Important Aspects of Child Development

Biological Beginnings

Every child has a specific set of genetic instructions at birth. These instructions influence the child’s characteristics and physical features as they develop and grow. Different genes can cause individuality (different children look and act differently). Children’s experiences, health, and other physiological processes can mediate gene’s effects. Practitioners can be confident that even though some things will be more challenging for different children based on their genetics, all children have a potential to achieve high standards-personally and academically.
Conception is the point that a child receives his or her genetic makeup. It is also the point that development begins. Professionals can encourage good prenatal health by informing future parents as well as sexually active individuals of the harmful effects of teratogens; the value of assessing their health before becoming pregnant; as well as the importance of reducing stress, eating a healthy diet, exercising appropriately, and continuous medical care while pregnant.

Family, Culture, and Community

Family, Culture, and Community lay the vital foundations of a child’s development. Each one teaches children their identity as humans, how they fit in with other people, and what kind of adult they can strive to become. Educators can assist children with this aspect by thinking about the interactive effects of each context on children’s welfare and behavior.
Families types are extremely diverse. Many children will go through at least one change in the structure of their family at some point in their childhood. Although different family structures provide both benefits and challenges, the most important aspect of family structure in terms of developmental significance is the quality of relationships within the family. By acknowledging the existence of diverse families and encouraging all kinds of families to reinforce their children’s progress, educators can be inclusive of all types of families.
Parents affect their children’s development in several ways. They involve their children in activities, show affection, and discipline. Also, children influence one another as siblings, but it is not developmentally necessary to have a sibling. While most families create nurturing and safe environments for their children, some families do not. Children who come from abusive family situations can suffer long-term developmental issues. Solid partnerships between families and teachers are dependent on communication and respect. Educators can endorse the contributions and culture of families, use multiple means of communication with families, and encourage parents to take an active role in their child’s education.
Experiences in ethnic, cultural, or immigrant groups greatly affects children and families. Children’s ethnicity plays a significant role in their values, behaviors, and communication styles. The character of the community and income of their families also influence children. By providing resources, support, and acknowledgement of each child’s personal abilities, teachers can build off of children’s experiences in their community and also reach children who are economically disadvantaged.

Physical Development

The human body is an adaptable, sophisticated system. With time, physiological functioning becomes more and more diverse and integrated. In physical growth, children’s bodies seemingly aim for general goals, even when growth is temporarily stunted by nutritional deficiencies or illness.
The brain is a complex organ in charge of regulating simple physiological functioning, feelings of pain and pleasure, emotions, intellectual processes, and motor skills. Before the child is born, neurons form and migrate to places where they will serve their purpose. While the child is an infant, their brain will form many connections between neurons. During early and middle childhood, the brain saves connections used often, and allows others to be eliminated. Refinements made include solidifying language and complex learning skills. Throughout adolescence, the brain allows new interests to be possible, causes impulsive behavior, and develops in the areas of forethought and judgement. Feeding changes from milk only to include some soft solids. Developing motor skills allow for exploration. During early childhood, children engage in vigorous physical activity and gain new motor skills. In middle childhood, children’s growth rate slows down and they use their motor skills purposefully. Puberty begins in adolescence and continues over the course of several years. By late adolescence, adult height and maturation have been reached.
Health is dependent on several factor, which include diet, amount of physical activity, rest, and sleep. Some children and adolescents display behaviors that put their physical health in jeopardy. Some examples include eating disorders, not getting enough sleep, or not getting enough exercise. Some behaviors that can be detrimental to health that some late adolescents adopt are smoking, drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sexual activity.
Children with chronic illness, physical disabilities, or serious injuries often need modification of instruction, physical environment, or equipment to successfully learn. Teachers should aim to help these children participate in physical activities, as well as assist them with any challenges in their education.

