Hi, if you're refering to this book -
Early Years Educator level 3, page 279 uses a table to outline the cognitive development that's expected of children from 0 to 7 years old.
On page 280, it explains how, as you already understand
, neural pruning occurs, helping the speed of electrical pulses as they travel across the mylinated neural pathways. New connections are made as the brain is stimulated with information.
Brain Growth:
As well as connections forming in early childhood, parts of the brain also develop. An area of the brain known as the frontal lobe, associated with logic and reasoning, is one such area. The increase in neural pathways in this area seems to allow children to acquire concepts such as number and also to solve problems.
This free chapter may also help: Birth to Eight - Cognitive, neurological and brain development EYE level 3 Unit 1 2014
Quote:
Jargon buster:
Cognitive – to do with acquiring knowledge.
Neurological – to do with nerves and the nervous system.
Cognitive and neurological development refer to the development of the mind.
Between birth and the age of 5 years, babies’ and children’s brains will undergo the most rapid changes.
and then this different level 3 book -
Childcare and Education Early Years Educator helps to explain how a child's brain development is evidenced through their cognition (search inside the
amazon preview for the word 'neuroscience' & click to page 24, scroll up to see the tables that highlight cognitive development from 0-7 years). Page 293 also looks briefly at how environmental factors such as emotional (trauma, bereavement or abuse), the wider environment (poverty, lack of stimulation, poor provision for play), cultural (differing cultural expectations and experiences and social (lack of stable relationships with adults, poor role models) can impact on young brain/cognitive development.
Page 24:
Early sensory development
Hearing
The middle ear of a newborn is full of fluid and this impairs their hearing to a slight extent. The sense of hearing is still immature, which is why newbnorn babies respond best to high-pitched, exagerated sounds and voices.
- Newborn babies are unable to hear certian very quiet sounds.
- By about 3 months, babies will show that they can hear a sound by turning their head toward the direction of the sound.
- By four to eight months, babies can hear the full range of sound frequencies.
Smell
A newborn's snse of smell is so well developed that he or she can already tell the difference between the smell of their mother's milk and that of another mopther.
- By about five years, children can identify some foods by smell.
Taste
A newborn can differentiate between sweet, salty, sour and bitter tastes. Babies show a preference for sweet taste, such as breast milk, and for salty tastes later on.
- By 12-18 months, babies usually attain a full sensitiviy to taste.
Touch
Touch is used to describe all the physical sensations that can be felt through the skin. There are separate nerve receptors in the skin to register heat, cold, pressure, pain and touch.
- Newborn babies can distinguish between hot and cold temperatures, and can feel pain. Their hands and mouths are particularly sensitive to touch.
- Between one and nine months, babies can distinguiish differences in textures with their hands and mouths.
- By the age of three, children can distinguish size and shape differences by touch.
Vision- Newborn babies can focus on objects about eight inches(20cm) to fifteen inches (38cm) away. This is the ideal distance to be able to focus on the face of the adult who is feeding a baby.
- Newborn babies have limited colour vision.
- By one month babies can see objects about three feet away.
- Between four and seven months full colour perception is achieved.
- Between three and seven months, babies develop depth perception - the ability to percieve the relative distance of objects in one's visual field.
- During the second year, babies possess the same visual acruity as an adult.
From two years- The child has improved memory skills, which help their understanding of concepts (eg. the child can often name and match two or three colours - usually red and yellow)
- The child can hold a crayon and move it up and down.
- The child can understand cause and effect (eg, if something is dropped, they understand it might break)
- The child talks about an absent object when reminded of it (eg. they may say 'biscuit' when seeing an empty plate or bowl)
From three years the child develops symbolic behaviour. This means that
- The child talks.
- The child pretend plays - often talking to theirself whislt playing.
- The child takes part in simple non-competitive games.
- The child represents events in drawings, models etc
- Personal images dominate, rather than conventions used in culture eg. writing is 'pretend' writing.
- The child becomes fascinated by cause and effect; the child is continually trying to explain what goes on in the world.
- The child can identify common colours, such as red, yellow, blue and green - although may sometimes confuse blue with green.
From four years- At about age four, the child usually knows how to count - up to 20.
- The child also understands ideas such as 'more' and 'fewer', and 'big' and 'small'.
- The child will recognise their own name when written down and can usually wirte it.
- The child can think backward and forward much more easily than before.
- The child can also think about things from somebidy else's point of view, but only fleetingly.
- The child often enjoys music and playing sturdy instruments, and joins in groups singing and dancing.
From 5 to 7 years
- Communication through body language, facial gestures and language is well established, and opens the ay into literacy (talking, listening, writiing and reading).
- The child includes more detail in their drawings - eg. a house may not only have wiindows and a roof, but also curtains and a chimney.
- The child will regognise his or her own when it is written down and can usually writ it for themselves.
- Thinking becomes increasingly coordinated as the child is able to hold in mind more than one point of view at a time. Concepts - of matter, length, measurement, distance, area, time, volume, capacity and weight - develop steadily.
- The child enjoys chanting and counting (beginning to understand number). The child can use their own voice in different ways to play different characters in pretend play. The child develops play narratives (stories), which they return to over time. The child helps younger children into the play.
- The child is beginning to establish differences between what is real and what is unreal/fantasy. This is not yet always stable, so the child can be easily frightened by supernatural characters.
Other useful resources for reseqrching children's brain development
2018 Lighting up young brains from Save the Children
This 2012 leaflet from Action For Children shows
the importance of understanding brain development
Childhood trauma and brain development on NSPCC
Teaching and Learning Research Programme TLRP -
2007 Neuroscience and Education
Hope this helps xx
Explain children's neurological brain development from 0 to 7 years?
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