10 Questions
What characterizes physical growth in children between the ages of 2 and 5?
Children develop more mature body proportions.
Which factor is most likely to influence individual differences in preschoolers' motor skills?
Biological endowment and experience
Which nutritional characteristic is common among preschoolers?
Decreased appetite and food selectivity
Why are preschool children particularly vulnerable to infections?
They have an increased vulnerability naturally.
When do most preschoolers typically achieve nighttime bladder control?
Later in the preschool period
How does myelination affect preschoolers?
It leads to greater muscle coordination and motor skills.
Which term describes preschoolers' belief that inanimate objects have feelings?
Animism
How do preschoolers initially form word combinations?
Using semantics-based language devoid of grammatical structures
Why might preschoolers struggle with conservation?
They cannot understand that properties of objects remain constant despite appearance changes.
What characterizes the thinking stage known as 'preoperational' in preschoolers?
Symbolic representation and magical thinking
Study Notes
Physical Growth during Early Childhood
- Growth slows between ages 2 and 5, and children develop more mature body proportions.
- Individual differences in motor, cognitive, and social development are influenced by genetic, social, and nutritional factors.
Nutritional Requirements
- A balanced diet is essential for sustained development in children.
- Many children worldwide suffer from malnutrition, which can hinder development.
- Children's appetites often decrease during the preschool years, and they become more selective about what they eat.
Threats to Children's Health
- Preschool children are more vulnerable to infections due to their developing immune systems.
- Large-scale immunization programs have controlled life-threatening diseases, particularly in Western countries.
- Poverty affects children's health, and Aboriginal preschoolers are at a higher risk of ill health due to limited resources.
Bowel and Bladder Control
- Most preschoolers achieve bowel control early in the preschool period.
- Most preschoolers achieve daytime bladder control early in the preschool period, while night-time bladder control comes later.
- Bladder control depends on several factors, including developmental readiness and parental effort.
Motor Skills in Preschool
- Children refine gross motor skills such as walking, jumping, throwing, and catching.
- New fine motor skills are acquired, like drawing, which progresses from non-representational to representational drawings.
- There are minor gender and cultural differences in motor skills, and larger individual differences can be explained by biological endowment and experience.
Preschoolers' Thinking
- Thinking in young children is preoperational, characterized by limited reasoning skills.
- Symbolic representation is established, particularly in language.
- Preoperational thinking is characterized by egocentrism, meaning children have difficulty understanding perspectives other than their own.
- Children have magical thinking and believe inanimate objects have feelings (animism).
- Early childhood is characterized by rudimentary skills in classification and a lack of numerical concepts.
Language Development
- Word production increases dramatically during the preschool period.
- Children gradually master the sound system of their native language.
- They gain grammatical skills, and their initial word combinations are governed by meaning and often lack grammatical structures seen in adult speech.
- As children develop longer utterances, errors of grammar are common.
Explore the physical growth patterns and nutritional requirements of children between ages 2 and 5, including individual, gender, and cultural differences.
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