Theories and Concepts Course

Child Growth and Development

 Principle of development
 Pre-Natal development
 The newborn Infant (Group 1)
 Physical Growth (Group 2)
 Motor Development (Group 3)
 Development of Speech (Group 4)
 Emotional Development (Group 5)
 Social development (Group 6)
 Social adjustments
 Play
 Development of understanding
 Moral development
 Some childhood interests
 Family relationships
 personality
 Instruction is a crucial factor in
the teaching-learning process.
The teacher assumes the
responsibility of bringing out the
best in the individual
transformation in the different
phases of his development.
 Lifeis a changing process from
conception to death.
 Human beings undergo many
complex processes of
development.
 Through life, people have the
potential to grow, to change, and
to develop.
 Human development is the scientific
study of the quantitative and
qualitative ways by which people
change over time.
 Quantitative changes are changes in
the number or amount of something
such as height, and weight.
 Growth is an example of quantitative
change. Any changes in the body
and its parts is known as physical
growth.
 Development or qualitative
change refers to the increase in
skills and complexity of function
resulting in increased
specialization. It is a gradual and
orderly unfolding of the
characteristics of the successive
stages of growth.
 Development is a progressive series
of changes that occur as a result of
maturation and experience. A
complex process of integrating many
structures and functions
 Qualitative changes are changes in
kind, structure, or organization,
such as changes in the nature of a
persons’ intelligence or in the way
the mind work.
 Maturation generally refers to a
natural process of growing up
ascribed to heredity. It is a
biological process that accounts
for age-related changes in growth
and development and requires
favorable support from the
environment to occur.
 A stage of human development that occurs
in an orderly fashion.
 Examples are increase in height, gain

weight, ability to walk steadily in infants,

first word uttered by infants, etc.
 Dramatic stages of maturation are evident

at early stage of human development.

 Learning is the aspect of
development that connotes
modification of behavior that results
from practice and experience.
 The development of individual at any
given time is the result of both the
maturation of his innate
potentialities (heredity).
 Growth and development result from
an interaction of maturation and
learning in making the individual
what he is at a given time.
 It is a change of behavior that takes time
 The change in behavior persists
 Learning involves not only change in

knowledge but also change in skills,

attitudes, and perceptions
 Development-means the progressive series
of changes of an orderly, coherent type
toward the goal of maturity.
2. progressive-refers to changes that are
directional leading forward rather than
backward
3. Orderly and coherent-suggest that the
development is not of haphazard casual
type but rather that there is definite
relationship between each stage and the
next stage in the development sequence.
 Psychologist define development as orderly
changes that remain for a reasonably long
period of time. These changes occur in human
beings between conception and death.
 Human development can be classified into
several aspects:
 Physical development refers to the changes in
the body
 Personal development a term to signify
changes in an individuals’ personality
 Social development refers to changes in the
way an individual relates to other
 Cognitive development involves changes in
thinking
 Although there is disagreement about what
is involved and how development takes
place, theorists agree on the following
general principles of development:
 People develop at different rates
 Development is relatively orderly
 Development takes place gradually.
3 aspects of development
2.Anatomic-physical structure
3.Physiologic-function
4.Behavioral-the way how people
behave
 Major type of changes in development
2. Changes in size-physical and mental
growth
3. Changes in proportion-not limited in size
but also in mental development.
4. Disappearance of old features like the
thymus gland, baby hair, Babinski reflex,
baby forms of locomotion such as creeping
and crawling
5. Acquisition of new features such as
secondary sex characteristics, new mental
traits such as curiosity, sex urge,
knowledge, morals and standards, religious
beliefs, different forms of language etc.
2 Causes of development
2.Maturation
-the development of unfolding of traits
potentially present in the individual
from his hereditary endowment
-the net sum of the gene effects
operating in a self-limited life cycle
-it is not only changes in physical
characteristics but also in function,
capacity to perform or behave which
are possible through changes in any
part of the organism
 Therefore, Maturation is a developmental
process within which a person from time to
time manifests traits whose “blueprints”
have been carried in the persons’ cells from
the time of conception.
1. Learning-the result of the activities of
the child himself. It is a persistent
change in human performance or
performance potential. This means that
learners are capable of actions they
could not perform before learning has
occurred.
-to be considered a form of learning, a
change in performance must come as a
result of the learners interaction with the
environment. Learning requires
experience.
-learning is an enduring change in a living
individual that is not heralded by genetic
inheritance. Learning always involves a
systematic change in behavior or behavioral
disposition that occurs as a consequence of
experience in some specified situation.
-the idea that learning is a process means
that learning takes time. To measure
learning, we compare the way organism
behaves. If the behavior differs in two
points in time then learning has taken
place. Behavior refers to action such as
moving, speaking, and writing.
 In your own words, define learning. Give at
least three examples.

