Child Growth And Development: 0-8 Years

Introduction of Child’s Study what is child development

Child development refers to the sequence of physical, language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of adulthood. During this process a child progresses from dependency on their parents/guardians to increasing independence. Child development is strongly influenced by genetic factors (genes passed on from their parents) and events during prenatal life. It is also influenced by environmental facts and the child’s learning capacity. includes congnition,social interaction and emotional regulations,speech and language, physical skills,sensory awareness.

Child development refers to the process through which human beings typically grow and mature from infancy through adulthood. The different aspects of growth and development that are measured include physical growth, cognitive growth, and social growth. Child development focuses on the changes that take place in humans as they mature from birth to about age 17. Domains of development physical cognitive and social and emotional -> holistic development

• periods of developmentparental period,infancy and toddlehood,early childhood,middle childhood,adolescences
• Therories
• As children progress through the first five to seven years of life, a number of developmental stages occur.
• As children go through these stages of development and life changes, their behavior also undergoes changes, and while there is a difference between normal and abnormal behavior, determining the difference between the two can be difficult. This is because there are a number of influences that affect a child's behavior. At times, these differences are related to the differences between an individual child's unique developmental growth as well as external influences such as social factors. These factors are usually related to family issues and there are many differences in family styles, sizes, cultures, and even schedules that come into play. There are however, clues to determine if certain behaviors are abnormal.
• Learning attention memory language thinking reasoning creativity-cd
• Emotions personality social relationship -sed
• Child’s ProfileJerusha is 2 years and 10 months. She lives with her parents and grandparents. She is very attached to her grandfather than the rest. She is an active, sociable and loving person. Jerusha’s dad exposed her to sports activities like swimming and bowling at the beginging age of two. She loves to explore and play games, especially with balls. Her parents gives her ample opportunities to play and interact with her peers and in different settings of palygrounds,park. She is the only child in her family where she is given all the love and pamper from the significant others. She has a goal of being a fire fighter just like her mum. Jerusha is an easy child where she can quickly show her emotions and takes a quicker time to calm and reflect her actions. description of your child fav things energy level like and dislikes smthg that woukd help to better understand Physical Development readings (371words)

Physical development is the transformation of physical movements from largely reflective movements to highly skilled voluntary movements from childhood to adolescence stage. It provides children with the abilities they need to explore and interact with the world. The development includes the change in body size, body proportions and fine and gross motor skills. According to Ministry of Education, through the duration and influence they gain fitness, quickness, physical coordination, sense of balance and special awareness (p. 30). The three different patterns of physical development which consists of motor development that uses the large to small muscle, the muscles from head to toe and lastly the muscles from inside to outside of the body. With the support of these development it helps children gain confidence, provides them a positive sense of well-being. Based on the observation conducted for Jerusha, she could accomplish her milestone for her physical development. She couldn’t balance and coordinate her skills while walking on the curved line. According to Berk (2010), since the centre of gravity is greater, children’s top mass makes it hard for them to control balance (p. 268). She demonstrated efficient gross motor skills while ascending and descending the stairs, throwing and catching a ball. She practiced marked-time climbing while descending the stairs. Jerusha demonstrated competence in her eye-hand coordination, reaction time and making judgements of the oncoming ball. Her fine motor skill was efficient as she had already started using static tripod grasp. She seemed to be using more strength on her larger muscles like her arms instead of the small muscle on her wrist. While drawing she displayed the use of hand dominance in coordinating in only one hand. While demonstrating skilful improvements in the physical development, Jerusha should be introduced to more fine motor skills activities like play-dough as it helps to increase the finger strength, thread beads, allowing her turn single pages of books or snipping with scissors.

