Physical Growth During Play Years

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Hi,

Let's look at the three questions, which you can then draw on for your final response. I also attached two supporting resources, some of which this response is drawn. I also attached APA resource.

RESPONSE:

Please Answer 3 out of the 4 questions:

1. Discuss the processes of myelination and lateralization and their effect on development during the play years. Please use examples from real life experience or observation.

The process of the myelination is the formation of the myelin sheath around a nerve fiber. It is the change or maturation of certain nerve cells whereby a layer of myelin forms around the axons which allows the nerve impulses to travel faster, Myelin is an electrically-insulating dielectric phospholipid layer that surrounds only the axons of many neurons. The main consequence of a myelin layer (or sheath) is an increase in the speed at which impulses propagate along the myelinated fiber. (1) The callosum is believed to be at its adult size by around 10, meaning that myelination is near completion, when we see qualitative changes in cognitive abilities.

Theoretically it is believed that the callosal in the brain begins to change through myelination observed throguh maturation changes. Callosal growth may reflect myelination, which may reflect cognitive growth related to changes in the cortex related to dental growth and synaptogenesis. Myelination proceeds in a gradient from deep to superficial, and the areas showing volume enlargement are those that myelinate later. (2) This decreasing plasticity leads to hemispheric specification referred to localization in cognitive development that we progressively observe in development during the play years. Lateralization refers to the activity of using one hemisphere more than another e.g. localization of a function, such as speech, to the right or left side of the brain. Before age 10, perceptions of familiar faces show greater dependency on right hemisphere processing, but it is only after age 10 that unfamiliar faces have been shown to demonstrate this pattern of lateralization (3)

From the age 3 to 5, there is a wide range of language skills. Theoretically, the processes of myelination and lateralization cause the changes in maturation in children. As the brain develops more dendrites, language and thinking also become more complex. As specification occurs, different changes occur linked to processing from hemispheric specific locations.
At this age, children can conduct experiments inside head; cannot sequence; understands some abstract concepts: colors, numbers (but this DOES NOT mean they can tell you "how many times" - they can count tangible objects in a room, like chairs, crayons, etc.), knows shapes, time (NOT clock time but days, before/after, "naptime," "bedtime"); understands family relations (baby/ parent); can tell a story; has a sentence length of 4 to 5 words; has a ...