Tag: social development

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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Overview

Social and Emotional Development

A Brief Overview1

The social environment that parents provide for their children plays a very important role in the development of a child’s social and emotional skills during the early and middle childhood years.

Young children vary tremendously in their ability to deal with stressful situations. Some children seem to cope very well with stressful situations. Other children are very sensitive to stressful situations and may have trouble when reacting to them. These children may need additional support to deal with stress. The reasons some children deal well with stress and others do not are varied. Some different factors involved include genetics, a child’s earlier experiences and support received from parents, and the type of environment in which the child grows up.

It is important to learn to recognize signs of atypical development in the social and emotional domains, because these are areas where intervention can be effective to improve the social and emotional lives, and mental health of children.

Parents have a tremendous impact on the social and emotional development and overall well-being of their child. Raising parents’ awareness on this topic is very important, in light of recent findings2 pointing out how the roots of some mental health conditions, including sociopathy may be traced back to the early childhood years.

Dorothy Law Nolte’s beautiful poem summarizes the role of early experiences in children’s social and emotional development.

1. see References
2. see References
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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Social Skills

Social Skills

Atypical social skills1 refer to those behaviours that indicate that children are having difficulty relating to others and that may place them or others at risk in terms of safety. Children who display atypical behaviors and/or symptoms in the development of their social skills should be referred to the appropriate specialists as early as possible. Atypical social skills can be indicators of serious developmental difficulties in childhood, for example, children who hurt pets and other animals. These actions are not the same as “acting out” or when children are “going through a phase” as can sometimes happen when major changes at home happen, like death in the family or parents’ divorces. For children who consistently have these kinds of difficulties, it is recommended  that parents pay attention to them and find professional help, rather than wait for children “outgrow” these behaviours.

Some social indicators of atypical social behaviours include:

  • A child showing little or no affect since the very early stages

Some indicators that appear in the preschool years and onwards:

  • Always using the same tone (“monotone”) when speaking;
  • Destroying  toys and other objects and property;
  • Being physically aggressive towards other children and adults;
  • Being verbally aggressive towards others;
  • Hurting animals;
  • Avoiding eye contact to caregivers, friends and strangers;
  • Acting scared or panicking when someone moves quickly;
  • Being overly clingy to others at all times;
  • Showing same level of affection to caregivers and strangers;
  • Lying most of the time;
  • Running away from home or school.
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1.4 Social and Emotional Development: Influence of Development In Early Years

How Development in Early Years Influences Development in the Elementary Years

Atypical early child development in the social and/or emotional arenas1 is likely to be also present as the child grows older. If not effectively addressed, social and emotional difficulties will turn into more serious behaviors. Atypical behaviors may signal caregivers about issues that need immediate attention and that are not part of a phase the child will “come out of ” on his or her own.

  • Some of the concerns about atypical social and emotional behaviours evolving into serious issues in the middle/adolescent school years include: A child not growing emotionally at par with other children his age, or “stunted emotional growth”;
  • A child showing cruelty to others and/or to animals;
  • A child having extremely low self-esteem;
  • A child being dependent on others to feel good about self;
  • A child at higher risk for suicide attempts;
  • A child being  unsafe about personal and intimate relationships (i.e., promiscuity);
  • A child engaging in risky, unsafe and/or criminal behaviors, including drug and alcohol use; truancy, and/or dropping out of school.

Children who continue to display atypical social and emotional skills beyond the early childhood years may end up being diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder.

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1.6 Cognitive Development: Overview

Cognitive Development

A Brief Overview1

In the Typical Cognitive Development section of this course, we described how cognitive development involves the development of thinking or evaluation and coping, or ‘adaptation’ skills. Thinking or evaluation skills, such as “thinking outside the box2 (see full Glossary),” are related to the development of intelligence (see full Glossary). Coping skills involve the ability to adapt to changes in one’s environment.  Cognitive skills also look at creativity, the ability to learn new things, retain (see full Glossary) what one has learned, and how one applies information to new situations. Cognitive development also includes pre-academic and academic skills that children need in order to succeed at school. Examples might include the ability to sit quietly for certain periods of time, the ability to listen and follow instructions and the ability to perform paper and pencil tasks.

Some children do not develop these skills at par with their peers. They may develop some of these skills much later than others —or not develop them at all. In other words, atypical cognitive development involves difficulties with both the quality and quantity of certain skills (see full Glossary):

Severe cognitive delays often effect all other areas of development. Below are some signs of cognitive delays that can be observed in all areas of development between the preschool and school age years, around ages 3 – 5 years old.

In the domain of cognitive development:

  1. Children may experience serious difficulties in learning basic concepts (e.g. colors and shapes);
  2. Children may experience serious difficulties in learning advanced concepts (e.g. counting, reading and writing);
  3. Children may experience serious difficulties in generalizing what they learn from one situation to the next;
  4. Children may experience serious difficulties in adapting to changes in their environment and to new situations.

In the domain of social/emotional development:

  1. Children may trust others too easily and readily enabling others to take advantage of them;
  2. Children may not read visual or language cues as they their attempt to socialize with others.

In the domain of motor development:

  1. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their fine motor skills;
  2. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their gross motor skills

In the domain of communication development:

  1. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their receptive language skills;
  2. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their expressive language skills;
  3. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their pragmatic skills;
  4. Children may exhibit delays in the development of their articulation skills.

In the domain of adaptive skills:

During the preschool years:

  1. Children may be delayed in becoming toilet trained, and in extreme cases, may never be toilet trained.

During the elementary school years:

  1. Children may experience difficulties bathing and cleaning themselves properly;
  2. Children may experience difficulties with dressing and undressing.

During the high school years:

  1. Male adolescents may experience difficulties with knowing how and when to shave;
  2. Female adolescents may experience difficulties knowing how to handle their menstrual cycle.

Severe cognitive delays have been linked to developmental disabilities (also known as mental retardation and developmental challenges). Developmental disabilities involve global delays and affect all areas of development, including motor, language, social and emotional, and self-help skills.

1. see References
2. Source: University of Wahington, available at: http://faculty.washington.edu/ezent/imdt.htm

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