Important

STUDY MATERIAL FOR CHILD AND PEDAGOGY HTET

Concept of development and its relationship with learning:


Development :

Development is the process of quantitative and qualitative growth of the child and the emergence and differentiation of capabilities over time. It is the function of maturity as well as interaction with the environment.

Difference Between Growth And Development

The terms growth and development are often used interchangeably. Actually they are conceptually different. Neither growth nor development takes place all by itself. Growth refers to quantitative changes in size which include physical changes in height, weight, size, internal organs, etc.
As an individual develops, old features like baby fat, hair and teeth, etc., disappear and new features like facial hair etc.. are acquired. When maturity comes, the second set of teeth, primary and secondary sex characteristics, etc., appear. Similar changes occur in all aspects of the personality.

Development, by contrast, refers to qualitative changes taking place simultaneously with quantitative changes of growth. It may be defined as a progressive series of orderly, coherent changes. The term progressive signifies that changes are directional, that they lead forward rather than backward. Orderly and coherent suggest that there is a definite relationship between the changes taking place and those that precede or will follow them. Development represents changes in an organism from its origin to its death, but more particularly the progressive changes which take place from origin to maturity.             

Stages Of Development


 All children progress in a definite order through these stages and they all follow similar basic patterns. These stages along with the corresponding ages of the child have been identified by developmental psychologists as follows.

Stage :                                    Time frame

prenatal                                  before birth
infancy                                    Birth to 1 year
early childhood                       1-3 years
preschool                               3-6 years
school childhood                    6-12 years
adolescence                           12-20 years
young adulthood                     20-30 years
adulthood                               30-50 years
mature adult                            50-65 years
aging adult                              65+

1. Prenatal Period (before birth)

Life begins at the time of conception. When the child is in the mother’s womb the particular period spent there is known as prenatal period. All important external and internal feelings start to develop at this stage.

2. Infancy (Birth to 3 years)

From birth up to the third year of life, the stage is known as infancy. Babies grow very rapidly in size during their first three years. The acquisition of motor skills like holding things, crawling, walking proceeds from simple to complex.

3. Pre-school childhood (3-6 years)

The growth in height is not as rapid during this stage as it is in infancy. Children improve eye, hand and small muscle coordination. For example they can draw a circle, pour fluids into a bowl, button and unbutton clothes, and language development is rapid.

4. School childhood (6-12 years - Primary school years)

School children between the age of 6 to 12 years look much taller and thinner. Children exhibit rapid gains in strength and swiftness. They achieve new motor skills and their competence becomes more pronounced in all areas of development.

5. Adolescence (12-20 years)

It is the span of year between childhood and adulthood which begins at puberty. This is the period of rapid physiological growth. There are a number of psychological changes which also take place. Children jump rope, bicycle, ride horses, dance and indulge in all possible games. Cognitively they are more agile and social
relationships become important. But the hallmark of this stage is the search for identity. A number of psychological changes also take place. Given sex-role expectations, girls attach greater importance to good interpersonal relationships and the family while boys emphasize the importance of their own social prestige and career.

6. Adulthood (20-65+ years)

For better understanding, adulthood can be divided into three stages. These are:
(a) Young adulthood (20-50 years)
(b) Mature adulthood or the Middle years (50-65 years)
(c) Aging adulthood (65+ years)
Strength and energy characterize this time of life from the middle twenties when most bodily functions are fully developed, until about the age of 50. Thereafter there is gradual decline in energy level.

Aspects Or Areas Of Development

There are five types of aspects of developments.
1.Physical development
2.Emotional development
3.Cognitive (mental) development
4.Language Development
5.Moral Development

1.Physical : Physical development is about the physique, i.e. height and weight.

Physical growth and development describe the physical as well as psychomotor changes in an individual. To learn the implications of physical growth and development for the teaching-learning process, children have been categorised into two groups : upper primary school children (10-13 years) and secondary senior secondary school children (13-17 years). We shall discuss each age group in the following sub-sections.