Activities one hand consistently will strengthen her smaller muscles. To improve on her balancing, we can place footprints or markers on either side of the line and get her to walk following the prints closely, play hopscotch for balancing and hopping. Her parents can expose her to activities that uses staircase to improve on her marked-time climbing. Cognitive Development (220 words without recommendation)Cognitive development is an intellectual development from birth. According to Martorell, Papalia and Feldman (2014), through cognitive development one acquires memory, language, thinking, analysing, creating and learning skills (p. 6). Pia get has stated that children acquire cognition by the use of reflexes that’s knows as the schema. This schema leads to adaptation processes of assimilation and accommodation. Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories allow children to acquire complex abilities, problem solving skills from object permanence, mental representation, symbolic thinking, deferred imitation, language from make-believe play, categorization and animistic thinking. Based on the observation made, Jerusha depicted the skill of categorization, where she could identity the balls and then sorting them into colours. She has developed her skill from the general sorting of balls to the subcategory of colours. According to Berk (2009), hierarchicalclassification is the ability to arrange things into classes and subclasses (p. 242). She is developing colours’ name of the ball. According to Berk (2009), children broaden their vocabulary quickly and impressive skills are enhanced by the general knowledge (p. 244). I also observed that her thinking is centred and irreversible. She only observes one aspect and neglects the dynamic transformation of flattening the dough. She demonstrated mental representation and symbolic thinking where she can reassemble the dough as a chappati(food). According to Berk (2009), make-believe play forms out from imaginary plays. Symbols thinking is more critical when he sensorimotor is closing (p. 228). In contrast with her abilities, Jerusha can make improvements to further enhance her cognitive development.

Social and Emotional Development

Social and Emotional development is…Besides expressing a wider range of emotions, children learn to manage their emotional experiences.

Social and Emotional Development Effective social and emotional development instils healthy self-esteem in children. Children are taught to manage their feelings, thoughts and behaviour which will allow them to form strong and meaningful relationships later in life.

Describe: Recommendations: jerusha’s significant others can provide her opportunities to express her emotions, help her to understand herself in terms of her self-conception and guide her in handling her emotions. Her parents should provide the opportunities for her to play as a positive play experience can develop her social and emotional. use books for reading or storytelling, finger plays music emphasising the emotions and emotional vocabulary like when u are reading a book use lots of facial expressions to express the feelings. encourage on imagination where her parents can use puppets to build a story about her emotions and let her further express her emotions through it. use ‘I’ statements and describe your feelings during interaction this will help in self-concept which she seems to be still working on it gradually. parents actions and attitudes towards her always needs to be positive to develop her self-concept allow children to explore and learn. provide opportunities for interaction at the age of 2 ½ years old when Jerusha misbehave in terms of showing anger and lost listening her dad will put her aside and tells to think about her actions if its right or wrong. After some time jerusha knows that if she misbehaves her dad would do the same. instead of raising his voice and laying hands on her he will put her aside to think and calm. So, she was already exposed to this conditioning and that’s why she was able to do the same at this situation too. Conclusion summarize the points reflections of the observationhow it helps teachers child and parents benefits1/2 linesconclude.

Jerusha’s dad picked up her favourite ball from the play corner and walked towards her. When she observed her dad approaching her, she immediately turned her head to the direction of her dad and she shouted “hurray!”. She seemed to be very happy and excited jumping around the living room. Jerusha and her parents, went down to the void deck to play. Jerusha’s father prepared an obstacle race as she is always being exposed to such activity. He formed a horizontal line with a tape across 3 walls. She started the activity with a slow and wobbly walk along the line. She stepped first with one foot and then with the other while stretching her arms outwards. At the second pillar, she loses her balance and squats down to regain her balance.

Interpretations15mins Jerusha was not able to balance herself while walking this shows that she still has difficulties walking. According to ActiveSG, when walking body mass from one foot to the other, with one foot staying in touch with the ground requires the centre of gravity of the body allowing movements to take place. Jerusha does not displays dynamic balance where she is able to remain balance while walking on the straight line. According to Kidsense, balance and coordination in children helps to advance and maintain appropriate controlled body movements while performing a task. She also managed to build her space awareness while walking on the straight pathway.

After completing the first course, she stopped and place her right foot on the first step of the portable ladder stairs. She climbed up the stairs with one foot and then bringing the other foot up to the same step, before moving to the next step. While climbing, her both hands gripped onto the handles of the portable stairs. This was continued until she reached the 5th step. She turned her body, where her belly was facing the stairs, tried coming down by bringing one leg down to the lower step and then the other slowly with the assistance of her mom.

