accidents. Two- to nine-
year-olds are more likely to be abused or neglected than infants or older children. Characteristics of the
child and the abuser increase the risk of abuse. Education, identification of families at risk, and keeping
abused children from further injury are three ways to prevent abuse.
Fast-mapping enables language development to increase at a rapid pace between ages 2 and 4. Between
ages 3 and 4, children’s advances in grammar are extraordinary. Inflections, questions and negatives, and
overregularization lead to the use of complex sentences. Phonological awareness, a child’s sensitivity to
the sound patterns that are specific to her own language, is key to the child’s ability to learn to read and
write. Children seem to acquire this skill through word play.
Scores on early childhood intelligence tests are predictive of later school performance and are at least
moderately consistent over time. Arguments about the origins of difference in IQ nearly always boil
LEARNING OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
After completing Chapter 7, students should be able to answer the following questions:
7.1 What are the major milestones of growth and motor development between 2 and 6?
7.2 What important changes happen in the brain during these years?
7.3 What are the nutritional and health-care needs of young children?
7.4 What factors contribute to abuse and neglect, and how do these traumas affect children’s
development?
7.5 What are the characteristics of children’s thought during Piaget’s preoperational stage?
7.6 How has recent research challenged Piaget’s view of this period?
7.7 What is a theory of mind, and how does it develop?
7.8 How do information-processing and sociocultural theorists explain changes in young children’s
thinking?
7.9 How does fast-mapping help children learn new words?
7.10 What happens during the grammar explosion?
7.11 What is phonological awareness, and why is it important?
7.12 What are the strengths and weaknesses of IQ tests?
7.13 What kinds of evidence support the nature and nurture explanations for individual differences in
IQ?
7.14 What theories and evidence have been offered in support of genetic and cultural explanations of
group differences in IQ scores?
KEY TERMS
centration (p. 160)
conservation (p. 160)
corpus callosum (p. 154)
egocentrism (p. 159)
false belief principle (p. 163)
fast-mapping (p. 167)
grammar explosion (p. 167)
handedness (p. 154)
hippocampus (p. 154)
intelligence quotient (IQ) (p. 169)
invented spelling (p. 168)
INTEGRATED CHAPTER TEACHING NOTES
PHYSICAL CHANGES (pp. 152-158)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: Early Childhood: the Growing Child, p. 152
Watch: Child Abuse: Mandatory Reporting, p. 158
Growth and Motor Development
LO 7.1 What are the major milestones of growth and motor development between 2 and 6?
The physical changes in a preschooler’s body occur more slowly than they did in infancy. In the nervous
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.1, pp. 152-153)
Give examples of gross motor skills and fine motor skills.
It is rare that a kindergartner is really skilled at such fine motor tasks as writing letters. Early training,
The Brain and Nervous System
LO 7.2 What important changes happen in the brain during these years?
Lateralization
The corpus callosum, the brain structure through which the left and right sides of the cerebral cortex
communicate, grows and matures more during the early childhood years than in any other period of life.
The growth of this structure accompanies the functional specialization of the left and right hemispheres of
the cerebral cortex called lateralization.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.2, p. 154)
What kinds of experiences might enhance language development?
The Reticular Formation and the Hippocampus
Myelinization of the reticular formation, the brain structure that regulates attention and concentration, is
another important milestone of early childhood brain development. Neurons in other parts of the brain,
such as the hippocampus, are also myelinized during this period. The hippocampus is involved in the
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.2, p. 154)
What might happen if the hippocampus was not myelinized?
Handedness
Handedness, the tendency to rely primarily on the right or left hand, is another neurological milestone of
the 2- to 6-year-old period. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of right-handedness is likely to be the
result of genetic inheritance.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.2, pp. 154-155)
Parents and teachers have often encouraged a young child who tends to use his left hand to become right
handed. What do you think? Based on this evidence, should children be strongly encouraged to be right
handed? How strong should the encouragement be? Debate the issue in class.
Health and Wellness
LO 7.3 What are the nutritional and health-care needs of young children?
Young children continue to require periodic medical check-ups, as well as a variety of immunizations.
Just as they do with infants, doctors monitor preschoolers’ growth and motor development.
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 7.3, p. 155)
Developmental Science at Home: A good Night’s Sleep for Kids (and Parents, Too!)
Ask students to design strategies to implement operant conditioning to help improve children’s sleep
patterns.
Eating Patterns
Because children grow more slowly during the early childhood years, they may seem to eat less than
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.3, pp. 155-156)
Give examples of ways to help children learn healthy eating habits at an early age.
Illness and Accidents
In the United States, the average preschooler has four to six brief bouts of sickness each year, most often
colds or the flu. Children who experience high levels of stress or family upheaval are more likely to
become ill.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.3, p. 156)
Why might children with high levels of stress or family upheaval be more likely to become ill?
Accidents are another danger for children. Each year about a quarter of all children under age 5 have at
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.3, p. 156)
Children who are sick a lot in early childhood have a higher risk of having health problems in adolescence
or adulthood. How many different explanations can you think of for such a link between childhood
illness and adult health?
Abuse and Neglect
LO 7.4 What factors contribute to abuse and neglect, and how do these traumas affect children’s
development?
