age range to the most critical years of development
the first 5 years
5 factors of why early years matter
why is pathologically the first 5 years important?
During the first years of life, the higher parts of the brain become organized and more
functionally capable. From 0-5 years, the brain is constantly creating new connections and
developing at the most rapid pace it will ever be in a person’s life, before it begins to stabilize at
age 6. By age four, a child’s brain is 90% adult size.
-this is the time that the brain is most venerable to neglect and inappropriate or abusive caregiving
what happens when the baby is upset?
what is the greatest impact during these early years?
Stress and trauma seem to have the greatest impact in the early years. This is why there has been so much attention on ACE (adverse childhood experiences)
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)
Adverse Childhood Experiences study (Anda and Felitti)
ACE score of 4 or higher
more likely to smoke, 7x more likely to be
alcoholics, 7x more likely to have sex before 15, 2x more likely to have cancer and heart disease
ACE score of above 6
—30x more likely to attempt suicide, 46x more likely to
use drugs
the impact of ACE score on the body
Psychologist had always believed that ACE could produce low self-esteem, and they thought it was reasonable to assume that it also produced addiction and depression and suicide. But then ACE study started showing links to liver disease, diabetes, lung cancer WHY? —through behavours such as heavy drinking, overeating, smoking—all these linked back to stress!
What would emotional abuse look like?
—manipulation, put downs, undermining, making one believe they are incapable.
when does trauma for a child start?
Trauma that affects children starts before a child is born. Remnants of trauma is carried down in generational trauma—carried through narrative (trauma stories) and actions(the normalizations of brutalization).
-can lead to early death
ACE pyramid
Piaget’s Theory of Childhood Development- Sensorimotor
-birth 2 years
-understands world through senses and actions
ex. a nurse working in a day care and be able to decide and develop a care plan from birth to 2 years- part of your care plan will have – focus on sense and touch, different textures the baby can explore- different toys, softs, cold and hot– sensory motor will be the focus will be the focus for any care plan
Piaget’s Theory of Childhood Development- Preoperational
2-7 years
-understands world through language and mental images
* example, pictures. show picture and child says apple
They are unable to see things from any perspective other than their own; they cannot see another’s point of view, nor can they see any reason
-Thought is dominated by what they see, hear, or otherwise experience.
- e.g., the stars have to go to bed just as children do
Piaget’s Theory of Childhood Development- Concrete operational
-7-12 years
-understands world through logical thinking and categories
-this is when the child has previous exposure. they start connecting that apple is red, colour and fruit together but is not abstract thinking - they can link
-They do not have the capacity to deal in abstraction; they solve problems in a
concrete, systematic fashion based on what they can perceive.
- Thinking has become more socialized
- For example, a child can classify objects according to several features, such as choose dolls with blond hair and blue eyes and put dolls in order along a single dimension such as size
-Children can classify, sort, order, and otherwise organize facts about the world to use in problem solving.
Piaget’s Theory of Childhood Development- Formal Operational
-12 years onwards
-understands world through hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning
-this is pure world problems example you show 2 pictures of an apple. 1 apple and 1 apple is 2 apples
-Adaptability and flexibility
-Adolescents can think in abstract terms, use abstract symbols, and draw logical
conclusions from a set of observations.
-for example, they can solve the following question: If A is larger than B, and B is
larger than C, which symbol is the largest? (The answer is A.)
- They can make hypotheses and test them; they can consider abstract, theoretical,
and philosophical matters.
Tasks of childhood (Erikson)
-infancy -18 months: trust vs mistrust
-18 months- 3 years: autonomy vs shame
-3-7 years- initiative vs guilt
-8-12 years- industry vs inferiority
-adolescent years- identity vs role confusion
Trust vs. Mistrust
-Mistrust develops when trust-promoting experiences are deficient or lacking or when basic needs are inconsistently or inadequately met
-baby uses senses to take everything in
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
-The development of autonomy during the toddler period is centred on children’s
increasing ability to control their bodies, themselves, and their environment
- They want to do things for themselves, using their newly acquired motor skills of
walking, climbing, and manipulating and their mental powers of selecting and decision making
-here present choices to give them a sense of autonomy - if not can result in problem solving in the future
ex. do u want a fork or a spoon?
Initiative vs guilt
-Children explore the physical world with all their senses and powers. They develop a conscience
need to be able to take the consequences - that’s when they pick a choice but they need to feel the consequences of their choices. do u want a doll or do u want a bowl. pick bowl and regrets not choosing the doll
-guilt can arise when children choose activities that are in conflict when their parents
Industry vs inferiority
-They want to engage in tasks and activities that they can carry through to completion; they need and want real achievement.
- Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority may develop if too much is expected of them or if they believe that they cannot measure up to the standards set for them
by others.
-The ego quality developed from a sense of industry is competence.
Identity vs confusion
-the development of identity is characterized by rapid and marked physical changes
-Adolescents struggle to fit the roles they have played and those they hope to play with the current roles and fashions adopted by their peers, to integrate their concepts and values with those of society, and to come to a decision regarding an
occupation.
- Inability to solve the core conflict results in role confusion. The outcome of successful mastery is devotion and fidelity to others and to values and ideologies.
how do children develop this level of mastery?
the cognitive hypothesis
-The CH proposes that children’s ability to recognize letters and words and calculate (practiced early and regularly) is what has the best outcome for intelligence and other positive outcomes. - Meeting the needs of our youngest children. The report says that the problem with child development is that children were not getting enough cognitive stimulation because of single parent families and working mothers so they were getting to kindergarten unready to learn.
-the crucial difference in children’s upbringing and the reason for divergence in their outcomes in life was account of 1 thing—the number of words children heard from their parents between age 0-3 years. They noted that children raised by professional parents heard 30 million words as opposed to ten million heard by children of parents on welfare. In fact, they stated that welfare children would need 41 hours of intensive language training each week to close the vocabulary gap.
-the IQ- keep talk to kids, early exposure, practice and repetition will affect the IQ -Non-cognitive skills (personality traits and characters)