Human Growth and Development Chapter Eight

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Human Growth and DevelopmentChapter Eight

• The Play Years (2-6)
• Biosocial Development

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Body Shape and Growth Rates

• Lower body lengthens
• child becomes slimmer
• Steady increase in height and weight
• 3 inches in height per year
• 4 1/2 pounds in weight per year

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Eating Habits

• Appetite decreases in these years
• Food should be nutritious
• major nutritional problems are
• iron-deficiency anemia
• too much sugar
• too much fat
• not enough fruits and vegetables

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Brain Development

• Underlies rapidly expanding cognitive abilities
• by age 2, 75 of brain weight achieved
• by age 5, 90 of brain weight achieved

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Speed of Thought

• Myelinationprocess by which axons become
  insulated with a coating of myelin, a fatty
  substance that speeds transmission of nerve
  impulses
• thoughts follow each other fast enough for
  children to perform one task after another
• fast processing essential for fast and complex
  communication

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Connecting the Brains Hemispheres

• Corpus callosumnerve fibers that connect the two
  halves of the brain

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• Left Side, Right Side
• lateralizationspecialization of the two sides of
  the brain
• left brain
• logical analysis, language, speech, verbal
  skills, positive emotions, right side of the body
• right brain
• visual and artistic skill, creativity, spatial
  skills, negative emotions, left side of the body

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Planning and Analyzing

• Prefrontal cortex (or frontal lobe) is the final
  part of the human brain to reach maturity
• Perseverationages 2-3, will stick with something
  past level of appropriateness (repetition,
  tantrums)

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Educational Implications of Brain Development

• By age 6, children are ready for formal
  instruction
• before, brain not sufficiently developed in ways
  it needs to be, but now child can
• sit still for more than an hour
• scan a page of print
• balance sides of body
• draw and write with one hand
• listen and think before talking
• remember important facts
• control emotions

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Gross Motor Skills

• Greater coordination and impulse control
• Large body movements improve
• running, jumping, climbing, throwing
• Children learn basic motor skills by teaching
  themselves and learning from other children

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Fine Motor Skills

• Small body movements are harder to master
• pouring, cutting, holding crayons, tying laces or
  shoes
• fingers short and fat
• confusion over which is dominant hand

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Artistic Expression

• Childrens artistic endeavors are also their play
• drawings often connected to perception and
  cognition
• gradual maturation of brain and body is apparent

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Serious Injuries

• Accidents are the most common cause of childhood
  death
• poison, fire, falls, choking, and drowning
• unintended injuries cause millions of premature
  deaths per year until the age of 40 then disease
  becomes greatest cause of mortality

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Three Levels of Prevention

• Primary preventionactions that change overall
  background conditions to prevent some unwanted
  event or circumstance
• Secondary preventionactions that avert harm in
  the immediate situation
• Tertiary preventionactions taken after an
  adverse event to reduce the harm or prevent
  disability

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Child Maltreatment

• Sensational cases attract attention
• but dont represent the typical case
• still, we need to learn lessons about abuse in
  order to understand its causes and consequences

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Changing Definitions of Maltreatment

• Abuse and neglect
• child maltreatmentintentional harm or avoidable
  endangerment to child
• child abusedeliberate action that is harmful to
  childs well-being
• child neglectfailure to meet childs basic needs

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• Types of abuse physical, sexual, emotional, and
  educational
• Neglect twice as common as abuse
• one sign is failure to thrive
• another is hypervigilance
• can be a symptom of post-traumatic stress
  disorder

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• Reported maltreatmentcases about which
  authorities have been informed
• 3 million per year
• Substantiated maltreatmentcases that have been
  investigated and verified
• 1 million per year

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Abuse Brain Damage and Consequences

• Types of possible brain damage
• shaken baby syndrome
• condition caused by maltreatment involving
  shaking a crying baby, with severe brain damage
  as result
• brain damage in despondent or terrorized child
• memory may be impaired logical thinking may be
  delayed

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• Another brain disorder may appear in neglected
  child with clinically depressed mother unable to
  provide emotional support and guidance
• right prefrontal cortex develops more than left
  consequently, negative emotions dominate, with
  greater likelihood of depression occurring
• Inadequate essential nourishment also impedes
  normal brain development

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Impaired Social Skills

• Maltreated childrens social skills
• less friendly, more isolated and aggressive
• the earlier abuse begins, the worse the
  relationship with peers