Early Childhood

Physical Development
During the preschool age, children’s physical development continues to grow. Their
physical skills of running, jumping, climbing, balancing, hopping, and skipping improves
and they have more coordinated arm, leg, head, and torso movements (National
Childcare Accredidation Council, 2009).
Body growth slows in early childhood and children typically add 2-3 inches in height and
5 pounds in weight each year (Berk, 2013).

Language Development
Language development keeps growing during early
childhood. Word pronunciation improves during early
childhood and preschoolers are able to use metaphors
(Berk, 2013).
Phonological development is mostly complete by the
age of five in a typically developing child (Berk, 2013).

Cognitive Development
In early childhood, children’s rapidly expanding vocabularies and
general knowledge help them to attain impressive skills at
categorizing (Berk, 2013). They begin to sort their knowledge into
different categories to understand the world around them.
They are also able to understand cause and effect (Berk, 2013).

Social-Emotional
Children refer to causes, consequences, and behavioral signs of emotion early in their
preschool years and are able to correctly determine the causes of many basic emotions
by age 4 to 5 (Berk, 2013).
Preschoolers are also able to predict what another child expressing a certain emotion
might do next (Berk, 2013).
 Moral Reasoning/Self-Regulation
Children develop effortful control gradually as
their prefrontal cortex develops and they
receive assistance from caregivers who teach
them strategies to manage intense emotions
(Berk, 2013).
Children begin to experience guilt when they
intentionally do things that harm others and
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under they feel personally responsible (Berk, 2013).

Atypical Development
Parents should be aware of their child’s language and speech development and take
note if their child seems to be lagging behind peers in this area. Early language
difficulties may be a precursor of difficulties such as language, academic, social,
behavioral, and psychiatric problems (Määttä, Laakso, Tolvanen, Ahonen, Aro, Oetting,
& Crais, 2012).
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have a tendency to avoid eye contact
and difficulties with eye contact tend to persist throughout the lifespan (Trevisan,
Roberts, Lin, & Birmingham, 2017).

Learning and Development Strategies

Adults can help facilitate children’s categorical learning through thorough explanations
of new things (Berk, 2013). Children in early childhood can absorb new information
more readily with the use of categories.
Another way to enhance understanding of categories is picture book reading (Berk,
2013).

Social
From the age of 3-5 years old, children typically have high self-esteem that consists of
several separate self-evaluations (Berk, 2013).

Cultural
Adults instruct children in when to feel proud, ashamed, or guilty, and these situations
vary according to cultural rules (Berk, 2013).