Summer is on our doorstep. How does this affect pre-schoolers?

Many articles focus on the importance of outdoor play for children. We know how crucial movement is to their physical and mental development and know that being outdoors takes them away from the screens that tempt them inside. But what happens when the days get hotter – especially in view of the extreme temperatures the world seems to be experiencing these days?

New research reported by Esther Robards-Forbes of the University of Texas found that as the weather gets hotter, preschool-aged children become more sedentary.

The findings, published last week in the JAMA Pediatrics, may seem obvious to anyone who’s seen young children become over-heated on the playground on a hot day. The study, however, went a step further and used monitors worn by the children to study their behaviour.

“Given that we’re seeing an increasing number of hot days,” said Andrew Koepp, lead author of the paper and Ph.D. candidate in human development and family sciences at UT Austin, “it’s important to understand how young children’s activity changes so that we can take steps to make sure they are getting the physical activity they need to be healthy.”

The study followed the activity levels of children ages three to as they played on their school’s partially shaded playground. Ambient air temperatures were between 22 degrees and 35 degrees Centigrade.

When temperatures were at 22 degrees, children engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) for 27% of their outdoor play time. MVPA is defined as raising the heart rate to the point where one can speak, but would have a hard time singing. When temperatures rose to 35 degrees, MVPA dropped to 21% of outdoor play time. Additionally, sedentary time, where children were sitting or still, rose on hotter days from 62% on play time at 22 degrees to 70% of playtime at 35 degrees.

Indoor play is not a reasonable substitute for outdoor play, said Liz Gershoff, a professor of human development and family sciences, noted child development researcher and an author on the paper.

“Other research by our team has shown that children are much more physically active outside than inside,” Gershoff noted. “This is likely in large part because classrooms have more expectations about behavior indoors than outdoors. There may be some indoor and air-conditioned settings that are conducive to physical activity, such as indoor gyms and play places, but those may not be available in all areas.”

Because young children may be less aware of things such as the need to slow down and drink water, heat can be especially dangerous for them. It’s necessary for adults to monitor children for signs of distress and take steps to keep kids safe.

It is also important that playgrounds have features like shade sails, heat reducing materials, fans, misters and water play areas. Play times may also have to move to earlier in the morning when it’s cooler.

“A lot of policies are focused on stopping climate change, but in many ways, it’s already here,” said Koepp. “We need to start looking at policies, practices and recommendations that recognize that, if we’re going to limit the impacts on the next generation.”

More information: Andrew E. Koepp et al, Ambient Temperature Increases and Preschoolers’ Outdoor Physical Activity, JAMA Pediatrics (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.0067

Journal information: JAMA Pediatrics

Image supplied by Freepik

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.