ChildhoodEarly and Middle

PSY 230-Developmental Psychological Science

Dr. Rosalyn M. King, Professor

Historical Perspectives on Child Development

Overview

Early Childhood-3 to 6 years (Preschool-Kindergarten.

Middle Childhood-6-12 years (Grades 1-6).

Children Live What They Learn!

Nutrition and Growth Play

Play is the work of Childhood!

Play is a natural part and necessary component of life for animals and humans.

Physical DevelopmentEarly Childhood: Children grow more slowly; make progress in coordination and muscle development; cognitive development continues; growth in memory, reasoning, language and thinking.

Middle Childhood: Healthiest period in the lifespan; facial features change; bod catches up with the head; motor activity changes.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENTMilestones

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENTEarly Childhood Middle Childhood

• Vaccines important.

• Dental problems begin

• Fatal illnesses begin to appear.

• Coughs, sniffles, stomach aches.

• Nutrition important.

• Accidental Deaths problematic.

• Sleep patterns change

• Night terrors, nightmares, sleepwalking,

enuresis.

• Motor development improves.

• Creativity begins.

• Child neglect and abuse watch.

• Growth continues.

• Average body weight doubles.

• Children eat more.

• Obesity affects self-esteem and health.

• Susceptible to infections.

• Medical problems-vision, teeth, stuttering,

tics, high blood pressure, viral infections,

strep, bronchitis, and more.

• By age 6, acute vision, better focus.

• Adult teeth arrive.

• Stuttering, tics, stress.

• Head injuries likely.

• Motor development sharpens.

• Handedness emerges or solidifies.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Early Childhood Middle Childhood

• Daycare, pre-school, Headstart and

Kindergarten years.

• Gain competence in cognition, intelligence,

language and learning.

• Uses symbols in thought and action.

• Can handle concepts as age, time and space.

• In Piaget’s pre-operational stage (can centrate,

reason by transduction, are egocentric,

successive states).

• Not able to grasp the concept of conservation,

• Logic is limited by irreversibility.

• First grade through Sixth grade.

• Spend lots of time in school.

• Moral and ethical thinking begins.

• In Piaget’s concrete operational stage (can use

symbols to carry out operations, can classify

objects, deal with numbers, understand

concepts in time and space, distinguish

between reality and fantasy.

• Understand conservation.

• Cannot think abstractly.

• Memory ability develops.

• IQ tests used for assessment.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT-LANGUAGEEarly Childhood Middle Childhood

Age 3-Can give and follow simple

commands, name familiar objects, body

parts and people.

Age 4-5-Can use sentences of 4-5 words,

prepositions, nouns and verbs.

Age 5-6-Can use sentences of 6-8 words,

can define simple words and know some

opposites.

Can use private speech and social speech.

• Can understand and interpret

communications better.

• Vocabulary and ability to define words

grows.

• Better able to make themselves

understood.

• Improvement in grammatical structure.

• Age 6-not able to deal with grammatical

constructions.

• Age 8- Can interpret sentences correctly.

• Age 9+-Has understanding of syntax-the

way words are organized into phrases

and sentences.

Psychosocial DevelopmentEarly Childhood Middle Childhood

• Superego develops between 5-6 years.

• In Erikson’s Psychosocial stage of Initiative vs. Guilt. Children learn how to regulate conflicts.

• Importance of modeling behaviors. Freud’s Phallic stage.

• Awareness of one’s gender identity begins at age

2. By age 3, most children have firm idea of

gender. Also gender constancy is realized. Gender

schema is formed.

• Personality shaping and traits emerge-emotions,

attitudes, gender, models, child-rearing practices,

affection, fears, phobias, aggressive behavior,

altruistic and prosocial behavior, media influences

and more.

• Fears and phobias.

• More independent and develop strong sense of self.

• Self concept- centering of control from within and self-

esteem-a positive self-image and self-evaluation.

• Peer group becoming important.

• Sources of self esteem-feelings of competency and social

support.

• Can express self-judgments in words.

• Changing family structures can lead to social-emotional

problems.

• In Erikson’s psychosocial stage of Industry vs. Inferiority-

child’s capacity for productive work, must learn skills of

the culture, develop competence (being able to master

skills and complete tasks or risk developing feelings of

inferiority.

• Freud’s Latency stage.

Psychosocial Development-Middle Childhood

• Spend time eating, sleeping, school, personal care, TV, using technology.

• View of friendship changes.

• Display acting out behavior.

• Separation anxiety disorder.

• School phobias

• Depression.

• Stress

• Substance Use and Abuse

• Therapies

Parenting and Parenting Styles

•Authoritarian

•Authoritative

•Permissive

•Nurturing

The Importance of Play

Role of Fathers