Page 6 - LESSION 9.pmd

Stages of Child Development Three to Six years and Six to Eight Years

was placed opposite to where the child was sitting and the child was asked
questions about how the things would appear or look to the doll. Piaget found
that the children did not respond as to how the things would appear to the doll. Notes
Instead, they answered from their own perspective and imagined things from
their own viewpoint. This is called egocentrism.

With age, children’s cognitive abilities expand further and they are able to
overcome the cognitive limitations to this stage.

Let us now try to understand development of language abilities in preschool
children.

9.1.4 Language Development, Communication and Emergent Literacy
As stated earlier in this lesson, pre-schoolers are full of questions. Asking questions
is not merely a function of growing cognitive abilities but is also made possible
by growing language competencies that children acquire. Vocabularies of pre
school children expand in this age and they are able to understand and use words
in everyday talk much easily. Preschoolers also quickly understand the meaning
of any difficult word that they hear for the first time. This is called fast mapping.
It helps them to learn new words rather quickly. They also have a natural
tendency to understand how words can be combined to form meaningful
sentences.

By pre-school age, most children are able to combine two to three words into
sentences. They show a growing awareness of the rules to form sentences. At
three, they begin to use plurals, possessives and the past tense. They are able
to appreciate the usage of words like, I, me, you and we and use them
appropriately during their everyday conversations.

Children at this stage also become competent in pragmatics, i.e. the practical
usage of language. They know how to speak with whom. They become skilled
with the social side of language. They also become proficient in understanding
social rules and practically using long sentences to make demands, tell a story
and so forth. They become receptive to social cues while communicating. If they
seem to feel that other people cannot understand what they are saying, then they
tend to repeat themselves or explain themselves differently.

All children do not follow a regular developmental trajectory. Some children
may have delayed language development. Adequate language inputs in the early
years of life help children achieve milestones of language development.

Some of the language competencies of pre-schoolers are:

EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION 125