The Effects Of Early Childhood Education On The Development Of Necessary Social And Cognitive Skills

Christina J. Groark, Stephanie K. McCarthy, Afton R. Kirk. (2014). Early Child Development: From Theory to Practice. Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

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.

Developmental psychology is the study of how human beings age and transform throughout the eight major stages of life. This paper will focus on the physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality development of individuals found in stage two, (early childhood 1-6 year olds). Through exploring, and examining the countless influences that affect their growth development.

Children in families with lower incomes at or below the poverty line have been connected with poor cognitive and social development in early childhood. The studies that I chose to use evaluate the cognitive and social development during early childhood using various surveys, evaluations, and observations completed by or with the children, parents, and teachers. Development of any kind is dependent on the interplay of nature and nurture, or genetics and environment. These studies draw from a child’s environment during the earliest years of development, specifically birth, pre-school, and early elementary school. The studies propose living in an impoverished environment as opposed to an environment above the poverty line imposes certain

Early childhood. During the 1990s, the nation was inundated with reports on the importance of the early years on children's brain development and later cognitive achievement. While some of the reports may have overstated the issue and understated the importance of a child's later years on development, evidence suggests that the early years may be a critical period of development in which family poverty has particularly strong effects on young children. As seen in Table 1, poverty occurring early in a child's life (age two to four) is associated with large effects on indices of child school readiness and cognitive outcomes.

The studies found that all pre-school programs have the potential to prepare disadvantaged preschoolers to enter school at the same level, but since the children in this study were so much more disadvantaged and lower intellectually, they had no way to go but up. Since Head Start is designed for economically and intellectually disadvantaged children, these deficits can be specifically corrected. Simple knowledge like colors, street signs, and discipline are taught, but often assumed by other preschoolers who are more privileged they have already mastered those skills. Meeting the children on their own level brings them up to close the gap with other children. However, this gap appears in other

Rutter, M. (1989), Pathways from Childhood to Adult Life. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30: 23–51. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1989.tb00768.x

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

Time and time again, people agree upon the need for and the benefits of an early childhood education system, but very little change takes place. In Georgia, there is a prevalent need for effective programming for children of low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Research strongly claims that children from poor communities that enroll in center care demonstrate positive cognitive effects (Loeb et al, 2004). According to Zimmerman and Pepper Jr., two capitalists invested in prekindergarten programs, ―A child’s brain grows to roughly 85 percent of its full capacity in the first five years of life. These are also the years when a child’s sense of what is

As we grow older we change; these changes are most visible during infancy and childhood. From birth, babies grow larger and show noticeable development in both their social and intellectual competence. The study of age-related changes in human behaviour is referred to as developmental psychology. Child development refers to the psychological and biological changes that occur in individuals from birth to adolescence. By understanding child development, psychologists know what to expect in infants and children at each developmental stage, and can therefore establish the limitations in infant’s and children’s

The socioeconomic status of a family and their ethnicity has a substantial effect on their child’s early learning and determines how much their child will accomplish through life. Life events from before birth to three years old will have significant impact on brain development (Nelson, 1999). Socioeconomic status limits how much a family could provide to aid a child’s development. Middle-class families can better prepare their children with opportunities for success than families with low household income. Families with low household income will be reluctant to spend money on daycare because they have other priorities. Credentialed daycare providers increase children’s cognitive and critical thinking skills (Barnett & Belfield, 2006). The

Development psychology refers to the scientific study of the systematic psychological changes that normally occur to human beings throughout their growth period from birth to old age. It was originally concerned with children and infants, but it has since expanded to include the entire life span of mankind including adolescence and adulthood. Development psychology covers the extent to which human development occurs through gradual accumulation of knowledge, and the extent to which children born with inmate mental structures learn through experience. Several psychological theories and approaches like the behavioral, humanistic, psychoanalytic, biological, and cognitive approaches have been developed to explain the

In humans, early attention to social stimuli can be connected to individual differences in later high order socio-cognitive abilities, such as the theory of mind. It attributes beliefs, desires and knowledge to oneself and acknowledges that the beliefs of others may differ from one’s own. Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty and Hamilton (2008) investigated forty-five infants’ early social attention. They found infants with deliberately reduced attention, through distraction, had significantly impacted theory of mind when they were four years old. Therefore, findings propose importance of early socio-cognitive abilities on development of higher order skills. However, a limitation of this study is that environmental factors were not considered which

Developmental Psychology has widened my perspective and knowledge of the nature of development from humans’ infancy to adolescence and emerging adulthood. Although I have learned about biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes and periods of development, I am especially interested in socioemotional development in infancy because it is the foundation for a child’s future development. That is to say, if children have a healthy socioemotional development from infancy, they will have a healthy life later on. By understanding the developmental process in infancy, I will be fully prepared when I have children or when my family’s members do.

The effects of early childhood educational programs, both short and long-term, for all children are remarkable. Some assume that children with disabilities cannot get the full experience and that they cannot take advantage of those experiences that they would encounter in a preschool type program. On the other hand, a study done by Lamorey and Bricker found that “children with disabilities enrolled in integrated early childhood programs demonstrated higher lever of social play and more appropriate social interactions, and were more likely to initiate interactions with peers” (Diamond, 1994, par. 2). Gains in socialization and interaction with peers are just the beginning of the effects that these ‘early intervention’ type programs have on children (Smith, 1988, par. 1).