Human Development Stage: Early Childhood Development
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The early childhood development stage is a critical period for physical, cognitive, and language development. This article explores key concepts, development changes, and ideas related to early childhood development. It also discusses research findings and the importance of early childhood education.
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT STAGE (Early childhood stage of the human)
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Introduction/oral presentation data The human development stage ranging from year two to five or six is considered to be the ‘early childhood development stage’ (Otto, 2015). Even some researches consider early childhood as a period starting from conception to birth to six years of age making it the most critical human development stage for study and research (El-Kogali & Krafft, 2015). In the early childhood development stage, a child undergoes mainly physical, cognitive and language development making them key development changes at this stage. This development stage is considered to be the most intensive and sensitive stage of brain development that works throughout the lifespan (Otto, 2015). The chemical functionality of the human brain plays a very crucial role in the early development stage that is explained in this study. Further, the study focuses on the theories, facts, ideas and research explaining early childhood development are detailed in this piece of work. Key concepts The studies explain that a person’s physical and emotional development holds its roots in upbringing at the early childhood development stage. If the early childhood development stage of a person is perfect then one can expect a satisfactory settlement in adolescence and adult life (El-Kogali & Krafft, 2015). According to Carsonet al.(2015) studies, both nurture (environment) and nature (genes) influence early childhood development. The environment here describes the care and love children get from their parent. These nature and nurture are considered determinants that architect the brain development of children in the early childhood stage. The better learning outcomes skills at school, good attainment of education, proper employment and health are outcomes of proper early childhood development. Key development changes Physical development In the early childhood stage, a child shows continuous changes in the body shape, structure, height, colour and weight. The brain is the most important part that shows the fastest growth in this stage due to increased interconnection numbers between brain cells (Valentine, 2015). At this stage, the two left and right hemisphere
of brain discriminate and mature to perform their individual specific functions. This dramatic and fast change in the brain makes it most vulnerable to its surrounding environment at this development stage (Montroy, Bowles, Skibbe, McClelland & Morrison, 2016). According toCumming, Sumsion & Wong (2015)studies, chemicals in the brain at early development stage of child response at per nurture (outer environment) provided to the children by their parents. For example – Cortisol is a hormone that ensures relaxation and stress less childhood if the child gets sufficient love and support from parents. A further, bodily change involves burning fats; stronger bones and muscle gain as a child begins to grow at this stage (Dunst, 2015). Lastly, children develop gross and fine motor skills at this stage. The gross motor skill development induces physical activities like running, jumping, hopping and leaping. The fine motor skill development induces activities like drawing, solving puzzles, crafting, undo clothing and eating food (Otto, 2015). Cognitive development The cognitive development at the early childhood stage involves the development of a child’s capabilities to learn, explore, exploit and adapt to its surrounding environment. At 3 years of age, children learn reasoning abilities like telling difference between column and rows. Further, getting older children learn to develop mathematical learning, understanding numbers and answering open-ended questions (Valentine, 2015). Further,Blacket al.(2017)stated that as per preoperational stage theory, children develop questioning skill mostly in their early childhood stage where a repeated question of “why?” is always surrounding their cognitive development abilities. According toCarsonet al. (2015) studies, at early childhood stage, literal thinking and egocentrism are two most important characteristics of children that generally vanish when logical and reasoning thinking abilities develop only after the age of 8 years. Language development The language development is in a most active form at this early development childhood stage. As per studies, a child has the power to catch and learn up to 16 languages at this stage (Daelmanset al., 2017). This language development helps children to connect with the surrounding environment and people. First, they string a sentence together including use of tenses, plurals etc. irrespective of grammar which they learn afterward in their young childhood stage. Children engage in self-talks, private speech, experimenting thoughts and solving problems at this stage (Valentine,
2015). Ideas In the early childhood development stage the infant and toddler experience life in a most holistically manner where they gain language, social, emotional, cognitive and physical lessons to develop in a proper manner. The adults help children in learning by paying attention, giving affection love, motivation, mental stimulation and encouragement. The parents provide perfect nutrition and hygienic environment that helps in the growth of the body and brain of children. Improper nutrition leads to biological risk factors like diseases in adulthood (El-Kogali & Krafft, 2015). Further, Brittoet al. (2017) indicated that every personal and social relationship is important at this stage of life. Children develop a close bond with every social (friends, peers) and personal (parents, siblings) individual at this stage of life. Therefore, healthy relationships in surroundings are very important at this stage for the proper development of a child. Further,Blacket al.