Climbing is a crucial locomotor skill where Jerusha demonstrated well for her milestone despite the challenges she was able to ascend easily and troubled to descend the stairs. Till the age of 4 years old, children will practice marked-time climbing as balance is a greater challenge when descending than ascending the stairs (Motor Development, Schickedanz, Schickedanz, Forsyth and Forsyth,(2001). Jerusha used marked- time climbing when she was descending the stairs. This is caused by the centre of gravity of in her cephalocaudal trend to still develop and gain its strength. According to Berk (2010), the centre of gravity in children’s body transfers downwards with less top heaviness. Jerusha’s body become more streamlined, not allowing her to coordinate her trunk muscles to balance when she descends.

Upon reaching the last step of the stairs, she hopped and ran in different directions randomly with both her arms and shoulders moving slightly up and down.

According to Gabbard (2012), during the immature stage the arm swings is comparatively rigid and more lateral and horizontal than vertical. (Lifelong Motor Development, p287). Jerusha was able to demonstrate her gross motor skills while running. Her trunks and legs seem to gain more strength, slowly the centre of gravity is moving to the lower bodies.

After which, she picked up a big and light ball from the ground with her both hands, places the ball further from her chest, twisting her right shoulder to the right, without changing her footing and throws the ball in one arm stance towards her hand. Her mom catches the ball and tells jerusha that “I am going to throw the ball, be watchful when it approaches you”. She threw the ball to Jerusha but she misses the ball. The mom once again picked up the ball and threw it again slowly. This time, Jerusha concentrated and looked at the ball closely. From the back, her dad gave her words up encouragement saying “baby you can do it! look at the ball and put your hands out. ” Without missing the ball, she extended her arms, moved a little towards the direction of the ball and grasps it towards her chest.

According to Schikedanz et al, in the next stage after a simple and fast arm extension, a child is able to twist her shoulder a bit to follow her arm as it moves forward but not moving or changing her body weight and leg position. (p274) Jerusha, won’t have much rotation of her upper naval as her trunks aren’t matured. According to Gabbard (2012), at the age from 2 to 3 years, there will be minimum rotation of the trunk and projection of the ball is mostly by the elbow extension. (Lifelong Motor Development, p298). Jerusha wasn’t able to coordinate well and maybe she feared for the ball coming but on the second throw she displayed eye-hand coordination. She also demonstrated reaction time and was able to make judgements about the oncoming ball. ‘Even a ball throw slowly from a shorter distance requires a judgement’(Whiting,1969) Jerusha was able to gain control of the ball at the second throw. The reinforcement of Jerusha’s mum gave her the positive support to focus and catch the ball. Jerusha also displayed her sensory development where she was able to focus on the oncoming ball. Jerusha established manipulative skills of both throwing and catching of a ball.

Setting:

Jerusha went back home, sat on the couch and watched her pony cartoon. She had a personal conversation of the cartoon.

Her mum then distracted her and gave her a piece of plain paper and asked her to draw a sun. Jerusha placed three fingers pinching the pencil and her thumb facing upwards and drawing very hard on the piece of paper. She started drawing the eyes followed by the happy mouth, nose, ears, cheeks, a dot on the forehead, and lastly a circle with some rays of sunlight. She was very focused and not distracted by her surroundings.

According to Berk (2010), pre-schoolers draws a simplest drawing which still looks like a human and this is called the ‘tadpole ‘drawing. Jerusha’s uses a lot of pressure on the pencil and coordinates wither larger muscles of her arms instead of the wrist muscles. She was also able to coordinate her eyes and hands while drawing. Jerusha also displays hand dominance, she is consistence of using only one hand to draw which allows her to defined skills to develop. She exhibits the grasp of static tripod. Through her drawings the artful representation is revealed.

Type of Development Observed:

Cognitive Development editing need to be done

ObservationJerusha jumped into the ball pit and sat inside. She started throwing the ball out of the pit and said “shmm, shmm”. I placed 3 baskets in front of the ball pit and asked her to sort green, red and blue balls into the baskets. Jerusha picked up 2 yellow balls and placed it into the green basket. I asked her if that’s a green ball she said “green ball, green ball”. I didn’t say much and let her continue sorting. She picks up a few green balls and placed it correctly into the green basket and followed by the red and blue balls respectively. While picking up the balls and she said the name of the colours.

InterpretationsJerusha articulated the real sounds of the ball being thrown which was known as onomatopoeia. Jerusha demonstrated categorization where she sorted the balls respectively to colours into the baskets. She was able form basic level of categorization. Through telling herself the names of colours she is also able to improve her vocabulary. She has logical operation to organize the colours which increases the hierarchical classifications. According to Berk (2010), from the level of basic classcification kids move onto sub categories where they can break down into smaller sub points and categorizing helps to broaden one’s knowledge and language (p. 232). Jerusha broke the bigger topic of balls into the sub topic of colours and voice out the name. This will be stepping stone into a milestone.

