Discuss the physical growth in early childhood, including height, weight and cha
ID: 3488910 • Letter: D
Question
Explanation / Answer
1. Physical growth in early childhood is rapid and therefore needs to be regularly monitored to ensure that age appropriate development is taking place. Yearly height and weight growth in children is 6.35 cm and 2.2-3.5 kg respectively. The percentage increase in height and weight therefore keeps reducing with every year as the child grows. The body fat shows a steady and gradual decline during this period of time. Girls are slightly smaller and lighter in structure than boys, however tey have greater body fat and muscle tissues. Both the genders slim down as their trunks lengthen.
2. Preschool years are crucial for the growth and development of the child since rapid changes are taking place simultaneously. This includes changes in the brain compositions, physical growth, emotions and feelings, attempt to understand the world around and social exchanges to develop insights about social protocols. To facilitate these changes and assist the child in these significant years of development, the health and nutrition is an important factor to be monitored. The food must not be fat-free and must contain a balanced nutrition since the weight of the child should also be increasing during this stage. Fat in fact is an essential component in the diet that leads to growth and brain development. However, unhealthy fats should be replaced by healthy fats for preschoolers. For instance, the fat in french fries is different from that of whole milk, coconut oil and salmon. Fruits are also something that should be incorporated in the diet of a preschooler. Early habits also tend to form the later eating habits for a child. Therefore, mindful eating must be practiced so that the child develops healthy eating patterns. Smaller and frequent servings are better than heavy and fewer meals.
3. Brain growth and development is a process that begins as early as gestation. Brain lateralization is an ongoing process in the brain wherein the various structures within the brain take up specific functions. However, the concept of brain plasticity suggests that in case of damage to a certain part of the brain, other structures are likely to train itself and take up the function. This is suggestive of the fact that the brain is a highly flexible organ in itself. Corpus callosum is a structure in the brain that separates the two cerebral hemispheres in our brain- left and right hemisphere. The two sides of the brain have different and unique functions that it serves. The right hemisphere is seen to be concerned with emotional expression, geometric patterns, faces, structures, music, non language sounds, non verbal memory, sense of direction, distance, etc. The left hemisphere on the other hand caters to language, verbal memory, speech, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar rules, etc. Usually it is said that in females, left brain is more dominant than right brain making them good at verbal tasks whereas men are said to right brain dominant, having good spatial ability, reasoning and logic.
4. Different stages of the child have different assigned milestones in terms of their gross and fine motor skills that must be attained in order for age appropriate development. For instance, neck holding by 3 months, rolling over by 5 months, sitting with own support in 6 months and so on. Gross motor refers to the larger muscles in the body such as the movement of arms, legs (limbs) and and fine motor refers to the smaller muscles in the body such as the fingers- the kind of grasp developed by the fingers changes over time as and when the child grows. Handedness is concept that is linked with the brain dominance. The corpus callosum separates the two hemispheres and the dominant hemisphere determines the handedness in an individual. A right brain dominant will be left handed and a left brain dominant is likely to be right handed. Also, in ambidextrous people, it is said that the corpus callosum may not be very well defined reducing the demarcation.
5. Piaget and Vygotsky were both constructivists in their approach, however their ideas differed in significant ways. Piaget's stages of development are as follows
Sensory-motor (Birth-2 years):
•Child learns through senses and motor movements
•Sub-stages
–Use of reflexes (0-1 month)
–Primary Circular reaction (1-4 month)
–Secondary Circular Reaction (4-8 month)
–Coordination of Reactions (8-12 months)
–Tertiary Circular Reaction (12-18 months)
–Early Representational Thought (18-24 months)
•Achievements
–Object permanence- objects continue to exist after they are out of sight
–Symbolic representation: Words represent objects for instance.
Pre-operational (2-6 years)
–Pretend play
–Deferred imitation
– Lacks logical thinking
–Cannot reverse thinking
–Lacks Centration
–Egocentrism
–Animism
Concrete operational (6-12 years)
•Thinks logically
•Is able to conserve
•Reversibility
•Needs concrete experiences
•cannot think in abstract ideas
Formal Operations (12-18 years)
•Begins in early adolescence, continues till adulthood
•Ability to carry out mental activity using imagined and conditional actions and symbols divorced from their physical representation
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning begins
The key differences in both the approaches is that Vygotsky suggested the role of culture in learning and also defined a more active role of the learner in the process whereas Piaget believed that the child has a passive role in the learing process. Developmental psychologists who adopt the information-processing perspective account for mental development in terms of maturational changes in basic components of a child's mind. The theory is based on the idea that humans process the information they receive, rather than merely responding to stimuli.
6. Language development is a complex domain and is widely discussed and debated amidst researchers till date.
Language aids communication. It is involved in mental processing such as thinking problem solving and memory. It is also an educational tool through which information is transferred from one generation to the next. It takes place in stagesthe first of which is prelinguistic stage-
Crying
Undifferentiated Crying /Differentiated Crying
Vocalizations
Cooing
Babbling
Lallation (imitation by accident)
Echolalia (intentional imitation)
In 12-17 months they may develop Holophrastic Speech i.e. they may use one-word sentences to communicate , for example dada, teddy, baby.
In 18-24 months one witnesses rapid expansion of words in their vocabulary. Soon the toddler begins to acquire a name for almost every object in their context. These usually include moving objects/ people or action their stationary objects. However they may be short of appropriate articulations. Articulation improves only gradually when the underlying speech organ gain maturation.
In 2-3 years,
Knows some spatial concepts such as ‘in,’ and ‘on’
Knows pronouns such as ‘you,’ ‘me,’ ‘her’
Knows descriptive words such as ‘big,’ ‘happy’
Speech becomes more clear and accurate.
By preschool years vocabulary expands and the child is able to express in stories and narratives. Complex functions of language such as pragmatics (socially appropriate) language starts developing by this time. Private speech is something that preschoolers engage in to explain things to themselves. The speech is directed to them onky whereas social speech is directed to anotherperson in order to communicate.
Related Questions
drjack9650@gmail.com
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.