Cognitive Development

The two main theories of cognitive development come from Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget described children as motivated and active learners who create an increasingly intricate perception of the world through various interactions with their social and physical environments. He suggested that a child’s thought processes move through four stages. The first stage is the sensorimotor stage, when cognitive functions are based mainly on behaviors and perceptions. The second stage is the preoperational stage, when predominantly allegorical thought and language is used, but by adult standards, the child’s reasoning is illogical. The third stage is the concrete operational stage, when children gain the ability to think logically but are limited to material objects and events. The fourth stage is the formal operations stage, when children gain the ability to think about hypothetical, abstract, and contrary-to-fact ideas. Developmental researchers believe that Piaget probably underestimated the abilities of infants and young children, and overestimated the abilities of teenagers and adolescents. Moreover, a child’s reasoning process depends primarily on what they already know, have experienced, or learned in school related to the task. Contemporary developmentalists question the theory that cognitive development can be generalized as a series of stages that spread children’s thinking across differing content areas. Some theorists, known as neo-Piagetians, suggest that children gain more specific structures of concepts and thinking abilities applicable to particular areas and that such structures may sometimes change in a way similar to stages. Many others propose instead that children show more gradual changes in a variety of skills. However, mostly all contemporary theorists recognize the importance of Piaget’s research methods, his representation of cognitive development as a beneficial process, and the appearance of qualitative changes in cognitive development.
Vygotsky proposed that humans differ from other species in their procurement of complex mental processes, which are mainly the result of a social entity’s cultural background. In his eyes, adults foster their children’s cognitive development by teaching the meanings that their culture gives to events and objects, showing children the many physical and cognitive resources that prior generations have constructed, and helping children with difficult tasks. Social events are often precursory to, and create the foundation for, complex thought processes. Children start out using new skills thorough interaction with adults or peers, and they slowly adopt these skills as their own. First, children experiment with adult activities and thought processes through play, and later are introduced to more challenging tasks with the help of veteran social partners. Contemporary theorists have expounded upon Vygotsky’s theory in several ways. Some propose that adults can help children learn from their experiences through collective formation of meanings, assisted participation, and cognitive coaching. Others suggest that adults have children and adolescents participate in mature, authentic tasks, first giving enough scaffolding as to allow children to complete the tasks successfully, then slowly withdrawing help as mastery increases.

Intelligence

Intelligence is comprised of efficient learning processes and adaptive behaviors. Intelligent behavior is ingrained in a particular environment. In different societies, intelligence has slightly different meanings.
Some theorists think that intelligence is an individual entity that effects children’s learning and performance over a vast array of tasks. This belief is demonstrated in the common use of IQ scores as general predictors of academic ability. Other theorists suggest that intelligence is comprised of many partially independent abilities and cannot be precisely measured by a single IQ test score. The evidence has also increased that children have a higher likelihood of behaving “intelligently” if they have physical, social, and symbolic systems of support to help them.
The majority of intelligence tests were developed with the primary goal of identifying individuals with special needs, whether that be those who are gifted or have a disability. Contemporary intelligence tests contain various tasks created to evaluate what people have learned from their day-to-day experiences. Achievement on these tests is most often summed up in one or more IQ scores, which are arrived at by comparing the results to the results of others that are the same age. In some circumstances, dynamic assessments could be more effective for for evaluating children’s abilities in certain areas or for anticipating their ability to learn better from specific types of instruction. Developmental tests for infants and young children can be helpful in determining if children have any significant delays. However, outcomes of tests administered to young children should not be used in the long-term prediction making of cognitive development.
Performance on intelligence assessments can predict school performance to a certain extent, with IQ scores becoming more and more reliable and having more predictive ability as children become older. Nevertheless, the IQ scores of some children evolve significantly as time passes, especially through the early years.
Studies of twins and children who are adopted show that intelligence may be a partially inherited trait. But environmental surroundings, such as nutrition, home atmosphere, exposure to toxic substances, early childhood programs, and formal schooling can also significantly influence IQ scores. Heredity and environment collaborate in their influence, to the extent that it may be practically impossible to disconnect the relative effects of these two elements on children’s intellectual development.
Research on intelligence has been massively reliant on traditional intelligence assessments, which place emphasis on skills appreciated in standard Western culture and overlook frame-of-mind and metacognitive strategies as valuable donors to intellectual performance. Some theorists are now suggesting that a shift in focus from the test of intelligence to intellectual development would be most beneficial.
Used while keeping other contexts in mind, intelligence assessments can provide an overall idea of children’s current cognitive abilities. But practitioners should be optimistic about every child’s ability to grow intellectually. Adults can foresee that each child will be intelligent in unique ways, and should use children’s individual strengths and capabilities to encourage learning and achievement. Adults should also support children socially and give them the physical and symbolic tools that have the ability to improve intelligent thinking and performance.
Children and adolescents who are identified as being talented and gifted show extraordinary achievement or potential in at least on domain. Being gifted may show itself differently across different cultures, but generally, gifted individuals show fast learning, higher reasoning, and advanced cognitive strategies. On the other hand, children with intellectual disabilities show generally low intellectual functioning and shortcomings in ability to adapt. In individual cases, either one of these issues may have roots in genetics, their environment, or a combination of both. Children who have uncommonly high or low intelligence augment their cognitive development when they receive instruction in a way that is adjusted to their particular strengths and weaknesses.