Chapter 7- Early Childhood

Chapter 7 developmental themes are Autonomy vs. Doubt and Initiative vs. Guilt.  In this chapter it is talking about early childhood. In the biophysical dimension, “The average preschool child grows 2.5 inches and gains 5 to 7 pounds a year” (Ashford & LeCroy, 2013, p 305).  Along with growing physically their gross motor skills also do to.  Children’s fine motor skills can be a difficult task when they are young but they will get better as they grow.   “Phonological disorder affects at least 2.5% of preschool children and is more prevalent in males” (Ashford & LeCroy, 2013, p. 313).  I was amazed on how low this number is. I thought it was more common than that.  My son has difficulty articulating letters r and s.  He goes to speech therapy twice a week.  His doctor became more concerned about his speech when he was six years old.  She told me that around that age children should have already grown out of the stage where they did not articulate correctly.   In the psychological dimension Piaget has a theory of preoperational stage. 309 Children in the preoperational stage cannot perform certain mental tasks that older children can handle” (Ashford & LeCroy, 2013, p. 309).  In the social aspect it covers how children start learning to regulate their emotions.  A child will start showing their feeling through body language.  Another point of the social aspect is when children are underprivileged they can have more setbacks which can affect them greatly and how they develop.  A program that can help intervene early and can help teach a child is project head start.  My son was also in this program and helped him greatly.  When he entered into pre-k he already knew everything the children were learning!

Ashford, J., & LeCroy, C. (2013). Early Childhood. In <i>Human behavior in the social environment: A multidimensional perspective</i> (5th ed.). Australia: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.