Early Childhood : Body And Mind

Sub-stage 5-twelve to eighteen months, this stage is characterized by a child’s ability to conceptualize the idea that an object that cannot be seen still exists. The sixth and final sub-stage of the Sensorimotor Period is eighteen to twenty-four months, this stage is characterized by a child’s ability to understand through reasoning and express themselves creatively (Lefmann & Combs-Orme, 2013). Stage 2-Pre-operational Thought (i.e., 2 - 7 years old); the Pre-operational Thought period is defined by a child's ability to create their own form of communication. Sub-stages of the Pre-operational Thought are characterized by a child’s ability to identify characteristics of photographs and their use of an intuitive thought process (Powell & Kalina, 2009). Concrete Operations (i.e., 7 – 12 years old); the Concrete Operational period is defined by a child's ability to reason logically. Formal Operations (i.e., 12 years old - Adulthood); the Formal Operational period is defined by a child's ability to use critical thinking and analytical reasoning to approach new challenges. Children initially enter into action-based (sensorimotor) and progress into a mental (operational) level as they grow older (Powell & Kalina, 2009). A comparison of the theories of Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson is important to gain a holistic point of view of a child’s developmental progress.

Gender socialization is learning expected behaviors about one’s own sex based on society norms. Gender socialization has great impact on the health of both men and women. In our society, the assigned gender roles when adhered strictly can be detrimental to the overall mental and physical of health status of people. If males and females has to live within the society construct of what the roles of the genders should be, then there is great danger of not living a fulfil lives if one deviates from the assigned roles that the society demands.

Egocentrism is when the child’s thoughts and views are based around or about themselves, without the consideration of others point of views. According to Piaget, egocentrism describes the reasoning behind the fact that children assume that other people see and feel the same way that they do. While Josiah does not show many signs of egocentrism, at the age of 18 months, he began to notice himself and used the word “me” a lot. Josiah wanted to do things himself and his way however, I do my best to let him be independent while still maintaining the need to obey the rules I set. Animation is the belief that inanimate objects, such as teddy bears, have lifelike qualities. Piaget developed four stages of animation. Up to the age of 5, the children tend to believe that everything has lifelike qualities. By the age of 7, the children begin to realize that only things that move are alive. By 12 years of age, the child understands that only plants and animals are living things. I dealt with this in Josiah’s early ages. He started out by asking simple question about why we as humans do what we do. For example, why do we have to eat, etc.? He then went on the playing with toys and asking why his toys couldn’t eat or walk. I had to have a conversation with him explaining that they

The sensorimotor stage infants develop their schemas through sensory and motor activities. Followed by the preoperational stage where children begin to think symbolically using words, to represent concepts. Next concrete operational stage children display many important thinking skills, like ability to think logically. Finally, formal operational stage young adolescences formulate their operations by abstract and hypothetical thinking. Piaget’s theory provides ample and insightful perspectives, so it remains the central factor of contemporary

Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, made substantial findings in intellectual development. His Cognitive Theory influenced both the fields of education and psychology. Piaget identified four major periods of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operations stage, and the stage of formal operations. The preoperational stage includes children two to four years of age and is characterized by the development and refinement of schemes for symbolic representation. During the preoperational stage lies, what Piaget coined, the intuitive period. This phase occurs during the ages of 4-7 and during this time, the child’s thinking is largely centered on the way things appear to be rather than on

Early childhood is often characterized by endless make-believe and sociodramatic play which indicates the development of mental representation. Sociodramtic play differs from simple make-believe play in that it involves play with peers. This stage of play is often referred to as the Preoperational Stage. This is the stage immediately after Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage. The Preoperational Stage spans from two to about five or six years of age. At this stage, according to Piaget, children acquire skills in the area of mental imagery, and especially language. They are very self-oriented, and have an egocentric view; that is, preoperational children can use these representational skills only to view the world from their

| in Piaget's theory, the tendency of a young child to focus only on one feature of an object while ignoring other relevant features

Norton, B. et al. (2011) "Somatic Expressions of Trauma in Experiential Play Therapy" in International Journal of Play Therapy, Vol. 20, No. 3, 138 152.

