Social, Emotional and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
Introduction
Beginning from birth, children learn and develop at a rapid pace during their early years. Early childhood is, therefore, a critical foundation for lifelong developmental progress. Adults providing for the education and care of children during this crucial age up to eight years bear a great responsibility for their learning, development, and health. Early childhood development is an umbrella term that describes the changes in a child’s physical growth, ability to learn, emotional, social, behavioral, and communication skills that are needed for life. The different facets of a child’s life are interconnected, and each depends on the influence of other factors. During the first eight years of life, the human brain develops faster than any other time in life.
For this reason, the early experiences of a child as well as the relationships and the things they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste stimulate their brains and creates several connections at this point in life. The foundations for learning behavior and health through an individual’s life are laid down in the early years. Also, children thrive in environments where they have positive and secure relationships with people they are close to, and this requires individuals who are knowledgeable in supporting early learning and development in children. It is, therefore, essential but complex to work with children all through the elementary years as from infancy.
Early development in children further includes cognitive development. According to researchers, the developing mind is active, insightful, and competent at an early age. For instance, infants are known to engage in an intuitive analysis of speech sounds that they hear during development to construct language. Child development, therefore, invokes the various implicit theories which explain human behavior and the actions of objects. Young children and Infants are often highly responsive to their environment and quickly learn from words and activities which are directed to them by people in the background. As explained in byBerk(2013), in a publication, by benefiting from culturally and environmentally transmitted knowledge, children can respond to cues that convey the communicative intentions of adults. For instance, the use of infant-directed speech, contact, and facial expressions enable children to tune to what others are referring to. As children grow, this natural pedagogy becomes sophisticated, and the children become more sensitive to the guides in adult speech. Young children, therefore, rely a lot on what they learn from other people so that they become astute in understanding sources of reliable information by the time they are in pre-school years. This perspective depicts a connection between social interactions and relationships to cognitive development, which is consistent with brain development and the growth of the mind. For this reason, cognitive and social development is an essential part of early childhood
The Biology of Early Child Development
With research in neuroscience and developmental biology, three main facets depict the importance of brain development as well as other biological systems during early childhood growth.
The developmental window
The developmental window is the period of rapid brain development in early childhood. As explained by Noll &Shalev (2018), in their publication, brain development occurs through the dynamic interaction between underlying biological processes in the body as well as exposure and experiences in the environment. The process begins from conception and continues throughout the life of an individual. In early childhood, the brain develops rapidly as neuron connections are enforced to enable more fundamental functions. For this reason, early childhood is a phase that poses a significant risk of vulnerability while still allowing a high potential for positive influences on development.
The environment and genes
The interplay between the environment and genes determine various factors like healthy development, diseases, functional body disorders, and developmental problems. Also, the genetic makeup of a child has a strong influence on how they are affected by various environmental factors and experiences. Some environments enable the better operation and active performance of some genes, while other environmental factors suppress positive genetic attributes. Genetical factors further affect learning and intelligence. For this reason, the environment and genes are significant factors in early childhood development.
Stress
A significant impact on emotional and cognitive development is stress. Evidence from research suggests that early social and psychological adversities, which may even begin during fetal development, may have both long and short-term effects on a child’s brain development. Apart from the brain, there are other systems involved in the stress response that is affected by chronic adversity, and they include the endocrine and immune system. It is vital to ensure enriching experiences during early childhood development as it supports healthy mental development. Cognitive abilities are affected by interruptions to a growing brain, which may lead to mental incapacities to even total development disabilities (Eldeeb, Romero & O’Brien, 2017). Serious stress factors to children include things like neglect, abuse, death of a parent, insufficient food, poor housing, sick parents, and exposure to violence and conflict in the neighborhood. Although stressors are present in all socioeconomic levels, there is the risk of a conference of multiple chronic stress sources in children Who Experience immense adversities.
Theoretical Perspectives to Cognitive development
Cognitive development is the general development of thinking in an individual across the lifespan. Although the definition of thinking can be problematic due to the lack of clear boundaries between most mental activities and thinking, thinking involves the high-level psychological processes, which include reasoning, problem-solving, categorizing, conceptualizing, and remembering among many others. In essence, thinking involves mental processes like perceiving objects in the environment and acting skillfully on obtained information and objects to achieve specific goals. Cognitive development is typically about change. A child’s thinking changes in various surprising and dramatic ways, and it often presents challenges in understanding cognitive development.
