Period of Development Fact Sheet

Early Childhood
Physical: Children can walk up and down stairs using alternating feet with one leading
foot; flexes their upper body to jump and hop; throes and catches using a slight
movement of their upper body; and can pedal and steer a tricycle.
Language: Between the ages of 3 and 6, children language vocabulary will consist of
around 900 words and by the age of 6, their spoken vocabulary will expand amazingly
between 8,000 and 14,000 words.
Cognitive: Around the age of 6, children can think in an abstract way, take part in
complicated pretend play and create imaginative processes when they are trying to finish
a task (globalpost.com). Children can also sort familiar objects into different categories
and distinguish living things from objects that are not real life things; and understand
conversations between other people (Berk, 2013).
Social/Emotional: When children reach the age of three, they start to do different tasks
with less or no assistance at all and during the age of four, a child understands the basics
of good and bad behavioral (psychology.about.com).
Moral Reasoning: Typically defined as objective rules that are used to establish the way
children should behavior (earlychildhoodnews.com). For example, Johnny watched
Marie being removed from the block area for throwing blocks; therefore, he was upset
because he was also removed for pushing down another childs block structure which
wasnt the same reason for Marias removable. Another example would be that when
Peter pushed Danny on the floor, the teacher ran over to assist Danny without showing
much sympathy towards Peter.
Atypical Signals: Behavior some children display that is usually different of their peers
(Idonline.org) such as not being able to hold a pencil correctly or does not use or hold
eating utensils properly.
Social Factor: Family/parents interactions can affect a child in a positive or negative way
in relation to their development. When parents spend quality time such as reading books
and playing with their children, it contributes towards their positive development
(livestrong.com).
Cultural Factor: Depending on the childs cultural background, it may be customary for
a child not to look into a teacher or caregivers eye because it could be a sign of this
respect. In addition, in some countries, a female is the last one to be served and to eat as
well as getting up from the table.

Play-based strategies use to influence learning and development for use of families:
Dramatic or pretend play helps a child act out real life scenarios performed by an adult
and games that include their peers such as ring-around-the-roses.
Strategies that families can use to influence their childrens learning and development
during this period of development: Parents can go on the internet and find activities that
will continue to promote additional areas such as math and science projects and games.
There are vast numbers of ideas that can be found on different academic learning
websites.

References:
Berk, L.E. (2013). Child Development. Boston: Pearson Education
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/major-milestones-cognitive-development-earlychildhood-4625.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/early-child-development/a/social-and-emotionalmilestones.htm
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6047/
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=565
http://www.livestrong.com/article/217996-factors-affecting-early-child-development/

Images from website:

https://www.google.com/search?q=middle+childhood+images+of+physical+development
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