After reading chapter 6 of the textbook, I have realized that children early years are severely important because they provide the foundation for the rest of their life, as adolescent, and as adult. Children that are well nurtured can live well and be sociable. Early childhood is the most rapid period of development in a human life. A child creates their own sense of identity. Indeed, it is important for a child to have a sense of identity. Although individual children develop at their pace, all children progress through an identifiable sequence of physical, cognitive, and emotional growth and change. The early child development approach is based on that children respond best when caregivers use specific techniques designed to encourage and stimulate progress to the next level of development. Early childhood is the time during which essential, intellectual, and emotional abilities form. Keeping young children safe and nurturing them is protective against lifelong problems. Including the risk of becoming involved in violence. Early experiences affect the brain development, shaping the brains physical growth and sculpting neural connections. This occurs primarily between birth and school age years. Besides, the family, community and society are powerful in shaping young children’s development. They grow at a very rapid rate during the first one and a half years of life. Their development is not only physical, it is also mental, emotionally, and social. These developments are

According to Piaget, egocentrism, or the concept of failing to distinguish others’ symbolic viewpoints from one’s own, is a limitation of preoperational thought. A young child, which in this case is two-and-a-half year-old Lilly, isn’t yet capable of operations, which are defined as mental actions that obey logical rules. Lilly’s thinking at her age is very limited, meaning she can only focus on one aspect of the situation and neglect the others. This is also known as the concept of centration. She focuses on her own viewpoint and, in her mind, assumes that others also have the same perception, thoughts, and feelings as her. Lilly’s egocentric character, at this point in her cognitive development, prevents her to reflect on her surroundings and even consider changing her reasoning and doings. According to her thinking, it’s all about her and what she wants goes. No one else’s thoughts and feelings matter. Two-year-olds actually begin to have a realization that other people’s perceptions differ from theirs, but just like Lilly, even though they may see this, it doesn’t mean they are going to take this into consideration.

Piaget believe that children are active thinkers. He recognized that the mind develops through a series of irreversible stages. He also acknowledged that a child’s maturing brain builds schemas that are constantly assimilating and accommodating to the world around them. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is split into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to nearly two years of age. At this stage, infants learn about the world around them by sensing it and interacting within it. It is also in this stage that the idea of object permanence develops, that is, the awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not being observed. In my personal life, I am certain that in this stage of development I would have enjoyed peek-a-boo, because if I didn’t see it, to my developing mind, it wasn’t there at all. The second stage, preoperational, lasts from two years of age to seven years of

“Goodnight Moon” is a classic children’s literature written by Margaret Wise Brown that illustrates an anthropomorphic rabbit’s routine of saying goodnight to every object in his room before he goes to sleep. The target audience of this book is children who are in the sensorimotor stage. According to Piaget, sensorimotor stage is one of the four intellectual stages in child development that marks children’s ability to distinguish between themselves and the environment when they are 0 to 2 years old. In this essay, I shall explore how the book intersects with the applications of the cognitive characteristics of readers in the sensorimotor stage such as circulation reaction, classification of objects, object permanence and symbolic functioning.

Another cognitive process that develops in this stage is working memory capacity. Between the ages of 6 and 12, the time it takes to process information decreases quickly (Berk, 2014, p. 302). The speed of thinking has a direct effect on working memory, and this is where a difference in the individual intelligence of children truly begins to reveal itself (Berk, 2014, p. 302). Another cognitive development is the development of executive function, where it “undergoes its most energetic period of development” (Berk, 2014, p. 302). Even more noticeable of a development in cognition is the development of attention. While infants and toddlers and even young children can be distracted easily, a child in middle childhood has a more focused attention (Berk, 2014, p. 303). Children learn to only pay attention to information that is relevant to their current focus (Berk, 2014, p. 303). Another advance in cognition is the development of metacognition, where children are more aware of their mental activities (Berk, 2014, p. 306). Despite this awareness of their own mental state, children are still not fully able to achieve cognitive self-regulation, or the “process of continuously

The second domain that describes children in middle childhood is cognitive development. Unlike physical characteristics, cognitive development emphasizes on mental development of children. Cognitive development consists of information processing and language (Santrock, 2008). In the aspect of information processing, developments of memory, thinking and metacognition are experienced by children in middle childhood (Santrock, 2008). According to Papalia et al. (2009), the efficiency of working memory of children during this stage improves substantially. This means that they are able to make calculation, organize information into groups, and repeat and reverse at 5 or more numbers that they heard. Besides, children in middle childhood are able to think critically, deeply, and think in different dimension of the task during middle and late childhood (Eccles, 1999). According to the concrete operational stage in Jean Piaget’s theory, operational thinking of children in middle childhood includes four aspects which are logic, decentration,

In this essay, I will discuss my experience during middle and late childhood. I will address three stages which are the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development. The physical development consists of body and brain growth, health issues, and motor skills. The cognitive development consists of language, memory, and attention. Socioemotional development is based on relationship, employment, and personality.