Developmental Features of Early Childhood Development

A major issue in child development is the extent to which educational intervention can impact the pattern of growth (Weikart, 1998, p. 233). The High/Scope Perry Preschool study, which began in 1992, has now reported results through age 27. These findings indicate significantly improved social responsibility and educational performance in adult life by children who participated when compared with the randomly assigned nonparticipating group. The longitudinal High/Scope Curriculum Comparison study found that children who had experienced a highly intensive academic program were significantly less socially responsible at age 23 than were children from programs that encouraged individual choice and initiative. These studies indicate that children at ages three and four are at a sensitive period in their development toward stable adult behavior patterns.

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both sides of moral dilemmas and resolve them in a prosocial way (p. 943). Story completions were obtained from children ages three, four, and five who were presented with three enacted story stems describing moral dilemmas as they might occur in everyday life. The results were coded for the level of acknowledgement of the dilemmas and the degree of prosocialness involved in story resolution. The results confirmed that some children did acknowledge the dilemmas and resolve them procosially as early as age three. It also showed that their ability to acknowledge dilemmas and resolve them improved with age, and that children showed a greater capacity to acknowledge dilemmas with the support of the examiner (p. 956). These findings show a very early moral development in children. Research has shown that children as young as three understand that facial expressions do not always reflect one's true emotional state, and that girls tended to perform better than boys on tests of emotional understanding (Bower, 1997). He cites a study from the Pitzer College in Claremont, California, that shows preschoolers conceptions of people go beyond how others look externally and what they appear to be on the surface to include what pe
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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)