Cognitive And Perceptual Development Of Children

Spencer Rathus details the developments children undergo both physically and cognitively throughout their childhood in his book, CDEV 2010-2011 Edition. I completed my observation at Clovis Community College's Child Development Center on February 2, 2016. The young boy I observed was three years old. I observed him both inside the class room as well as out in the play ground area. The boy spent most of the time playing on the tricycle, as well as on the play structure. Rathus writes, "By age 4 or 5, they can skip and pedal a tricycle"(2011). Since the boy was only three, I was surprised that he had the physical ability to keep control over the tricycle and stay on the path outlining the play ground area.

Physical development in children is an important area and is usually expected to happen automatically as they grow. The important areas are gross motor skills,

Physical activity encourages children and young people to develop all their physical skills and to practice the skills that they already have. Your role in supporting a child’s physical development will be to ensure that the child has a wide variety of experiences of being in a safe environment. Any setting should offer a wide range of equipment that can be used both indoors and out. It is considered important that children are given opportunities to develop their gross motor skills indoors as well as outdoors. Such opportunities may be provided by designated areas such as soft play area or by activities such as drama.

Children develop gross motor skills at different age norms which are affected by their culture and can vary (Berger, 2014). In order to gain information, we need to educate and understand this development, we have to conduct research. We are looking for new information and theories. Although surveys are a great way to collect a large amount of data the information gained is only as sound as the subject. This is why we need other avenues for research, and we need parental support to make that happen.

Alexander, Enrique, and Alexis are the names of the children I observed. They have different gross motor skills and fine motor skills. However, their differences are in the sophistication of each ability. Alexander, who is 7 years old is very active. He was jumping and trying to count by jumping on the tile floors to see how many there were across the living room. He is developing typically to his age. What has influenced this level of physical development is the amount of myelin in the brain increases and raises the speed at which electrical impulses travel between neuron. Which, makes massages reach muscles more rapidly and control them better. Enrique, in the other hand, his physical development is more sophisticated than Alexander’s.

So many children this day in age, are sat in front of a television or a tablet and expected to keep quiet. Children are built to explore, move, and learn from their experiences, and this cannot happen when a child is inside, being distracted by technology. No matter how busy parents are, they should find at least thirty minutes a day to go outside and play with their children. If the weather does not permit outside play, then playing games inside is always a great alternative. Parents should be encouraging their children to develop the motor skills that they are going to need in order to succeed in school and later in life. Many parents encourage the development of their children’s gross motor skills by involving them in sports, dance, or gymnastics. These programs are great for not only teaching children how to be good at something they love, but they also encourage children to develop their motor skills. If parents find that they cannot afford programs such as these, they can focus on providing multiple opportunities for play. For example, one day they could go to the park or they could go over the neighbor’s house to play. Ultimately, the best thing that parents can do to encourage the development of their children’s motor skills is to allow them to play as much as possible and to allow them to try new activities, even if they are

During the early childhood period, environments should be organized to promote motor development. During toddlerhood the environment should be organized to allow the toddler space to explore and move. Confining the child to a limited space such as a playpen could result in a delay in their large motor skills. (Charlesworth, 2004) The environment for the preschooler should be conducive to learning these skills. Adequate outdoor play time should be allotted for the children to have the opportunity to run, jump, throw balls, and other activities to strengthen the large muscles.

As children progress through the early stages of their lives they will continually reach milestones that are somewhat of a tracker as to where they stand in their development, but at the same time it’s important to remember that even though there are suggested milestones as to a maturing task for a specific age and month, each child may mature differently than the next. One part of this progress that children will continually develop through in the early stages of their lives is motor skill development, which is the use of their larger and smaller muscles to perform adult like tasks. More specifically this development can be categorized into fine and

They measured the aspect of fine motor skills through building blocks, copying designs, and drawing a person. They hypothesized that both fine motor skills and EF would uniquely contribute to the range of achievement outcomes in fall and spring of kindergarten.

Gross motor skills are usually associated with physical and kinetic advantages, but the social gain may be just as important for a child’s communication skills. Children all over the world use play to associate with other children, which usually is one of their main sources of social development at a young age (Goldstein, 2012). Unfortunately, many kids come from low-income homes and do not have the opportunity to involve themselves in sport or physical activities, which could lead to declines in physical development, thus affecting their gross

The developmental and motor frame of reference is appropriate to help guide the decision to use evidence-based practiced assessments and choose ETCH and GOAL, because it laid out a foundation to distinguish between dysfunction and function, and the theory regarding change. The developmental frame of reference helps identify the level of motor skills of Lisa’s same gender and age such as ability to write in manuscript in the 4th grade. The motor control frame of reference helps evaluate impaired motor skills used for participating in activities in Lisa’s natural environment such as playing on the playground (O'Brien, 2012).

There are many different things that shape the cognitive development of children. To begin with cognitive development is when a child develops how to process, solve problems, and start making decisions. Once they have learned this they take everything they have learned into their adolescence. An example, of what can shape the cognitive development of a child can be an educational game. Educational games can be very useful in shaping a child’s development because they are having fun while learning at the same time and what kid doesn’t like to play games, the fact that it is even educational makes it even better for them. Not only are they having fun but there are many different games that help in different categories of development in

Fine motor skills refer to the ‘small muscles’ in the hands. Proper development of these muscles is crucial for children to succeed academically in writing and self help skills. According to the National Childcare Accreditation Council (NCAC), “Fine motor skills form an important foundation for the acquisition of many other skills, including literacy, numeracy, self-help and the ability to perform many everyday tasks” (2008). Children start to develop motor skills from birth, and the ways in which children’s muscles develop will later affect their motor function. Caretakers often look for the typical milestones that infants develop; however, infants acquire development at different rates benefiting child growth. From birth through the early grades (preschool to second grade) children are constantly using their fine motor skills to eat, dress themselves, and in social settings such as school. These skills link to infancy development and are factors in knowing how well children will succeed. The following sub-topics address fine motor development and the importance of occupational therapy interventions:

Children experience physical changes by growing very fast though the rate of growth slows down as they approach puberty. Regarding body size and muscle building, this tends to slow down with time making them able to engage in physical activities for such a long time. It gets a time during the child stage when the growth spurts though this happen in girls earlier than in boys. As they grow, they gain gross motor skills due to the sharpening of their abilities. Both experience and the growth in brains is what results in improvement in the motor skills at this development stage. The rate of brain growth also increases with the increase in age of a child. However, the role of the gender of children in motor skills depends on whether large or small muscles are used. It is necessary that the child engages in the physical education and sports to avoid being overweight or obese (Rosenthal et al., 1981).

A few examples of Fine Motor activities displayed during the early years include handwriting skills, drawing pictures, making objects out of clay, and even cutting with scissors. Each of these activities is characterized by including the small-muscle developments that involve finger-thumb coordination, hand-eye coordination, and the development of muscle strength in the hand and arm. All in all, motor skills are an important part of the learning process, and as these “fundamental motor skills are learned...[they] serve as the foundation for more specialized motor skills that will be