resources for nutrition and language learning activities.
Children evidence common developmental patterns in their vocabulary learning. Usually, by 15 months of age, a child of either sex has a vocabulary of about 10 different words or names (Nelson, 1981). Throughout and beyond this stage, the vocabulary continues to grow with more and more occasions serving as stimuli for the acquisition and usage of words so that by two years of age, the child's vocabulary has grown to about 400 words (Bates, O'Connell & Shore, 1987).
By middle childhood, the vocabulary has not only extended to thousands of words for most children but also children have mastered most of the rules of grammar and syntax (Clarke-Stewart, Friedman & Koch, 1985).
A child's development in language (or in any other area of his/her life) is only going to be maximal if the child is healthy, and health, in both children and adults, is very much affected by nutritional habits. According to Papalia and Olds (1992), in early childhood, nutritional demands are easily satisfied. For example, the authors state:
...a small child's daily protein requirements can be met with two glasses of milk and one serving of meat or alternative (like fish, cheese, or eggs). Vitamin A requirements can be met with modest amounts of carrots, spinach, egg yolk, or whole milk, and Vitamin C can be obtained from citrus fruits, from tomatoes, and leafy dark-green vegetables. (p.179)
As children grow, so do their nutritional demands. Williams and Caliendo (1984) report that by the time children have reached middle childhood, they need, on the average, 2400 calories, 34 grams of protein, and high levels of complex carbohydrates every day.
If children's nutritional habits are poor, they can suffer form a variety of conditions such as respiratory infections, viruses, strep throat, and headaches (Starfield, Katz, Gabriel, Livingston, Benson, Hankin, Horn & Steinwachs, 1984), vision ...