Understanding Early Childhood: Development, Challenges, and Advocacy

This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of early childhood development, emphasizing its significance and key characteristics. It delves into cognitive development, highlighting the building of skills like reading, writing, and problem-solving, as well as memory and attention. Physical development is discussed in terms of promoting healthy growth through activities like jumping and running, which improve motor and concentration skills. The presentation also covers socio-emotional development, focusing on how children learn to express emotions and interact with others, which is crucial for building relationships. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges faced during this stage, including cognitive disorders, hyperactivity, dyslexia, poor nutrition, and limited parental interaction, as well as socio-emotional challenges like poor family relationships, depression, and abuse. The presentation outlines protective factors such as improved parent-child interaction, mental health care, healthy nutrition, and a safe environment. It concludes with advocacy measures, including showing love and respect, ensuring a secure environment, and providing opportunities for interaction, emphasizing the importance of community and family involvement in supporting early childhood development. The presentation also includes graphs illustrating cognitive and socio-emotional development, specific actions for people to take, and a conclusion summarizing the key evaluation points.

EARLY CHILDHOOD
NAME OF THE STUDENT

Importance of Early Childhood
 The presentation is designed keeping the students in
mind.
 The students will take interest towards the early
childhood part of life as they have just passed from
that phase.
 It will tell the students as to why this phase is an
important part of life that should be given attention.

Characteristics of Early Childhood
• Early childhood is
the time when
most of the
memories are
made (Whitebook et
al., 2018).
• At this time they go
thorough a lot of
physical, mental, and
emotional changes
(Britto et al., 2017)
The experiences that a
child goes through at
this point in his life
determines the success
that he will have in his
future.

Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
 Early childhood is an age that ranges from two to eight
years of age.
 The cognitive development at this phase of life includes
the building of skills, reading, writing and solving
mathematical problems (Carson et al., 2016).
 The cognitive development also includes thinking,
building memory and gaining attention from others.
 It also helps in improving their analytical skills (Tonge
et al., 2016).

Physical Development in Early childhood
 Physical development is one of the most essential aspects of early
development.
It helps in promoting healthy growth as well as development
(Simpkin et al., 2018).
The physical activities such as jumping, running, dancing and
balancing helps in improving the motor, thinking and concentration
skills (Lloyd et al., 2016).

Socio-emotional Development in Early Childhood
Socio-emotional development is another essential aspect in the early
childhood phase.
At this stage the emotional aspect of a child is developed. The child is
able to express himself through anger, love and other emotions
(Cheong et al., 2017).
The above emotional aspects help the child to interact with others in
the society that further help in his growth (Widom et al., 2018).
Children with good social and emotional skills establish good

Challenges in Early Childhood
Challenge in Cognitive Development
 One of the major challenge faced by children at this
stage can be disorder in processing, hyperactivity
disorder and dyslexia (Skantz, 2018).
 Poor intake of nutrients can also affect the health of
a child.
 Less interaction of the child with his/her parents can
also affect their cognitive development (Dunn &
Beach 2017).

Challenges in socio-emotional development in Early Childhood
Poor family relationship or less interaction with parents
is one of the challenges in the socio-emotional
development of the child (Darling & Lippman2016).
Depression is also a major factor that affects the
emotional and social development of the child.
If the child goes through a sexual or physical
abuse at this stage of their life it leads to
trauma that has severe impact on the above
development (Gershoff, &Kaylor 2016).

Challenge in physical development in Early Childhood
 One of the most
common physical
challenge in the phase
of early development
is poor development of
bones and muscles that
prevent the child from
various physical
activities such as
jumping, running,
dancing and balancing
(Vorster et al., 2016).
Another physical
challenge can be
hearing impairment that
prevent the child from
talking and learning.
Lack of nutrients again
has an impact on
physical development.

Protective Factors
Protective factors for Cognitive Development
 One of the protective factors that can be applied
to cognitive development is to improve the
parent-child interaction that will improve his/her
learning skills (McDonald et al., 2016).
 Another protective factor can be when parents
take prior care of the child regarding his mental
illness.
 Religion enhances the parent-child relationship.

Protective factors for Physical Development
 Healthy nutrients should be given to
the child for his physical development.
 Issues such as hearing impairment
should not be neglected. All
vaccinations should be given to
prevent physical problems like weak
bones and muscles (Banyard, Hamby
& Grych 2017).
 Christianity also advocates that the
child should be given adequate
nutrients to shape his physical growth.

Protective factors for socio-emotional development of a Child
 One of the primary protective factors
for the socio-economic development
in early childhood is make the
environment of the child safe and
secure (Ellis et al., 2017).
 Secondly parents should avoid
arguments or fight in front of their
child.
 Thirdly, even Christ said that children
are a gift from God who must be
preserved and protected from the ills
of the world.

Advocacy for Early Childhood
 As a community and as a family member an individual can do a lot to
cope with the challenges of the early childhood.
 Firstly, family and other members can show love and respect towards
the children.
 Secondly, the family and overall community can make the environment
of the child safe and secure (Campbell et al., 2016).
 Thirdly, the children should be given enough scope and activities to
interact with others (Zeng et al., 2017).

Graph Of Early Childhood Development
Cognitive development of a child Socio-Emotional Development of
a child

Specific Action for People
An action that a community or a family
member can take to impart knowledge
about the importance of early childhood
phase is to organize regular seminars or
plays that will educate people about this
phase and will help them to take
necessary and positive actions.

Conclusion
Following evaluation were made after the research:
o Adequate intake of nutrients
o Love and affection from family members
o Safe and secure environment for the child to protect them
from unwanted situations
o Encouragement for all their activities

References
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promising protective factors at the intersection of mental and physical well-being. Child Abuse &
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 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.
 Campbell, S. B., Denham, S. A., Howarth, G. Z., Jones, S. M., Whittaker, J. V., Williford, A. P., ... &
Darling-Churchill, K. (2016). Commentary on the review of measures of early childhood social and
emotional development: Conceptualization, critique, and recommendations. Journal of Applied
Developmental Psychology, 45, 19-41.
 Carson, V., Hunter, S., Kuzik, N., Wiebe, S. A., Spence, J. C., Friedman, A., & Hinkley, T.
(2016). Systematic review of physical activity and cognitive development in early
childhood. Journal of science and medicine in sport, 19(7), 573-578.
 Vorster, A., Sacks, A., Amod, Z., Seabi, J., & Kern, A. (2016). The everyday experiences
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African Journal of Childhood Education, 6(1), 1-9.