 Describe maturation. Write three examples

observed in human beings.
 Studies of maturation and learning
2. Methods of isolation-isolation of young
from older members of the same species
to see if certain traits of behavioral
characteristic of that species will appear.
1. Method of co-twin control-
identical twins
2. Match group method-group
with identical characteristics
3. Genetic study of large group-
environmental
 Rates of development
2.Rapid-pre-natal to babyhood up to 6
years
3.Slow -6 years to adolescence
 Implications of the rate of development
5.Variation is possible because
development is dependent on
maturation and learning
6.Maturation which depends upon
hereditary endowment, sets a limit
beyond which development cannot go
on even when learning is encouraged.
1. The effectiveness of learning
depends upon maturity. A child
cannot learn until he is ready to
learn. The necessary physical and
mental development must be
present before new skills or
abilities can be built upon the
foundations
2. Premature forcing of the child
results in negativistic resistant
behavior which militates against
successful learning and which
may even retard learning.
1. Developmental readiness is the
individual’s state of preparedness
with respect to one or more areas
of functioning.
 3 ways to indicate a child’s
readiness to learn
3. Child’s interest in learning
4. How sustained his interest will
remain over a period of time
5. What progress he makes with
practice
1. Development follows a pattern
b. cephalo-caudal sequence-development start first
from the head.
c. Proximo-distal-development from the center to
peripheral segments
d. General patterns of development
Babies follow a pattern of development:
6. From 4-16 weeks, he gains a command of his
oculomotor muscles (eyeball movement)
7. From 16-28 weeks, he gains command of the
muscles which support his head and move his
arms.
 From 28-40 weeks, he gains control of
his trunk and hands. This enables him
to sit, grasp, and manipulate objects
From 40-52 weeks, he extends control to
his legs and feet, to his forefinger and
thumb. He can now stand upright.
During the second year, he can walks
and run, articulate words and phrases,
acquire bowel and bladder control and
acquires rudimentary sense of personal
identity and personal possession
During the 3rd year, he speaks in
sentences and uses words as tools of
thoughts. He displays a tendency to
understand his environment and comply
cultural demands.
 During the 4th year, he asks
questions, perceives analogies,
and displays a tendency to
generalize and conceptualize.
2. At 5 years, the child is well
matured in motor control.
c. Specific phases of development
such as motor, social, and play
also follow a pattern.
2. Development proceeds from
general to specific responses
-the infant moves his whole
body at one time, not one part of
it.
-can see large objects first
before small ones
3. Development is continuous-growth
continues from the moment of conception
until maturity
4. Individual differences in rate of
development remain constant-those who
develop rapidly at first will continue while
those who develop slow will continue to
develop slow
5. Development occurs at different rates for
different parts of the body-not all parts of
the body grow at the same rate. The brain
attains its mature size at the age of 6 to 8.
other parts of the body reach maximum
development during adolescent years.
6. Most traits are correlated in development-
the child whose intellectual development is
above average is generally above average
in size, sociability, and special aptitude.
7. Development is predictable-because the
rate of development is fairly constant, it is
possible to predict at an early age the range
within which the mature development of a
child is likely to fall
8. Each development phase has traits
characteristic of it-at each age, some traits
develop more rapidly and clearly than
others.
9. Many forms of so-called problem behavior
are normal behavior of the age in which
they occur.
10. Every individual normally passes through
its major stage of development