5 Introduction
348
Part Five
Preschoolers and School-Age Children
349
Chapter 16
Physical Development of the Preschooler
Throwing and Catching
Begin to turn body to one side (body rotation) when the hand
on the other side is used to throw (three-year-olds).
Begin to shift weight from back foot to front foot
(three-year-olds).
Can catch balls that bounce better than those thrown by
others.
Show increased strength, balance, and coordination and
thus improve throwing distance, speed, and accuracy.
Can catch balls with the arms to one side (between ages
four and fi ve).
Balancing
Can walk heel-toe on a straight line without falling
(three-year-olds).
Can balance on one foot (static balance) for a few seconds
(three-year-olds). Can do more static balance feats (four-
and fi ve-year-olds).
Hopping and Skipping
Can hop on preferred foot (three-year-olds).
Can hop faster and for longer distances (four- and
fi ve-year-olds).
Can skip (between ages four and six).
Can do rhythmic hopping—hopping
on one foot and then
the other without breaking the rhythmic pattern (some
fi ve-year-olds).
Can do
precision hopping—following
a certain pathway
(some fi ve-year-olds).
Preschoolers’ Gross-Motor Skill Development
Walking
Gain skills in balancing.
Hold hands close to the body.
Begin to swing arms in alternate rhythm of foot placement.
Like to walk sideways, backward, and on tiptoes.
Like to spin around and try to become dizzy, which helps
balance (three-year-olds).
Running
Have short stops and starts.
Can turn corners quickly.
Begin to swing arms in alternate rhythm of foot placement.
Increase speed a lot (fi ve-year-olds).
Jumping
Have stronger muscles.
Increase distance of broad jump (with girls often lagging behind
boys).
Increase height of hurdle jump (with boys and girls almost
equal).
Climbing
Can climb with more skill due to longer legs.
Can alternate steps going up stairs (three-year-olds).
Can alternate climbing down steps (four-year-olds).
Weight shift
is the change of
weight from the back foot to the
front foot. Body rotation and
weight shift may begin during
the third year. They become
much more refi
ned by the end of
the preschool period. These two
changes improve a
preschooler’s throwing
distance, speed, and accuracy.
Fine-Motor
Development
Preschoolers’ ability to
manipulate,
or work with by
using the hands, is still awkward.
However, as preschoolers
play with small objects, their
small muscles develop and
fi ne-motor skills
improve. Attractive
Improved
16-3
(Continued.)
16-3
Compared to the toddler, the gross-motor skills of the
preschool child are smoother and less awkward.
(Continued.)
218
Part Three
Infants
Depth Perception
Depth perception
is the ability
to tell how far away something
is. It requires the development of
binocular vision. Depth perception
is needed for safety purposes. It
keeps a person from stepping off an
object far from the ground. People
also use this skill to judge how far
something is so they can reach it.
Depth perception is rather well
developed by seven to nine months
of age. However, children are not
safe from falls for many years.
Language: Brain
Development
Research
Language is closely related
to mental development. Brain
development research shows
language wiring begins at birth,
if not before, 9-8. The fi
rst wiring
has to do with the sounds of
language, for these are needed to
understand speech and to speak.
The wiring follows this sequence:
During the fi
rst half-year, babies
distinguish small differences in
sounds. They are prepared to
learn any language.
Because there are so many
connections, pruning begins at
six months of age. Babies come
to notice only major differences
in sounds in the languages
they hear from caring adults.
(Brain development research
says they ignore language from
the radio or television.) Even in
adults, the brain detects small
differences in sound through
context clues; that is, through
hearing the entire word or the
word used in a phrase. For
this reason, spelling words are
often pronounced and then
used in sentences.
By 12 months of age, babies
complete the auditory maps
needed for their own language.
Learning to speak another
language without “an accent”
becomes much more diffi cult
as the wiring for the sounds of
other languages begins to be
pruned away.
Not only does wiring for
language sounds begin early,
between 9 and 12 months, the
brain’s speech center begins the
wiring process.
Language relates to mental
growth in other ways, too. As people
understand more concepts, their
vocabularies tend to grow. A person’s
vocabulary
consists of the words he
or she understands and uses.
Object Permanence
Try an object permanence experiment on babies
who are four, six, and eight months old. To do the
experiment, follow these steps:
Step 1:
Place a toy in front of the baby. Let
the baby play with the object.
Step 2:
Take the toy and use a small baby
blanket or towel to partly cover the toy.
Step 3:
Take the toy and completely cover it
with a blanket or towel.
Step 4:
Take the toy and cover it with a box.
Step 5:
Take the toy, place it in a small box,
and place that box in a large box.
At any step, if the baby cannot fi
nd the toy, stop the
experiment. Note the age of each baby
and how many steps he or she could do.
Share your fi
ndings with the class.
226
Part Three Infants
Social-emotional development
is an important type of
development. It has three main
parts. The fi
rst part is a person’s
disposition
or mood. Some people
have a more cheerful disposition,
and others are more moody. The
second part is learning to interact
with people and social groups.
These may include family members,
schools, and clubs. The third part
includes the ways people show
feelings through emotions of love,
fear, anxiety, and anger.
Emotions
are thoughts that
lead to feelings and cause changes
in the body. For example, if you
are upset at someone or something
(a thought), you may become
angry (a feeling). Your anger may
increase your heart rate (change in
your body).
Social-emotional development
happens as quickly during the fi
rst
year as physical and intellectual
development. A baby enters the
world with some unique traits.
These traits are the root of the
child’s later personality. By the
end of the fi
rst year, personality
traits show even more. As a baby’s
social world expands the infant
forms ideas about whether the
world is a friendly place. The baby
begins to express feelings with
different emotions.
Temperamental
Differences in
Infants
Temperament
is the tendency
to react in a certain way, such
as being cheerful or grumpy.
Sometimes the word
disposition
also defi
nes the ways people react.
Experts think temperament is partly
inherited. They also think a person’s
temperament may be due to prenatal
conditions and ease of birth. These
Some experts rate characteristics
of a baby’s temperament. These ratings
place most babies in one of the following
three groups:
Easy—Easy babies have regular
habits, such as eating and sleeping.
They respond quickly to a new
situation. They are cheerful.
Slow to warm
up—These babies
take more time to adapt to new
situations.
Diffi
cult—Diffi cult babies are irregular
in their habits. They often withdraw or
protest—even scream—when facing
new situations.
Researchers found that 4 in 10 babies
are easy. One in 10 babies are slow to
warm up, and 1 in 10 are diffi cult. A few
babies cannot be grouped because their
temperaments vary from day to day.
Easy babies usually get off to a good
start with their parents. Diffi
cult babies
often have a rough start, which may cause
parents to have increased feelings of
anxiety. If the parents are stressed, this may
cause increased stress in the child. Good,
consistent care of diffi
cult babies may make
them happier. This supportive care includes
extra holding, cuddling, and soothing. Easing
these babies into new situations and alerting
them to upcoming changes is also helpful.
Learn
More About
Characteristics of a Baby’s Temperament
✓
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ccuracy.
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