Setting:

Jerusha was playing with her play dough at her play corner. I sat beside her n took some pink and green play dough and moulded into a round dough. Jerusha was curious of what I was doing

I did Piaget’s conservation experiment to determine whether she has the mental capacity of irreversibility. So, I took both the coloured doughs and moulded into same equal round doughs. Afterwhich, I asked her if both the doughs were the same in size or different. She looked at it and immediately answered me ‘yes, the same’. I took the pink doughs and told her that I will flat it into a chappati(Indian food). I asked her the same question again. She now said that the dough that wasn’t flat looks bigger in size as its bigger than the other flat one which is smaller. Following the next step, I moulded the pink flat dough into a round dough as the green one. I repeated the question and she looked at it turn the doughs around and said ‘yes, same’. After doing the task I told her ‘okay come lets make some thosai (indian food) for amma!’ she quickly took her pencil from the table and flatten the pink dough and placed it on a wooden block. She ran to her mum. “Amma (mother) thosai! Sudu(hot)” and shows her tongue.

According to Schickedanz, Schickedanz, Forsyth and Forsyth(2001), when a child is not able to conserve the thoughts it shows that their thinking is centred which is known as centration(p. 229). This shows that her thoughts can’t be irreversible. She was distracted by the affecting appearance of the sized change and the dynamic conversion of rolling. She has a transductive reasoning where she couldn’t observe the change and centres her thoughts. I gave her the exposure to make-believe play. She displayed mental representation and symbolic thinking when she rolled the dough into a thosai, playing the wodden block as a plate and also saying that the food is food. According to Berk (2009), make-believe play forms out from imaginary plays. Symbols thinking is more critical when he sensorimotor is closing (p. 228).

Type of Development Observed:

Social and Emotional editing need to be done

Observation

Jerusha’s mom was walking to her room, as she was walking she did not watch her steps and tripped over a large wooden block and falls to the ground. Hearing the sound Jerusha was shocked with the ‘ohh’ faced. She stopped talking to her dad and walks quickly towards her mom. She looks at her mum and touches her mom’s hand and says “pain? Amma(mother) don’t cry,”. She comforts her by hugging and kissing her hand.

InterpretationsJerusha showed empathy and concern when her mom falls and injures her hand. According to Schickedanz, Schickedanz, Forsyth and Forsyth (2001), empathy helps to understand emotional state and react to the situation and starts to ease their feelings. (p. 208). This would help in developing her prosocial behavior. Jerusha could put herself in her mom’s position and respond affectively to the situation. This is crucial in the development of social competence. Even though, she didn’t have the proper vocabulary terms for expressing her empathy she senses, feels and reacts to the situation.

Jerusha was throwing the balls outside of the ball pit which travelled to the living room. Her dad came into the room and told her calmly to play within the room and not to let the balls travel to the living room. She continued throwing the balls outside and her dad carried her from the ball pit and kept the ball pit away. Seeing the ball pit carried away Jerusha started crying and threw her bottle across the room. Jerusha went to the side sobbing and sat down quietly. After 10 minutes, she got up and walked to her dad and said “sorry appa(father)”. He carried her, gave her hug and a kiss.

Despite her dad’s warning to not throw the balls on the floor, she continued. This shows that she has no fear that her dad will reprimand and is excited to explore the balls when its being travelled. Jerusha is progressively developing her self-concept. According to Santrock (2013), self-concept is the development of self-understanding which provides the foundation to a child’s cognitive development (p. 290). This would further develop her psychological development. When the ball pit is moved away from Jerusha, her dad displayed positive punishment without shaming her but to think about her actions. She expressed feelings of frustration and sadness. When her dad took her ball pit Jerusha displayed self-regulation by taking some time to cry and calm her herself down and lastly by apologizing. According to Berk (2009), self -regulation uses methods to accommodate the reactions of social emotions and uses voluntary effort to deal with emotions (p. 407). Her social and emotional she has progressively reached her milestone where she uses vocabulary terms of emotions and actions to help herself regulate.