5.24 Conclusion
During the first three years of life, children experience tremendous growth in their cognitive and physical abilities. Caregivers set the stage for a child’s learning through meaningful interactions and by providing opportunities for a child to move and understand their bodies. The skills learned during this time play a crucial role in later development. In the next chapter, we will examine the ways in which children develop social and emotional skills and language. They will use all of their cognitive and physical abilities to explore their social worlds and do what they love most—play.
5.24.1 Review of Learning Objectives
- Identity stages of infant and toddler cognitive development.
- Identify stages of infant and toddler physical development.
- Identify adaptive skills and the role they play in infancy and toddlerhood.
- Recognize healthy sexual development in infancy and toddlerhood.
- Analyze the impact of caregivers and environmental influences on a child’s development.
5.24.2 Review of Key Terms
- Accommodation: a cognitive process that occurs when an existing schema is updated or a new schema is created
- Animism: refers to the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike abilities
- Assimilation: a cognitive process that occurs when a current schema is applied to understand something new
- Child directed speech: a type of sing-song type of intonation and exaggeration adults use when talking to children
- Cortisol: hormones that are produced by the brain in response to stress
- Egocentrism: refers to the inability to see the world through other people’s perspective
- Experience-dependent plasticity: when the brain is remodeled due to unique or unexpected experiences within and outside sensitive periods of development
- Experience-expectant plasticity: when stimuli from the environment guide normal brain development, especially during sensitive periods
- Fine motor skills: motor development focused on the muscles in our fingers, toes, and eyes, which enable coordination of small actions
- Gross motor skills: motor development focused on large muscle groups that control our head, torso, arms and legs which enable the coordination of larger body movements
- Holophrastic speech: when young children use one word phrases or expressions to convey thoughts
- Infantile amnesia: the inability to recall memories from the first few years of life
- Magical thinking: when children believe that their thoughts or actions influence things that happen in their environment
- Mental representations: the ability to think about things that are not currently present or to think about something in the past
- Neurons: a type of brain cell that sends signals to the nervous system
- Neuroplasticity: is a process that involves adaptive structural and functional changes to the brain
- Object permanence: refers to a child’s understanding that even though something is out of their sight, it still exists
- Palmer grasp: the ability to grasp an object using the fingers and palm without the thumb
- Pincer grasp: the ability to grasp an object using the forefinger and thumb
- Preoperational stage: the second stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development where children learn through symbolic and intuitive thought
- Private speech: a form of expression in which children talk to themselves for clarification or to solve problems
- Receptive Language: Children’s ability to understand language before they produce speech
- Schemas: categories of knowledge within the brain that help make sense of and process information
- Sensitive periods of development: when brain connections reach their peak for certain functions and skills
- Sensorimotor stage: the first stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development where children develop an understanding of the world through their senses
- Symbolic function substage: a substage of preoperational development that is characterized by gains in symbolic thinking which allows for advances in language development, problem solving and memory
- Synapses: connections between neurons that help relay information
- Synaptic pruning: refers to the process by which the brain eliminates certain neural connections and strengthens others
- Telegraphic speech: when children use two to three word phrases to communicate by leaving out unnecessary words
- Toxic stress: stress that results in excessive or prolonged activation of stress response systems in the body and brain
- Tummy time: the practice of placing an infant on a flat surface on their stomachs during awake times
- Underextension: when children apply a word to all objects that are similar to the original object
- Zone of proximal development: the period of time when a child is close to performing a task independently but needs assistance to complete it
5.24.3 Licenses and Attributions for Conclusion
“Conclusion” by Christina Belli is licensed under CC BY 4.0.