Various theories explain cognitive development in children. For instance, there are stage theories like a theory proposed by Piaget, which mainly focuses on the qualitative development of children in different stages (Huitt& Hummel, 2003). Also, socio-cultural theories emphasize on how the surrounding culture, attitudes, beliefs, and values of people around children influence their development. Also, David Klahr Proposed an information processing theory that examines the mental processes that enable thinking in children at any of the transition processes (Klahr&MacWhinney, 1998). Each of these theories seeks to answer questions on how nature interacts with how children are nurtured to enable cognitive development. Each of these theories helps cognitive development research and is instrumental in improving learning and education processes. Jean Piaget brought forth the most influential cognitive development theory, which grew out of an observation of children as well as their environments contrary to experiments conducted by behaviorists at the laboratory (Huitt& Hummel, 2003). Piaget’s theory posits that cognitive development in children occurs in four different universal stages. The stages are systematic and are characterized by increasingly abstract thought levels in each step.
The first stage is the sensorimotor stage. The stage is centered on infancy when thinking in children is realized through physical interactions and perceptions. There is a very limited mental representation, and knowledge is limited. Object permanence is acquired at around seven months, and memory develops fully. With physical development, the child develops other intellectual abilities as well as symbolic abilities towards the end of the stage. The second stage manifests between toddlerhood and childhood. This stage is known as the preoperational stage. At this stage, there is the use of symbols that demonstrate developed intelligence. Language use is close to maturity, and there is a sense of imagination and explicit memory. However, thinking at this point is still not logical and not reversible. Predominantly, there is egocentric thinking with a little creativity. The next stage occurs during early adolescence and at the elementary age. This is the concrete operational stage. Children at this stage demonstrate systematic and logical symbol manipulation intangible objects; there is a well-developed intelligence and more clear thinking as egocentric thoughts diminish. At this point, creativity develops, and the child can judge what is right and wrong. The final stage, according to the theory, occurs after adolescence and is called the formal operational stage. There is a full demonstration of intelligence as well as the use of logical symbols in relating to abstract concepts
Supporting Children’s Social and Emotional Development
An essential part of children’s early development is emotional competence. Social and emotional competence refers to the ability to properly manage and understand emotions and make proper decisions by aligning actions towards achieving goals and establishing fruitful relationships as well as showing empathy to others. The development of each of these capacities enables better learning and academic success among children. Social and emotional competence builds capacity in children to allow them to effectively engage in academics by increasing constructive interaction with teachers as well as cooperation with peers (Ahmed, Abdullahi& Muhammad, 2017). These actions cumulatively enhance better-sustained attention to learning.
Another critical aspect of social and emotional development is relationships and emotional well-being. The provision of security and emotional support to children contributes to learning success. For instance, parents have to ensure secure relationships with children to enable them to develop better social skills with peers and will allow them to understand others better. It further enhances better moral development as well as a better self-concept. Children with better emotional and security support have shown better language and cognitive development, which translates to more significant achievement in school. Also, research has looked into the implications of attachments between educators and children. Healthy and quality emotional and instructional support from educators has a higher influence on classroom success (Landry & Knight,2001). For this reason, children with excellent emotional and instructional support from both educators and parents have better achievement scores as compared to neglected peers.
Another critical aspect of social and emotional development is emotional regulation and self-management. The ability of a child to regulate their emotions, behavior, and thoughts in different presented situations affects relationships and learning. Controlling impulses, working towards goals, and managing stress determines productivity and learning activities (Darling-Churchill &Lippman, 2016). Disruptive and aggressive children may face hate and discord from peers, which consequently undermines their learning activities. Educators and parents should provide developmentally appropriate frameworks that include self-control expectations, predictable routines, and guidance that enable children to develop self-management skills.
Social and emotional understanding is another fundamental aspect of social and emotional development. It is because children often depict both positive and negative feelings in response to the environment and the actions around them. They can understand the different beliefs and personality differences among people. They, therefore, require an excellent emotional understanding from parents and educators. Children learn through observation, asking questions, and conversations with trusted informants. Believes, views and mentalities are therefore ingrained into them depending on the understanding they get. Educators and parents should leverage the experiences of children through forums to enable them to develop social and emotional understanding. They can father use the experiences of children to suggest conflicts resolving strategies as well as collective decision-making methods.
Supporting Cognitive Development
Children have incredible minds that are always growing and changing from birth. They are still on a path to develop complex thoughts. Children are eager to learn, question, understand, and make sense of the environment around them. Cognitive skills in children are improved by finding solutions to issues by themselves. Cognitive development further includes the process of discovery, evaluation, reflection, and problem-solving. It enables children to develop intuitive skills and lifelong learning abilities. It is, therefore, vital to understand the fundamentals of cognitive development and help children establish robust learning and thinking skills. Cognitive development can be achieved in various ways.
