CHILD DEVELOPMENT
It is natural to think that development is due to the natural essence of living beings, we all have genetic information; our cells are made to function correctly in harmony with other cells. They are interconnected and have a specific function, all our system is made to grow naturally and to develop itself. Surprisingly, not all of this is due to the natural state of being alive. But, to what extent can influence external factors to child development? How can we affect or benefit this process?
Child development refers to all the biological and environmental changes that can occur in human beings since their birth up to adolescence. To grow is such a miracle, just to analyze that from a cell made up of two can happen such an amazing and almost perfect development. Indeed, these mechanisms are difficult to understand entirely.
“Man will never know himself, because to know himself he must understand clearly the processes by which he came to be. The processes of ‘’child development”. (Gesell 2007).
The integral child development consists of physical, motor, cognitive and linguistic development; which are interconnected.
Physical development
New borns that have affection and attention as well as food and protection can develop rapidly. Talking about physically the new born grows in stature and weight more quickly in the early infancy. They cannot do many movements. They can breath, sleep and suckle to obtain milk. But, soon at two months their eyes follow a moving person, to later sit down, crawl and walk. Later, they continue growing and polishing their movements until the fifteen years old.
Motor development
First, the baby does not have strength; his movements are clumsy and not precise. They have two types of movements, the unlearned or involuntary and the voluntary. Step by step the baby has achievements in the movements. To pick up objects with the hand to later be able to pick up smaller objects with two fingers. Being able to walk is a great step in life when a new stage begins, then babies are able to explore their world. At three years they can jump. As toddlers they can hold a pencil with their hands and draw.
The mechanisms in motor development are related with the genetic components that determine the size of the body at certain age, as well as the muscle aspects and bone strength that are determined by nutrition and exercise.
Cognitive development
A baby is born with all the neurons or brain cells he or she will ever have; despite this there is a rapid growth of the brain mainly in the first two years of life.
“At birth, the brain is 25% of its adult weight: by age two, it is 80% of its ultimate weight” (Berger 1991).
The brain growth has mechanisms that are explained below:
This growth consist primarily of connections between and among brain cells and increased insultation or ‘myelination’of those connections. A key principle of developmental neurobiology is that ‘the brain develops and organizes as a reflection of developmental experience, organizing in response to the pattern, intensity and nature of sensory and perceptual experience. (Perry 1993)
A child that has a supportive family; that has a house arranged for him to discover things; that has the proper toys can develop his thinking and his problem-solving skills. It also has been discovered that interaction and early nurturing not only affects behavior but it influences in the children’s physical brain development.
Some children may have in their genes the heredity of being tall, in fact they have this potential; however, if they suffer a lack of nutrition, they hardly are going to develop that characteristic.
Another example is with language abilities, they are specially associated with the caregiving environment.
Cognitive development is not just the result of a simple maturation of an innate potential nor is it a simple behaviorist stimulus-response process. It does not result solely from social transmission, pouring knowledge into empty vessels. The resent research is beginning to reveal the complexity of the processes that support the development of modes of thinking. That one person can appropriate the knowledge of another; that each generation can build on the experience of the previous one, that cultural life can shape and transform thinking. (Bruner 1990, 1991) and that it is possible for new creative thoughts and ideas to emerge… these are phenomena that seem miraculous when examined in detail.
In some ethnic groups appear differences in cognitive achievement as a result mainly from culture and other environmental factors. During childhood the learning process is faster each day, memory is better and the capacity for learning abstract concepts develops, these changes seem to stop or at least become slower in the adolescence or early adulthood.
It is important to emphasize the emotional development between the cognitive; emotions also have changes from when children are born to the later interaction with their surroundings. As an example is the fear, they seem not to have this emotion until between eight to twelve months when they are terribly afraid of people they do not know. Emotions connected with sexuality and love appears until adolescence while anger is more intense especially in two stages: as a toddles during early preschool and during adolescence
Language development
Children’s language skills develop very quickly during the early years. From six to nine months babies can produce vowels and some consonants. They try to repeat what they listen. At eighteen months vocabulary grows from about twenty words to two hundred. Then, children start to combine them to make sentences. By three years they begin to produce more complex sentences. They can express their ideas, needs, and desires. They understand much more than they can express orally. By five years, the use of the language is similar to the adult’s. Children can get the ability to engage in extended discourse with the help of adults and peers using casual conversations.
In the adolescence there is not yet a fully linguistic development, especially they present some difficulties in constructing the passive voice.
Linguistic development has a very special importance in the life of everyone, since is because of the language that we can learn abstract concepts, we can communicate and construct more knowledge day by day. According to Vigotsky language and cognition are apart, and is until the age of two that they are linked and then in that moment they express their thoughts verbally and their speech become rational. Children may say aloud everything they are thinking, because they do not distinguish yet the internal and external speech, if we as adults continued doing that we may face many problems.
But all of these physical, cognitive and linguistic changes occur with the help of the interaction of the people that surround them, the environment, nurture, society and culture.
The main theories of child development were developed by: Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Brummer in the area of cognitive development.
Jean Piaget considered the interaction with peers an important factor to the children cognitive development; he observed that when children are interacting with other children they become more engaged because they have the same level of knowledge.
Bruner observed that the process of development is not done by itself, instead there is required the social context.
Vygotsky believed that in child education it is important the help of the child’s peers to carry out tasks and become more experienced.
On the other hand, there were some theorists that focused on the children’s emotional and social development. They are: Freud, Erikson and Bowlby; they all believed that interaction and getting along with them help them to improve in their social and emotional skills.
Freud created the stage theory in which he divided the child’s life into periods of age to better classify their changes. He also said that if in a particular stage there were problems to interfere with development, they could be overcome.
Erikson proposed that children pass trough psychosocial crises to be adjusted to a particular social environment. He also studied about the self-esteem and self-concept.
Bowlby developed the attachment theory, that refers to the anxiety children present when they are separated to the person that take care of them, usually their mother; he concluded that attachment is important to infants.
Summarizing, child development is a broad area to research and study, and the better comprehension of it can help us to better understand our own nature, to understand us, our children; by having this information we can create the better technique to interact with them, to teach them, because we have not exploited yet completely the area of teaching and learning, we need to search better ways and develop more our brains.
It is really important that we have the ability to help children to get to know themselves, to develop their self-concept, one reason of this is due to the necessity of knowing ourselves to have a wider idea of what we need, what we want, what are our abilities as well as our limitations. This may sound simple, but just a few people really know themselves. I think emotional development is an area that requires more study and research.
To conclude, the speed in which a child brain develops is amazing but more amazing is the influence of us, like family, society, and teachers. We have a great responsibility to raise our children and to make this world a better one by teaching them how to manipulate sentiments and feelings, we can do that and to take advantage of their nature, of their genes, nurturing in a better way and stimulating the progress in all aspects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
· Arnold Gesell. (2007). Studies in child development. ISBN. 2007. pgs. 3-12.
· Carolyn Meggitt. Child development, an illustrated guide.. Heinemann, oxford. 2006. pgs. 156
· John Oates and Andrew Grayson. Cognitive and language development in children. Oxford. 2004. pgs. 7-20, 113, 303-315.
MESOGRAPHY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4YPq4u1b70&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development.
http://www.rti.org/pubs/child-development.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development
http://aabs.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/childlinguisticdevelopment.pdf
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