(2017)state that quality of parenting and family environment plays a most sensitive role where children can develop environmental hazards like blinking reflex, reaction time, memory loss, mental misbalance, earning defects, lacking motor skills etc. if not managed properly. The quality of parenting and family environment involves loving and supporting parents behaviour, their time and attention, mother’s feel and touch, parents mutual cooperation and disciplined behaviour. According toBrittoet al. (2017) studies, parent’s educational background also plays a very important role in developing a quality-parenting environment. Lastly,Jones, Zaslow, Darling-Churchill & Halle (2016)indicated that proper language development is possible only when a child gets more company to perform proper language communication (number of people talking to the child). Only a smart and attentive parent can raise a proper speech therapy for their child. These are some of the most prominent ideas that work during early childhood stage of life. Research/Statistical findings The studies on early childhood development last since ancient times where researches and psychologist proposed some most important theories that explain development milestones, specific achievements and development aspects (cognition,
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learning and growth) at this stage of life (Valentine, 2015). According toCarsonet al.(2015) studies, The Erikson psychological child development theory describes the importance of social environment on child development considering it as the most important aspect. Further, as per Watson’s Behavioural child development theory, any behaviour can be learned only at the early childhood development stage of life. Lastly, The Piaget’s cognitive development theory explains that children at early development stage are like “little scientist” that performs self-construction of knowledge and understanding their surrounding world. The Piaget’s theory divide childhood stage in four sub-stages, that are sensorimotor stage (birth-2years, development of brain), Preoperational stage (2-6years, growth and development), Concrete operational stage (7-11 years, development of logical and reasoning process) and Formal operation stage (12-early adulthood, emergence of hypothetical thoughts). Some of the data below describe recent researches on early childhood development As per recent researches, early childhood education plays an important role in attaining better development of children. The number of children joining early childhood education has increased from 78,480 to 104, 271 from 2013 to 2017 in New South Wales (NSW) Australia (Education.nsw.gov.au, 2019). The graph describes human brain development stages as per age where mostly the brain develops in the early childhood development stage of life (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2019).
Mental, behavioural and development disorders (MBDD) are found to be outcomes of deprived early childhood development. The below-provided two graphs explain the characteristics andfactors related to this MBDD issue affecting childhood (El-Kogali & Krafft, 2015). The graph below describes the lasting effect of early childhood education (Mineo, 2019).
Conclusion The early childhood development stage study on its key concepts, development changes, and ideas of development, research and findings clearly describe the sensitivity and importance of this stage on the overall development of a human. The physical, cognitive and language development changes are most prominent at this stage of life where children constantly explore their new world surrounding them like curious scientist exploring their research. The ideas like early education; good development stimulus, love, care, support and attention help children in proper early childhood development.
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References Books El-Kogali, S., & Krafft, C. (2015).Expanding Opportunities for the Next Generation: Early Childhood Development in the Middle East and North Africa. The World Bank. Otto, B. (2015).Literacy development in early childhood: Reflective teaching for birth to age eight. Waveland Press. Valentine, C. W. (2015).The psychology of early childhood: A study of mental development in the first years of life. Routledge. Journals Black, M. M., Walker, S. P., Fernald, L. C., Andersen, C. T., DiGirolamo, A. M., Lu, C., ... & Devercelli, A. E. (2017). Early childhood development coming of age: science through the life course.The Lancet,389(10064), 77-90. Britto, P. R., Lye, S. J., Proulx, K., Yousafzai, A. K., Matthews, S. G., Vaivada, T., ... & MacMillan, H. (2017). Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development.The Lancet,389(10064), 91-102. Carson, V., Kuzik, N., Hunter, S., Wiebe, S. A., Spence, J. C., Friedman, A., ... & Hinkley, T. (2015). Systematic review of sedentary behavior and cognitive development in early childhood.Preventive medicine,78, 115-122. Cumming, T., Sumsion, J., & Wong, S. (2015). Rethinking early childhood workforce sustainability in the context of Australia's early childhood education and care reforms.International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy,9(1), 2. Daelmans, B., Darmstadt, G. L., Lombardi, J., Black, M. M., Britto, P. R., Lye, S., ... & Richter, L. M. (2017). Early childhood development: the foundation of sustainable development.The Lancet,389(10064), 9-11. Dunst, C. J. (2015). Improving the design and implementation of in-service professional development in early childhood intervention.Infants & young children,28(3), 210-219. Jones, S. M., Zaslow, M., Darling-Churchill, K. E., & Halle, T. G. (2016). Assessing early childhood social and emotional development: Key conceptual and measurement issues.Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology,45, 42-48.
Montroy, J. J., Bowles, R. P., Skibbe, L. E., McClelland, M. M., & Morrison, F. J. (2016). The development of self-regulation across early childhood.Developmental Psychology,52(11), 1744. Website Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2019).InBrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Available at: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/ [Accessed 9 May 2019]. Education.nsw.gov.au. (2019).Data and research | What's happening in the early childhood education sector. Available at: https://education.nsw.gov.au/early- childhood-education/whats-happening-in-the-early-childhood-education-sector/ data-and-research [Accessed 9 May 2019]. Mineo, L. (2019).Ambitious Harvard study aims to discover how children grow, learn, thrive. Harvard Gazette. Available at: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/02/early-learning/ [Accessed 9 May 2019].