Both educators and parents should support the growth of cognitive abilities in children by using various child-directed activities in social interaction and the general children activities like playing, counting, and sorting games. The use of shared activities helps in the implicit development of understanding among young children (Parker, 2018). During pre-school, learning in children is more visible and explicit. They are experiential and more competent at learning things by thinking about them. Educators have to be aware of the cognitive processes of children to enable them to integrate the skills of the child into new learning opportunities. High achievement in children is achieved through the use of robust instructional strategies that facilitate higher-level thinking.
Another meaningful way through which cognitive development in children can be promoted is through ensuring quality relationships between children and adults. The experiences shared, as well as the emotional quality of interaction between adults and children, motivates children in learning and inspires their self-confidence. Interactions with children both at home and at school are perfect contexts through which cognitive and learning skills development can be supported. It is, therefore, the role of the educators and parents to applaud the physical and psychological skills of a toddler as it spurs confidence and stimulates cognitive development. Responsibility is another important aspect of cognitive development. Children should be allowed to take charge of duties and given a chance to participate in simple actions at home like chores. Besides, children can be given choices that will prompt them two to weigh between tough choices and make thoughtful decisions.
Key actions to advance Social, Emotional and Cognitive Development in early childhood
Despite there being less than 6 million children under the age of five dying every year, there are still about 250 million children from developing countries and low-income families that suffer suboptimal cognitive and emotional development. It happens due to various factors related to poverty and under-development (Denno& Paul, 2017). A poor start in child development limits the ability of the child to benefit from education, which in many cases leads to social tension as well as low productivity in the long-term. Such situations not only affect the child presently but also are a projection of effects on future generations. Among individuals, poverty and insufficient needs during childhood development have been predicted to lead to a loss of about a quarter of adult income per year.
Child development typically starts at conception, and the development of a young brain is dependent on proper nutrition as well as particular experiences. Most families can provide the best experiences for development. Still, others may not offer excellent experiences for brain development because of various conditions and stressors factors that interfere with their ability to parent. Most of these factors are present from the preconception period. For this reason, there is a need to support families and enable them to provide the most required nurturing care as well as the needed financial and material resources to enable Proper childhood development. Moreover, families should be assisted with skilled assistance as well as scientific knowledge by government bodies and the concerned institutions. This can be done through the adoption of proper national policies on child health and development, subsidies on healthcare for children, affordable quality child care, and ensuring the availability of population-based services.
Also, there is a need for multi-sectoral collaborations to ensure families get support as well as education on how they can provide the best nurturing care. It is achieved by expanding the existing child health and maternal services to strengthen maternal and infant nutrition. Existent violence prevention and child protection frameworks should be restructured to enable flexibility and better capacity to provide services to various families. It is possible to scale up from the existing small-scale civil society initiatives to broader nationwide programs to enhance sustainability and effectiveness. A prerequisite to achieving these is through political prioritization, and good government leadership governments globally should choose different pathways through which child development goals can be made. The existing services can be enhanced progressively as whole-of-government initiatives are introduced to ensure proper emotional and cognitive development in children.
References
Ahmed, I., Abdullahi, U., & Muhammad, A. (2017).THE INFLUENCE OF PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION ON SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF NURSERY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN GOMBE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA. Gombe Technical Education Journal, 10(1).
Berk, L. (2013). Child Development, 9th edition. Boston: Pearson. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/catalog/9824/from-neurons-to-neighborhoods-the-science-of-early-childhood-development
Darling-Churchill, K. E., &Lippman, L. (2016). Early childhood social and emotional development: Advancing the field of measurement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 45, 1-7.
Denno, D. M., & Paul, S. L. (2017).Child health and survival in a changing world. Pediatric Clinics, 64(4), 735-754.
Eldeeb, S., Romero, K., & O’Brien, K. (2017). Effects of Positive Regard and Induced Social Stress on Cognitive Function: A Psychophysiological Perspective.
Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003).Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Educational psychology interactive, 3(2), 1-5.
Klahr, D., &MacWhinney, B. (1998).Information processing. Handbook of child psychology, 2, 631-678.
Landry, S., & Knight, M. M. (2001).Supporting cognitive development in early childhood. White House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Washington, DC.[Online]. Accessed.www. ed. gov/PressReleases/07-2001/07262001_landry.html.
Noll, J. G., &Shalev, I. (Eds.). (2018). The biology of early life stress: understanding child maltreatment and trauma. Springer.
Parker, L. (2018). Mindfulness in Early Childhood Education: Supporting Cognitive and Social-Emotional Well-being in Primary Classrooms.