Human development refers to the processes of change and stability throughout human life. The early stages of development in children are important in their life span. Children in middle childhood are those who are in the age between 6 to 11 years old. Most children in middle childhood start their formal education in primary school. In this stage, they have more opportunities to expose themselves to people and environment they had never known. In general, children in middle childhood are characterized by 3 major domains which are physical, cognitive and psychosocial (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1). The first domain that describes children in middle childhood is physical characteristic. The physical characteristic of middle childhood includes their height and weight, and motor development (Papalia, Olds & Feldman, 2009). Motor development is sub-divided into two distinct groups which are gross motor and fine motor (Papalia et al., 2009). According to Santrock (2008), children grow in an average of 2 to 3 inches and gain approximately 5 to 7 pounds annually. Girls are slightly shorter and lighter than boys between ages 6 to 8. However, girls become heavier and taller than boys after age 8 (Papalia et al., 2009). In addition, girls have more body fat compared with boys whereas boys are more masculine than girls in this period (Papalia et al., 2009). One of the sub-division of motor development is gross motor. Gross motor is the physical skills involving large muscle (Papalia et al., 2009). This kind of motor skill improves children’s abilities of force, movement, balance, and flexibility in middle childhood. Examples of gross motor activities are running, jumping, hopping, and cycling (Papalia et al., 2009). Fine motor is another... ... middle of paper ... ...9(2), 31-41. Livingston, J. (1997). Metacognition: An overview. Retrieved from: http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm Magnuson, K., & Berger, L. M. (2009). Family structure states and transitions: Associations with children’s wellbeing during middle childhood. J Marriage Fam, 71(3). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836533/pdf/nihms181881.pdf Middle childhood: Cognitive and language development (2008). Retrieved from http://mcweb1guides.s3.amazonaws.com/520157.pdf Middle childhood: Psychosocial development (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mc.edu/faculty/files/1813/5293/4195/Berger9thedition_Ch_13_notes.pdf Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, R. D. (2009). Human development (11th ed.). New York, USA: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Santrock, J.W. (2008). Life-span development. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Schuster, C. S., and Ashburn, S. S., (1980). The Process of Human Development: A Holistic Approach. Boston: Little, Brown and Company Inc.
Human Development. Ed. Deborah Carr. Vol. 1: Childhood and Adolescence. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2009. 50-55. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
... (2009) The science of development. In R.V. Kail & A. Barnfield (Eds.), Children and their development (pp. 8 – 22). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Middle Childhood is a distinct period of development where a child develops physically, cognitively and social-emotionally. Between the school years of 3 and 7, children begin to gain an understanding of themselves in comparison to others, learn large amounts of information, manage their behaviour and also develop self-concepts and self-esteem. (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2010.)
Theories abound around how people develop emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. This essay will examine the theories of five leaders on the subject of development.
The physical category of my model includes three subgroups. The first of these includes the period of prenatal development, birth, and the continuous development afterward. The second subgroup discusses the genetic and environmental factors of child physical development. The last subgroup mentions the role of nature and nurture in physical development.
Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2011). Human development across the life-span (7th ed.). Belmont Calif: Wadsworth.
Who we are is directly related to our environment that we are nurtured around. Our development is essential to who we are as adults and will be the very fabric connected to how, what and why we act and think the way we do. I’ve decided to talk about early childhood development, which plays the most crucial part in the foundation of who we will be. At this stage we are sponges soaking up this new world we are now apart of. I will discuss physical development, cognitive development and psychosocial development pertains to early childhood development.
Children in middle childhood are growing psychosocially at a quick rate. During middle childhood they become industrious, develop a self-concept, and learn how to be friends, amongst other things.
Functional families help children in middle childhood become more productive in society and more self reliable. Children cannot obtain the basic needs without functional parents. Such needs are shelter, food, and clothing. At this age children are self dependent in that they can bathe, dress and most likely clean their own rooms. Parents in a functional family will show children love and comprehension, thus allowing the child to become self-critical as they develop cognitively. Last but not least parents of functional families encourage children in academic affairs and to nurture peer friendships, a very important element while transitioning into adolescence (Merchant, 2001). On the other hand children from dysfunctional families, tend to miss treat children and not really nurture as often. This could include single parent homes, drug addicted parents. The following factors have a profound impact on social development for middle childhood children; excessive conflicts within the home, overly authoritarian parents and coldness in the family (Merchant, 2001).
A newborn child’s physical and motor development is an evident progression throughout their first years and later in life. A child’s motor development is more of a slower progress, from going to gross motor skills to more fine motor skills in a few months while physical development is an apparent process. The environment affects children in their physical and motor growth, as they learn and adapt to new stimuli everyday as they develop. Separately, these developments start at different times, but function hand in hand as a child grows. Physical development is apparent at conception, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence; while motor development
Physical and motor development are two similar but different areas that describe child development. Physical development encompasses all of the various changes a child's body goes through. Those changes include height, weight, and brain development. Motor development is the development of control over the body. This control would involve developing reflexes such as blinking, large motor skills like walking, and fine motor skills like manipulating their fingers to pick up small objects like Cheerios. It is important to objectively study physical and motor development in children to gain knowledge on what characteristics are considered typical for each age and stage of development. This will enable me to be aware of when a child or children are developing at an irregular pace, and devise recommendations or find experiences and other resources that can aid in stimulating their development and to work towards closing achievement gaps. This particular assignment was to observe the selected child and reaffirm the importance of studying physical and motor development, and to develop ideas on how to involve it in my work as an early childhood professional.
As children grow towards adolescence they go through many stages of development. Child development refers to the stages of physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and language growth that occurs from the birth to beginning of adulthood. All aspects of a child's development may be affected by many different factors, including a poor learning environment, lack of social interaction, cultural background differences, abuse, and loss of a parent. All of the before mentioned examples can affect the child's maturation, "a biological growth process that enables orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience" (Myers 172). Children grow and mature at very different rates, some faster than others, which is why it is necessary to understand the importance of the different types of child development. Though all parts of child development are important, it is probably language learning that is most important to a child's development as a whole.
Craig, G. J., & Dunn, W. L. (Ex.: 2010). Understanding human development (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.
The infancy stage of development begins with the child is born, and continues until about eighteen months. During this stage a lot of growth takes place, especially physical growth. This stage of development coincides with Erikson’s stage of trust vs. mistrust.