The Role of Physical Development in Cognitive and Social Development of Children

The assignment content discusses the development of children aged 3-4 years old, focusing on physical, cognitive, and social aspects. Established theories such as Piagetian stages are applied to understand child development. The importance of parents' role in shaping children's cognitive and social skills is highlighted. Additionally, the impact of neglectful or authoritarian parenting styles on children's development is discussed.

Nursing Assignment
1

Introduction:
Different established theories are useful for the evaluation of growth and development of
children. These theories are established for the assessment of physical, cognitive and social
development of children. Different milestones in the development of children can be studied
by using these theories. Physical development has prominent role in the cognitive and social
development of children. Peers, parents and community members can play significant role in
the development of children.
According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children experiences four stages of
mental development. This theory states that, children acquire knowledge as well understands
nature of the intelligence. Three-year-old children like Jack, are considered as preoperational
stage. Children start thinking in symbolical manner and acquire knowledge of using words
and pictures which can be used to represent objects. These children pretend to be egocentric
and try to look at the things from others perspective. Once these children feel improvement in
their language, they tend to be more tangible in their thinking. In this preoperational stage,
there would be emergence of language and thinking in children of Jack age. Even though,
children seem pretending at this age, they are very concrete about the things around them.
There would not be much development of logic and understanding of others. These children
never remain constant with particular aspect. These children start learning and memorising.
These children’s world is mostly self-centred. These children develop social interaction skills
by playing and collaborating with children of the same age (Semmar and Al-Thani, 2015).
There is development of increase in attention span, reading ability and performing routine
tasks. There is possibility of development of negative aspects in these children like lying,
reverting to elders and bullying. These children start frequently asking questions, can count
upto 10, can draw specific pictures, can dress and undress doll and can talk about the
particular incidence. Most of the time, these children pronounce correctly. These children
have large vocabulary which they use to speak and sing. These children can modify their
speech to communicate with the younger children. It would be difficult for these children to
understand idea of constancy. This can be illustrated by example of lump of clay. Children
prefer to choose flat pancake piece of clay instead of compact ball of clay, even though both
are of exactly same size. Children prefer flat piece because it looks larger. These children can
apply reversible mental thinking. This can be illustrated by the example of red pillow. In this
experiment large, red pillow should be hidden in large room and miniature red pillow in the
miniature replica of room. Children should be shown with the miniature red pillow. Children
2

can locate exact location of the large red pillow. Children of this age develop magical
thinking. Children start expecting gifts through telephone, while they are talking to parents
over the telephone (Lourenço, 2016).
According to Erikson’s social development theory, children of three years age like Jack, feel
autonomy or shame. Well parented children of this age, are sure of themselves, feel elated
and proud of themselves. Children of this age develop significant relationship with the
parents and family members. These children develop will and purpose. These children start
judging the things and able to decide whether thing is okay or not to them. These children get
trained for toileting and clothing themselves from their parents. These children observe their
peers and start using tools from them and making arts. These children get control over motor
abilities and start exploring surroundings and people around them. Though parents provide
them with security, children try to break security and explore their will. These children
constantly learn from their parents and parent’s encouragement help these children to develop
short-term autonomy. Parents should make sure that children are not exploring the things
which are dangerous to their health. These children develop interests in plants and animals.
Development of courage and independence from the parents would be helpful in developing
social connect for children of Jack’s age. These children start taking initiative to achieve
goals and take leadership role among their peers. Goal achieving behaviour may develop into
the negative attitude in the children which include aggressiveness, ruthlessness and over
assertiveness to parents. These children also develop overenthusiastic attitude which might
interfere with parent’s plans. These children try to copy parents and other adults. These
children try playing with toy phones and miniature cars (Gilleard and Higgs, 2016).
Muscle control, balance and coordination in the preschool children like Jack would be helpful
in learning skills like managing and taking control of their own bodies. Based on their
physical strength, these children learn what their bodies can do and can’t do. Coordination
and balance would be helpful in the development of cognitive skills like buttoning or using
sliverware. Physical and motor strength would be helpful in the development of cognitive
skills like holding pencil and writing, brushing teeth and hair. Physical development can also
be helpful in proper functioning of the brain. It can be exemplified by the example of kicking
the ball. Physical strength of the leg is necessary for kicking the ball. At the same time, visual
and auditory function of the brain should be optimum to kick the ball either hard or soft
(Chaddock-Heyman et al., 2014; Carson et al., 2016).
3

Parents should engage themselves in proper cognitive development of the children by making
meaningful interactions which would be helpful in the creating connections with the
environment and understanding the way in which things are happening. Parents should also
teach children how, things should be done, how to behave with others and how to handle
other’s emotions. All these activities would be helpful in improving existing skills and
developing new skills. For proper social and cognitive development of children, parents
should work with full potential of the children. Also, parents should be respectful and
sensitive to the children. These children exhibit social involvement by reacting to others
emotions. Even though, these children don’t understand anything, they start crying when
others cry and start laughing when others laugh. These children start linking these
expressions, initially to feelings and then to words. Parents can influence cognitive
development of children through family-level environmental pathway and genetic pathway.
Psychological aspects of the parent and stress level also have implication in the social and
cognitive development of the children. Warm, accepting and helpful nature of the parents can
improve social and cognitive development of children. Neglectful parents keep children
away, hence it would affect development of children. Authoritarian and permissive parenting
styles are associated with the less development of the children (Fraser et al., 2013; Byford et
al., 2012).
There may be less social interaction in case of Jack. It is evident from his inability to speak.
Children of his age, usually learn to speak by talking to other peers and parents. Even though
other children are talking, Jack is not speaking fluently because he is not socially involved
with other children. Less social interaction of Jack is also evident from his inability of
toileting. Parents make aware children about toileting. This can be achieved by social
interaction of the children with their parents. Behavioural genetic research should be carried
out in children to completely understand cognitive and social development. To achieve, social
and cognitive development in the children, parents behaviour should be of parents
characteristics and not child characteristic.
In conclusion, development of children of Jack age, should be studied with respect to
established theories which corresponds to their age. Physical development of this age group
children should be correlated with the cognitive development. Parents and peers can play
significant role in the social and cognitive development of the children.
4

References:
Byford, M., Kuh, D., and Richards, M. (2012). Parenting practices and intergenerational
associations in cognitive ability. International Journal of Epidemiology, 41(1), 263-72.
Hunter, S., Kuzik, N., Wiebe, S.A., Spence, J.C. (2016). Systematic review of physical
activity and cognitive development in early childhood. Journal of Science and Medicine in
Sport, 19(7), 573-8.
Chaddock-Heyman, L., Hillman, C.H., Cohen, N.J., and Kramer, A.F. (2014). The
importance of physical activity and aerobic fitness for cognitive control and memory in
children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 79(4), 25-50.
Fraser, A., Macdonald-Wallis, C., Tilling, K., Boyd, A., Golding, J., et al. (2013). Cohort
Profile: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children: ALSPAC mothers cohort.
International Journal of Epidemiology, 42(1), 97-110.
Gilleard, C., and Higgs, P. (2016). Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of
the Life Course: A New Direction. Sociology, 50(2), 301–315.
Lourenço, O. M. (2016). Developmental stages, Piagetian stages in particular: A critical
review. New Ideas in Psychology, 40, 123-137.
Semmar, Y., and Al-Thani, T. (2015). Piagetian and Vygotskian Approaches to Cognitive
Development in the Kindergarten Classroom. Journal of Educational and Developmental
Psychology, 5(2), 1 – 6.
5