Early Childhood and Physical Development

Early childhood and physical development go hand in hand. It’s a great time of growth both physically and mentally for these little ones. You should understand exactly what is going on as an educator.

The first thing that’s important for you to realize is that physical development can be broken down into gross motor development and fine motor development. Gross motor development focuses on larger movements like walking or running. Fine motor development refers to things like using your hand to manipulate objects, or hand-eye coordination.

Some gross motor functions are:

• Running
• Jumping
• Walking
• Crawling

Some find motor functions are:

• Hand eye coordination
• Writing
• Coloring
• Drawing
• Putting a puzzle together

It’s important to keep a close eye on how your children are coming along in all these activities. There will be a lot of variation early on, so don’t expect everyone to be on the same page. At the same time, it’s best to catch any possible delays early on.

The Denver Developmental Screening Test is a great tool experts can use to diagnose developmental delay. If you suspect that a child is delayed, it’s best to refer the child’s parents to get a similar test performed.

Along with the different body movements and actions, some body growth is to be expected as well. Children in early childhood will tend to lose their baby fat, and their heads will become more proportional to their body, whereas toddlers are more top heavy. You can expect these little guys to fall or trip as they are generally not quite coordinated yet.

As children get older and move into the kindergarten years you can expect to see things like artwork improve and better coordination. Some will be a little bit slower than others, but the changes are amazing. In fact, it’s because the eyes are able to coordinate with the words on a page that pre-schoolers and kindergartners can begin to read. It’s not just mental, it’s also physical!

Early childhood and physical development is certainly fascinating. The more you being to understand the importance of watching physical development and understanding your students, the better it will be for them as you can make accommodations to suit where they are in life.