Brain, motor and perceptual development in childhood

Content

• Brain development in childhood
  • Brain growth and nervous maturation
  • Myelinization
  • Cerebral cortex
  • Cortical functions
• Motor development in childhood
  • Thick motor skills and locomotion
  • Thick motor skills in preschool children
  • Fine motor skills of preschool children
  • Changes during school years
  • Children with physical disabilities
• Perceptual development in childhood
  • Depth perception
  • Perception of form and movement
  • Perception of human face
  • Auditory perception

Brain development in childhood

Brain growth and nervous maturation

Brain Not only grows in size, but also develop nerve trajectories and growing complexity connections between nerve cells, so the Central Nervous System is capable of performing more complex functions.

Myelinization

Another important change is the increase in myelinization of individual neurons. Honeyinization is the process by which neurons are covered by an insulating fatty substance known as myelin, which helps to transmit nerve impulses more quickly and efficiently.

Cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex It is the largest structure of the princencephalon and contains the upper brain centers that control the intellectual, sensory and motor functions.

It is divided into two hemispheres, of which the left controls mainly to the right side of the body, while the right controls to the left side of the body. Both hemispheres are connected by a band of fibers known as hard body.

Both sides of the brain perform specialized functions. The right hemisphere is superior in music, literature, fantasy, intuition and art; It is better in the recognition of patterns, faces and melodies, as well as in the visualization of spatial relationships. Thus it is better to fix the blocks of a pattern, complete a puzzle or make drawings. The left hemisphere is superior in logic, mathematics, language, writing and to judge time. About 95% of adults use the left hemisphere to speak, write and understand language. In addition, 95% of right -handed people use the left hemisphere more than the right, so it is said that in them the left hemisphere is dominant.

Cortical functions

Control of particular functions is located in various areas of the cerebral cortex. The development of these functions is the result of the combination of the ripening of the nervous system with experience and practice. The neurons stimulated continue to develop new dendritic branches and myelin sheaths, which increases synaptic connections and nerve transmission efficiency, so that brain growth and nervous system receives the influence of both inheritance and the environment.

Motor development in childhood

Thick motor skills and locomotion

He development Children's motor depends mainly on physical maturation, especially on skeletal and neuromuscular development. To a lesser extent, motor development is also influenced by the opportunities that children receive to exercise and practice. Children spend a lot of time in rhythmic motor activities, such as kicking, making rio. These rhythmic activities are a transition between the un coordinated activity and the most coordinated complex motor behavior.

Thick motor skills in preschool children

Preschool between 2 and 5 years make important progress in motor development. With stronger bones and muscles, greater lung capacity and better neuromuscular coordination between arms, legs, senses, and the central nervous system, show greater skill and mastery of the body in the realization of physical feats that would have been impossible before them before.

Fine motor skills of preschool children

Fine motor skills include a greater degree of coordination of small muscles and between eye and hand. By having small muscles under control, children gain a sense of competition and independence because they can do many things, such as eating or dressing themselves.

To eat, notice that the 2 -year -old can hold a glass with one hand, and the 3 -year -old can eat with a spoon and pour liquids from a jug. The 2 -year -old boy can put on simple clothes, the 4 -year -old can dress alone, while the 5 -year. For other activities that require small muscles, 2 -year -old children can scribble, 3 -year -old can copy a circle or draw a line, 4 -year -old can make simple drawings, cut on a line with scissors and make cough letters , and 5 -year -old children can copy paintings, which entails considerably more manipulative ability and coordination between eye and hand to draw a circle.

Changes during school years

School -age children gradually increase their motor skill as their body growth continues. The size of the muscles increases and the coordination continues to improve, so most can run, dance, jump, and jump with agility. Fine motor skills also increase. Most of the 8 or 9 -year -old children can learn to hammer, use, use gardening, sew, weave, draw in proportion, write, stamp and cut off nails.

An important factor in motor skills is reaction time, which depends in part on brain maturation. Thus, older children have a determined advantage over younger children in sports that require rapid reactions. Adults are even better.

Children with physical disabilities

The physical disabilities of children can be divided into at least four basic categories: speech disorders, hearing impairments, visual deterioration and various types of skeletal, orthopedic or motor disabilities.

Disabled children can be victims of comments and cruel teasing from other children. They can feel stigmatized and rejected, and they are denied opportunities and activities open to non -disabled. It has been found that physical appearance is important to influence children to socially interact with others. Life is not always fair with disabled children, but many of them are able to overcome discrimination and make very fortunate social adjustments.

Perceptual development in childhood

Depth perception

The ability to see things in three dimensions, distinguishing the close things from those found further, is a skill that develops very soon in childhood.

Children not only develop the perception of depth, but also the ability to represent depth and distance in the drawings they make. The preschool represent ahead or behind by placing the objects side by side; As they grow, children draw diagonal alignments to represent depth. Older children use vertical arrangements in which objects at the top are smaller and seem further away.

Perception of form and movement

During the first two years of life, the ways in which children perceive the form of objects change.

Research has also shown that there are broad individual differences in the speed with which children process visual information. When visual stimuli are presented, some children, known as leisurely observers, concentrate on stimuli during relatively long times, while others known as agile observers, concentrate their attention through short intervals; The latter are superior in perceptual-coagnitive tasks because they are faster and more efficient in the processing and interpretation of the stimulus. In a study, these differences were found in children of just 4 months of age.

Perception of human face

Infants prefer to see human faces instead of inert objects. This preference is characteristic of infants of just 5 days of birth. For the month of age, babies can distinguish their mother's face from strangers. At 3 months of age, they recognize their mother's face in photographs, they also recognize and differentiate faces from strangers. At 7 months they can distinguish facial expressions from fear or happiness.

It is evident that at 7 months their perceptual skills are already very complex.

Auditory perception

Hearing perception depends on 4 factors:

1. Auditory acuity or the ability to detect minimum volume sounds.
2. The ability to detect sounds of different frequencies.
3. The location of the sound or ability to detect the direction where the sound comes.
4. The ability to detect silent intervals between words, also known as temporary auditory acuity.

To be comfortable, almost all infants require sufficient food, a lot of fresh air and the amount of sleep needed. In the first months, most infants sleep between each diet, although from the beginning some remain awake during certain moments of the day. By the end of the first year, the majority only take two naps per day, after breakfast and then lunch, and between the year and year and a half leave one of the Naps. If the naps in the afternoons are very long, the children do not accept to go to bed at night.

Infants sleep the time they need, but 2 -year -old children do not. They can remain awake due to overexcitation, conflicts, tensions or various fears. The resistance to go to bed is usually maximum between the year and 2 years. Children cry when they are left alone in the crib or get out of it to look for their parents. This is usually due to anxiety for separation, or an effort to control its environment.

Ariel Delgado