¶ … Old Boy at a Children's Museum Play Area Soren is a 4-year-old boy. He has light blonde hair that is cut short on the sides and is longer on the top. He is a generally smiley child. He likes to interact with his surroundings and likes to run and hop, crouch and spring into action with a cry of delight as though he were taking great amusement in catching the world by surprise.

He is viewed at a play area in a children's museum. The observation begins just before noon and continues until a quarter past 1 pm.

The play area is very crowded and full of children around his own age, with parents standing nearby watching their children. Most of the children are playing on their own, looking at the environment around them, engaging with the activities (puzzles, blocks, interactive equipment, play sets, scooters, and jungle gym equipment). Soren's social competence is fair: he engages with other children easily but is also wary of them if he senses that they have aims opposite or contrary to his own. He plays both by himself and with others while at the play area in the Children's Museum.

His happy, enthusiastic, athletic and bursting with enthusiasm -- but his energy and stamina cannot keep up with all the possibilities that the area affords him, and by the time he and his father leave, he is already tired and appears to be ready for a midday nap. Despite his loss of stamina (perhaps he is hungry as well), he protests at having to leave the fun play area.

Stage

A 4-year-old is in the Early Childhood stage of development. At this stage, children are learning dexterity and growing their motor skills when they play, which accounts for the repetition of actions, such as stacking blocks in neat stacks or attempting to climb objects and obstacles. These children are in a pre-maturation phase; the prefrontal cortex has not developed enough to allow them to limit impulsivity and so they generally run from one activity to the next. However, not all children in this stage act this way; some have the quality of perseveration and are able to do one activity for a long time and cannot, in fact, stop; when they speak, they speak repetitively, using the same words again and again, unaware of the main purpose of speaking, which is simply to communicate -- not to be a broken record. They become frustrated and cry when they are scolded for saying the same things repetitively. As the children grow and the brain develops, their emotional awareness and ability to be less impulsive develop too. At 4, a child is in the middle of the maturation process and may seem at times older than he is (that is mature) and younger than he is (that is, immature). Children will typically display a psychosocial yearning for adventure that is based on Erikson's observations and that causes children to want to roam and explore their surroundings.

The sections of the brain that help children at this age develop are the amygdala and the hippocampus. These are parts of the brain that support learning. If they are undeveloped, a child will appear to be reckless and show no awareness of surroundings or of others, and behavior can lead to one or more children crying. At the same time, children with undeveloped amygdala and hippocampus may show an irrational fear (such as to the noise of a vacuum cleaner) when the fear is completely unwarranted. It is important with this in mind that children not be overly stressed during this stage of development because the hypothalamus, which regulates hormones in response to signals from the amygdala and the hippocampus, can be permanently damaged.

Children at this stage are also more likely to be involved in the imaginative world that exists inside their head and less inclined to be thinking rationally or realistically: their considerations typically fragmented and suggestive/figurative; this is in accordance with the preoperational period of cognitive theory. In terms of viewing the world that they inhabit, their perspective is egocentric. They look to others for guidance and leaders help children at this stage move towards a zone of proximal development (ZPD). Scaffolding is a term that Vygotsky uses to explain how ZPD is approached through the guidance of older individuals -- mentors -- who navigate between boredom and complexity to steer the child towards behavioral understanding and development. Scaffolding is as the term suggests a mode of temporary support, which is taken away, like training wheels, after a...

Examples include explaining, pointing and affirming, and may include such exchanges between child and parent as: "What is this?" "This is a fridge. What do you think is inside?"
At this stage children also learn language and their vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds. They will learn up to 10,000 words by age 6 and this process is aided by fast-mapping -- a method of sticking a new word to a grid in their minds that makes up their mental image of their language map.

Children in this stage may also display a preoperational thought known as animism, in which they perceive objects as being alive; thus children will interact with dolls or stuffed animals as though these objects have life.

According to Elkin, playtime for children in this stage is a most productive and fun activity. It is moreover a universal phenomenon that children of all cultures and times enjoy, even if cultures have their own particular playful activities for children according to the methods of their era. Children learn social skills through play and playtime with other children helps them to learn maturation skills like empathy. Children learn rules of playing and there comes into practice a form of negotiation as rules are changed or altered over the course of play. There are several types of play -- solitary play, onlooker play, parallel play, associative play, and cooperative play. In the first, the child plays alone; in the second, the child is an observer of others playing; in the third, children play with the same objects the same way but they do not play together; in the fourth, children interact but they are still not quite playing together; in the fifth, they are playing together and sharing objects.

The most common form of play for this age is rough-and-tumble play. It is a form of active play, like sociodramatic play, and involves interaction and rough-housing with other children who are viewed as friends; it involves chasing, tackling, wrestling, pushing, grabbing -- and it is all done in fun and is part of the developmental process of learning about oneself and about others and one's environment.

Comparison

Soren displayed many signs of Early Childhood stage. He exhibited motor skills when he neatly set about stacking blocks (first small hard blocks, which he did alone, and later large foam blocks, which he did with a friend). His play was solitary, parallel, associative and collaborative. His first block-stacking play was parallel; his play with the scooter was solitary; his play with the large foam blocks was both associative and collaborative; his play with the boy climbing the padded walls was collaborative as the two took turns climbing and were engaged with one another's activity and overall performance, expressing approval and satisfaction when one succeeded and expressing enthusiasm for movements. Soren also showed observational play when he was watching the two girls play with scooters.

Additionally, Soren showed signs of imaginative playing when he was on the scooter; he said he was flying like Superman. He also imagined to be Superman and that he was battling the bad guy Zod when he was throwing foam blocks at his playmate late in the session.

Soren showed some sign of irrational fear when he abandoned his blocks for his father's protective side upon discerning that a girl was playing with the blocks as well and was not going to relinquish hers to him. This suggests some immaturity in the development of his limbic system. This immaturity was also on display when he recklessly scooted across the floor in the room without regard for anyone around him: his view was entirely egocentric, but this is consistent with children at his age who are still developing their amygdala and the hippocampus regions of the brain.

Soren showed great confidence and happiness to be playing, which is consistent with the theory of Elkin that playtime is a most productive and enjoyable experience for children in this stage. He showed a desire for adventure when he tried to climb the slide -- but his unawareness of the other slide user on the other end showed more of his egocentricity.

Soren is still relying upon scaffolding, which is also consistent with children of his age: he depends upon his father to offer guidance and to point out others so that Soren is aware of what is going on around him. For example, on the slide, Soren climbed up the slide while the user of the slide who went up the ladder was…