The early childhood development subject is explored by using findings from the cited sources. I studied and analysed the concepts relating early childhood development and reported my learning under different sections predominantly featuring the human brain. There are six headings including an overview and a brief conclusion. The four main areas being examined are as follows, brain development, motor development, infant memory and the cognitive development.
Early Childhood Development Early childhood is the most rapid period of development in one’s life.Although individual children develop at their own unique pace, all children progress through a set of sequence of physical and cognitive developmental stages. Overview of Early Childhood Development Learning starts in infancy, long before formal education begins and continues throughout life. Recent studies of early childhood investments have shown remarkable success and indicate that the early childhood is important for early learning. Moreover, early childhood interventions of high quality have lasting effects on learning and motivation.
Science shows us what children must have, and what they need to be protected from, in order to promote their healthy development. Stable, responsive, nurturing relationships and rich learning experiences in the earliest years provide lifelong benefits for learning, behavior and both physical and mental health. In contrast, research on the biology of stress in early childhood shows how chronic stress caused by major adversity, such as extreme poverty, abuse or neglect, can weaken developing brain architecture and permanently set the body’s stress response system on high alert, thereby increasing the risk for a range of chronic diseases.Brain Development The brain is a highly integrated organ, and its multiple functions operate in a richly coordinated fashion. The following basic concepts help illustrate why healthy child development from birth to five years provides a foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins in the womb and continues into adulthood.
Early experiences affect the quality of that architecture by establishing either a sturdy or a fragile foundation for the learning, health and behavior that follow.In the first few years of life, 700 new neural connections are formed every second. After this period of rapid proliferation, these connections are reduced through a process called pruning, so that brain circuits become more efficient. Sensory pathways, like those for basic vision and hearing, are the first to develop, followed by early language skills and later by higher cognitive functions. Connections proliferate and prune in a prescribed order, with later, more complex brain circuits built upon earlier, simpler circuits.
The interactive influences of genes and experience shape the developing brain. Young children naturally reach out for interaction through babbling, facial expressions and gestures, and adults respond with similar kinds of vocalizing and gesturing back at them. In the absence of such responses – or if the responses are unreliable or inappropriate – the brain’s architecture does not form as expected, which can lead to disparities in learning and behavior. The brain’s capacity for change decreases with age.It is most flexible, or “plastic,” early in life to accommodate a wide range of environments and interactions, but as the maturing brain becomes more specialized to assume more complex functions, it is less capable of reorganizing and adapting to new or unexpected challenges.
Although the windows for complex language learning and other skills remain open, these brain circuits become increasingly difficult to alter over time. Early plasticity means it’s easier and more effective to influence an infant’s developing brain architecture than to rewire parts of its circuitry during adolescence and the adult years.Cognitive, emotional, and social capacities are inextricably intertwined throughout the life course. Although learning how to cope with adversity is an important part of healthy child development, excessive or prolonged stress can be toxic to the developing brain.
When we are threatened, our bodies activate a variety of physiological responses, including increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones such as cortisol. When a young child is protected by supportive relationships with adults, he learns how to adapt to everyday challenges and his stress response system returns to baseline. Scientists call this positive stress.Tolerable stress occurs when more serious difficulties, such as the loss of a loved one, a natural disaster, or a frightening injury, are buffered by caring adults who help the child adapt, thereby mitigating the potentially damaging effects of abnormal levels of stress hormones. When strong, frequent or prolonged adverse experiences, such as extreme poverty or repeated abuse, are experienced without adult support, stress becomes toxic and disrupts developing brain circuits.
Toxic stress experienced early in life can also have a cumulative toll on learning capacity as well as physical and mental health.The more adverse experiences in childhood, the greater the likelihood of developmental difficulties and other problems. Adults with more adverse experiences in early childhood are also more likely to have chronic health problems, including alcoholism, depression, heart disease and diabetes. Motor Development There are two types of motor development and genes play a major role. Gross motor skills involve the larger muscles including the arms and legs.
Actions requiring gross motor skills include walking, running, balance and coordination.Eye-hand coordination, reaching or grasping, and manipulating objects are examples of fine motor development. Maturation and Infant Memory The ability to form memories and remember them is a vital part of human experience. Historically, people believed that infants lacked this ability. Infantile amnesia is associated with the earliest stages of human development: nearly all people lack the ability to retain memories of experiences they had before they were three years old.
This universal phenomenon implies that the brain systems required to encode and retrieve specific events are not adequately developed to support long-term memory efore age three.The use of a nonverbal task has allowed researchers to challenge and disprove this assumption. Declarative memory is apparent in the first year of life, as evidenced by behaviour or nonverbal, imitation based tasks. It develops substantially throughout the first and second years of life. The timing of improvements in performance corresponds to the timing of changes in the developing brain.
Cognitive Development & Piaget’s Theory Emotional well-being and social competence provide a strong foundation for emerging cognitive abilities, and together they are the bricks and mortar that make up the foundation of human development.Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Cognitive development theory originates on the principle that mental processes become more sophisticated and complex through progressive and sequential changes. The theory is based on the idea that individuals cognition develops as he reaches certain levels of competence in several cognitive skills. As the person gains cognitive abilities they are integrated into a general cognitive ability (Fogiel, 1999).Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is most cited early childhood cognitive development.
Piaget’s core idea is that the driving force behind our intellectual progression is an unceasing struggle to make sense of experiences. One of the key concepts proposed in Piaget's theory is the use of schemas, concepts or mental molds into which we pour our experiences. Assimilation, interpreting our new experience in terms of our existing schemas and accommodation, adapting our current understandings to incorporate new information are used to modify, add to or completely change previously existing schemas.Piaget proposed that children progress through four stages of cognitive development, each with distinctive characteristics that permit specific kinds of thinking. Sensorimotor Stage: From birth and the first 24 months.
The infant learns relationship between their actions and the external world acquire concept of cause and effect. They develop object permanence. Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli.
