The Influences on Physical and Cognitive Development of the Early Childhood - Essay Example

The Influences on Physical and Cognitive Development of the Early Childhood The developmental psychology is rather a young direction of psychological science aimed at studying of one of the most difficult psychological processes – development, no matter if it is its psychological, physical or other branch. Many famous scientists have contributed significantly to developmental psychology and have originated developmental theories with their stages, though some of these ideas were recognized false, they influenced all the further development of psychology up to date. This paper will consider influence of various factors on physical and cognitive development of the period of early childhood and investigate into theoretical perspectives associated with such categories of development as social, moral, and development of personality taking into consideration the views of the above mentioned scientists. Sociology provides us with a theoretical base of personality development on example of two theories of social development. The Influences on Physical and Cognitive Development of the Early Childhood To understand factors of influence on physical and cognitive development on early childhood it is necessary to briefly describe development in general, its kinds and its stages, physical and cognitive development of early childhood, and, finally, the factors of influence on the above mentioned aspects of development of early childhood. Development, Its Kinds and Stages The term “development” means growth of a human being throughout its entire lifespan, from its beginning, birth, till its end, that is, death. The main reason for scientific studies of development is finding an answer to the questions why human beings change and why, whereas developmental psychology considers this process from psychological point of view. The psychological science of today distinguishes such kinds of development: physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality development. In our research, we will focus on physical and cognitive development together with the facts of influence on them and other kinds of development. Physical Development and Factors Influencing It From the birth, the child develops many skills and abilities. With a child’s nervous system maturation, he or she is able to perform complex actions. The primary interest in physical development makes motor skills development. The motor skills are divided into two groups: gross motor skills of larger muscles, together with the legs and arms, and fine motor skills, such as smaller muscles of eyes, fingers, toes. Coordination, balance, running, and walking are examples of such actions that require gross motor skills. The fine motor skills are necessary fur such kinds of activity as writing, painting, grasping, catching, and throwing. (Cherry, 2015). Between the age of two and six years, the brain increases its weight from 70 per cent of the weight of adult up to 90 per cent, which results into rapid development of fluent speaking and coordination of hand-to-eye direction which are reached at five years. (Berk, Laura, 2008). Such facts as hereditary and environmental can be distinguished as those influencing children’s development. Hereditary factors mean that certain information is transferred genetically from parents to a child and can determine or influence his or her development. There are children, for example, very similar to their parents by their physical traits, such as height, weight, hair and eyes color, the speed of development, that is, the age at which certain qualities formulate with the children can repeat those of their parents’. Environmental factor mean that the surrounding play role in a child’s physical development. This is, for example, poor ecological situation in the region of living – in Chinese big cities, where there is constant smog because of use of coal as the main source of power due to its low cost, people, including children in the age of 1 to 6 years, have problems with health, which adversely affects their physical development. Another example is a starvation in North Korea in the 1980s, when most people of this country felt an enormous need for food and lost their weight, which caused serious health damages, and the next generations of the North Koreans, compared to their Southern neighbors, are approximately 20cm lower and minimum 10 kg lighter. (Morris, 2005). Cognitive Development and Factors Influencing It Cognitive development is one of the fields of research which represents particular interest for researchers. One of the greatest psychologists, a Swiss scientist Jean Piaget, developed a theory of cognitive development. The theory idea was that there were four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, 0-2 years, characterized by limited to motor activities and sensory perceptions knowledge of the world by a child; preoperational stage, 2-6 years, when language study begins, the logic is not understood yet, a child is still unable to catch the others’ points of view and manipulate the information mentally; concrete operational stage, 7-11 years, a child understands mental operations better, logical thinking starts, including about concrete events, though hypothetical or abstract things are still difficult to understand; formal operational stage, 12-adulthood, abstract thinking develops, this stage also gives origin to such skills as deductive reasoning, logical thinking, and systematical planning. Some ideas of Piaget were criticized, but nowadays there is a new direction in this field of research called neo-Piagetian theories, inspired by the original works of the Swiss psychologist. Today, a theory of nature and nurture is also very strong, bringing some controversy however, and its main idea is whether cognitive development is primarily determined by a person’s nature, that is, innate qualities of an individual, or by nurture – a person’s experience. (Carlson, 2005). These theories have some common features, namely the traits that children have in the age of 1-6 years: they are focused mainly on themselves, they constantly demand the parent’s attention, the children also see all the things only their way – egocentrism by Piaget. The facts that influence cognitive development of the children of early childhood period are also, among others, hereditary and environmental. As it was mentioned in the case with physical development, a child may inherit non-physical traits of the parents the same way, for example, the way of thinking, world perception, values system. Environmental factors are behavior of the surrounding persons: children imitate most of the things they see, including behavior models and, to some extent, ways of thinking and information analysis. Another factor which influences cognitive development of early childhood is upbringing, as the children accumulate parents’ instructions and, at least at this stage, fulfill them, which influences their development. For example, if the parents say that it is good to study, the child saves good image of education inside his or her mind. The Factors Influencing Social, Moral, Personality Development The three factors – hereditary, environmental, and upbringing – are also applicable to social, moral, and personality development. Again, what environment the person has, what the parents give him or her with the birth, and how they bring the child up formulate social views, moral traditions, and constitute guidelines for personality development. It is also useful to investigate into such theoretical perspectives associated with the above mentioned kinds of development as theories of social development of Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Durkheim considered that the societies which have labor division and organization develop correctly, and the personalities have conditions for harmonic development. The societies having feudal organization, on the contrary, create conditions for oppression of one social class, the poor, by another, the rich, which results into formulating opposite types of personalities with very low and very high conscious and dignity level. (Durkheim, 1895 [1982]). Karl Marx, famous for his theory of class struggle, supposed that one social class should struggle against another, which could lead to certain people being aggressive, the labor class as a rule, and the other class, bourgeois, being aware of that and, consequently, vigilant and ready to defeat any riots of the workers, which added such traits to personality as well. (Marx, Engels, 1848 [2009]). Conclusion Developmental psychology, like development of a human being, has always been a field of research with particular interest. In our work, we considered physical and cognitive development of the early childhood, defined them, numbered their stages and stated the factors that influence them: hereditary and environmental ones, and covered the factors that influence social, moral, and personality development, which add the upbringing ones to the already mentioned. The theory of class struggle by Karl Marx and the theory of social development by Emile Durkheim give possibility to suppose that different ways of development of society could impact development of personality by means of adding new traits to it. References Berk, L. (2008). Exploring Lifespan Development. Ally and Bacon: Boston, 222. Carlson, N. et al. (2005). Psychology: the Science of Behaviour. 3rd Canadian Ed., Pearson. Cherry, K. (2015). An Overview of Early Childhood Development. http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/ss/early-childhood-development_1.htm#step-heading Durkheim, E. (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method. Edited by S. Lukes, translated by W. D. Halls, 1982, 35-163. Marx, K., Engels, F. (1848 [2009]). Manifesto of The Communist Party. Echo Library, 5. Morris, J. (2005). North Korea Slashes Meagre Food Rations. The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-slashes-meagre-food-rations-488163.html Read More