CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Child Development

Child Development

Introduction

The basic objective of the development of your child is to enable them in the beginning years of their lives to become deeply involved and self-directive in their learning. This requires first a positive image as a person, since there is a 'circular process' of interaction between learning and personality development. Each child's development is judged by their intellectual functioning, their ego strength, their inventiveness, their relatedness to peers and adults, and their capacity to cope with new events that cross their path each day within their social life. From the time of birth people experience major developmental changes, which vary depending on their age (Wright,1991, pp 45-278).

The changes they experience are influenced by the stage of development they are experiencing. Two stages in the life cycle with regards to childhood are the stage of early childhood (2-6yrs.) and the stage of late childhood (6-12yrs.). Within the sphere of early and late childhood, there are three key aspects of development that will be the primary focus of this paper. Physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development play a vital role in determining how successfully a child develops and progresses on into adulthood(Santrock, 1986, pp 45-234). In this paper we will develop a Child Developmental Project .

Physical

Physical development obviously starts long before the common "infantile" stage that we all think of today. Brain development begins in the weeks following conception. A noticeable brain is apparent after only three to four weeks, when the neural plate folds up to form the neural tube. The bottom of the tube becomes the spinal cord. "Lumps" then emerge at the top of the tube and form the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The so-called primitive or lower portions of the brain develop earliest, and regulate such biological functions as digestion, respiration, and elimination; they also control sleep-wake states and permit simple motor reactions (Wright,1991, pp 45-278).

All of the above traits of the brain are what makes life possible. By three months after conception, the midbrain and hindbrain are well on their way to being developed, but the forebrain still has a long way to go. Gradually these two hemispheres become larger and more convoluted, making for a characteristically human brain (Santrock, 1986, pp 45-234). Many processes are involved in early brain development, but I won't go into much detail as they are not true parts of infancy physical development. These processes include 1proliferation of brain cells, where neurons are produced at a staggering rate during the prenatal period, migration, when neurons migrate from their place of origin to places where they will become part of specialized functioning units, and finally 3organization, which is a complex process involving differentiation of neurons, synapse formation, and competition among and pruning of neurons. The brain weighs about 25% of its adult total at birth, and by age 2, it reaches 75%. Lateralization is one important feature of brain organization, which causes the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex to become asymmetrical (Santrock, 1986, pp ...