Legally, child abuse is defined as physical or psychological injury that results from an adult’s intentional
exposure of a child to potentially harmful stimuli, sexual acts, or neglect. Neglect is the failure of
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.4, p. 156)
Why might cultural values concerning acceptable and unacceptable treatment of children make it difficult
to define abuse?
Prevalence
Research suggests that one to five percent of children are treated by medical professionals for injuries
resulting from abuse every year, and about 2000 infants and children die as a result of abuse and/or
neglect each year in the United States.
Risk Factors
There are four broad categories explaining the causes of abuse; all are based on the notion that episodes of
abuse are typically precipitated by everyday interactions between parents and children. At the time of the
episode, several causal factors work together to produce abusive responses in parents. Thus, what
differentiates abusive parents from non-abusive parents is the presence of a number of risk factors that
shape how they respond to the ordinary stresses of parenting. The four categories are as follows:
▪ Sociocultural Factors: The factors include personal or cultural values that regard physical abuse of
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.4, p. 157)
Discuss some of the reasons for increased abuse in each of the categories of families at risk listed above.
Discuss some possible solutions to the problems.
Consequences of Abuse
Some children who are frequently or severely abused develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The
symptoms include extreme levels of anxiety, flashback memories, nightmares, other sleep disturbances,
Prevention
Preventing abuse begins with education. Parents need to know the potential consequences of some
physical acts and that injuring children is a crime. Identifying families at risk is another approach to
prevention. Children who are abused must be protected from further injury.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.4, pp. 157-158)
Critical Thinking Question (Learning Objectives 7.1-7.2, pp. 152-158)
COGNITIVE CHANGES (pp. 158-166)
MyPsychLab Connections
Watch: The Preschool Years: Egocentrism, p. 160
Watch: Conservation of Liquids, p. 160
Watch: Early Childhood: Theory of Mind across Cultures, p. 164
Feature Box Activity (Learning Objective 7.3, p. 159)
Research Report: Children’s Play and Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage
LO 7.5 What are the characteristics of children’s thought during Piaget’s preoperational stage.
According to Piaget, children acquire the semiotic (symbolic) function between the age of 18 and 24
months. The semiotic function is the understanding that one object or behavior can represent another.
Once this understanding has been achieved, children are in the preoperational stage. Children become
proficient in the use of symbols to think and communicate, but still have difficulty thinking logically.
Piaget’s most famous experiments deal with a cognitive process called conservation, the understanding
that matter can change in appearance without changing in quantity. Children rarely show any sign of
conservation before age 5. When they do begin to understand this concept, they demonstrate their
understanding based on three characteristics of appearance-only transformations of matter:
Challenges to Piaget’s View
LO 7.6 How has recent research challenged Piaget’s view of this period?
Studies of conservation have generally confirmed Piaget’s observations. Evidence suggests, however,
that preschoolers are a great deal more cognitively sophisticated than Piaget thought.
Children as young as two or three have at least some ability to understand that another person sees things
or experiences things differently from the way they do. John Flavell suggests two levels of perspective–
taking ability: at level 1, the child knows that some other person experiences something differently; at
Theories of Mind
LO 7.7 What is theory of mind, and how does it develop?
Understanding Thoughts, Desires, and Beliefs
Toddlers as young as 18 months have some beginning understanding of the fact that people (but not
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.7, pp. 162-163)
Give examples of the research on the false belief principle.
The child at four or five years old understands that other people think, but does not yet understand that
other people can think about him.
Understanding the reciprocal nature of thought seems to develop between age 5 and 7 for most children.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.7, pp. 162-163)
Why is a child’s development of the theory of mind a good predictor of social skills during the school
years?
Influences on Theory of Mind Development
Developmentalists have found that a child’s theory of mind is correlated with the following activities or
behaviors:
▪ Performance on Piaget’s tasks, as well as more recently developed egocentrism and appearance
reality problems.
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.7, pp. 163)
Discuss the advantages a child who develops a theory of mind earlier than her peers might have. Make
suggestions for activities and behaviors to assist a child in developing a theory of mind.
Theory of Mind across Cultures
Some cross-cultural psychologists claim that theory of mind research in the United States and Europe
may not apply to children in other cultures, whereas other research suggests that certain aspects of theory
Alternative Theories of Early Childhood Thinking
LO 7.8 How do information-processing and sociocultural theorists explain changes in young children’s
thinking?
Neo-Piagetian Theories
One set of alternative proposals is based on the idea that children’s performance on Piaget’s tasks can be
explained in terms of working memory limitations. For example, Robbie Case, one of the best-known
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.8, pp. 164)
Give examples of short-term storage space and operational efficiency.
A good example of the function of STSS may be found by examining the matrix classification that
requires the child to place a given stimulus in two categories at the same time. Training children to
classify according to one category before reclassifying according to the other category has been
successful. Case points out, however, that the children’s failures prior to instruction and the intensity of
the training itself illustrate the constraints imposed on problem solving by the limited operational
efficiency of the younger child’s STSS.
Information-Processing Theories
Information-processing theorists also maintain that children’s ability to make efficient use of their
Discussion Launcher (Learning Objective 7.8, p. 165)
Give examples of metamemory and metacognition.
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the role of social factors in cognitive development. He suggested that
solutions to problems are socially generated and learned, and that group learning processes are central to