Upper Primary School Children

Children in the lower elementary period, i.e. from 5 to 8/9 years, show relatively slow physical development. A typical child in the primary grades reflects certain physical characteristics. For instance, the girls tend to be slightly shorter and lighter than the boys until around the age of nine, when the height and weight tcn to be approximately equal for boys and girls.
Upper primary students are, on the average, healthier than those younger to them. They tend to resistance to fatigue and disease. Their motor-coordination is better than that of seven or eight years old children.
During the latter part of the Fourth grade, however, many girls begin a sudden growth that tends to continue till puberty. The arms and legs grow rapidly though there is not a proportionate growth in the trunk size. The result is a gangly or all-arms-and-legs appearance.
Bone growth occurs before the growth of associated muscles and cartilages. Children at this growth stage temporarily lose the efficiency of motor-coordination and strength. They appear to be clumsy and sometimes confused as compared to seven and eight years old children.
Girls of this age-group experience pre-puberty developments like breast budding and traces of public hair. In addition to muscles and cartilages, the limbs grow in early maturing females and they tend to regain their strength and efficiency of motor-coordination. Because of this most girls on the completion of their fifth grade look taller, heavier and stronger than boys.
Since boys remain twelve to eighteen months behind the girls in physical development, even the early maturing boys do not start their growth spurt until the age of eleven. By the start of the twelfth/thirteenth year, most girls attain the peak of their growth spurt, while all including early maturing boys continue the slow and steady growth level of late childhood. The girls usually start their menstrual periods by the age of thirteen. For boys, the end of pre-adolescence and the onset of early adolescence as identified by thc first ejaculation, occurs around the age of thirteen which may extend up to the age of sixteen in some cases.

Secondary and Senior Secondary School Students 

The adolescence period of development begins with puberty. Early adolescence is a time of rapid physical and intellectual development. Middle adolescence is a more stable period of adjustment to and integration to thc behaviour patterns of early adolescence. Later adolescence is marked by preparations for the responsibilities, choices and opportunities of adulthood. The major changes during adolescence are discussed below :
i) Variability in onset and rate of puberty : Directly related physical developmental change that adolescents must face is the consciousness of sexual identity. This includes the expression of sexual needs and feelings and the acceptance or rejection of sex roles. Puberty is a series of physiological changes that make the organism capable of reproduction. Nearly every organ and system of the body is affected by these changes. The pre-puberty child and post-puberty adolescent changes in outward appearance because of the changes in the stature and proportion and the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics.
Although the sequence of events at puberty is generally the same for each person, the timing and the rate of weight gain vary widely. The average girl typically begins pubertal changes around eleven years, one and a half to two years before the average boy. In each sex, however the normal range of getting sexual maturity is approximately six years. Like the onset, the rate of change also varies widely. Some persons take only one and a half to two years to go through the pubertal changes to reach reproductive maturity, while others may require six years to pass through the same stage.
These differences mean that some individuals may mature before others or the same age who may have just entered puberty. The children make comparison among themselves. The tendency to hold maturity in high regard can be a problem for the less matured students. On the other hand, the early maturers are also likely to experience temporary discomfort because they stand out From the less matured majority.


ii) Reactions to puberty : One of the most important challenges adolescents have to face is to adapt to the changes in their bodies. Coordination and physical activity must be adjusted rapidly as height, weight and skills change. The new developments in body must be integrated into the existing self-image. Ncw habits have to be developed. As adolescents become more like adults in appearance, they are expected to, behave more like adults. regardless or their emotional, intellectual or social maturity.
The purpose of puberty is to make people able to reproduce. Thus the adolescent is faced with a new potential that includes increased interest in sexual activity, erotic fantasy and experimentation. Masturbation becomes a regular activity for many adolescents and some adolescents even indulge in sexual acts. The sexual activity necessitates facing the possibility of conflict with parents, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, etc.

iii) Early and late maturing : Researchers have long been interested in the possible differences between the children who enter puberty early and those who enter it late. Peskin (1967) demonstrated that early maturers have a harder time at puberty. Youth who mature earlier experience more anxiety and have more temper tantrums, more' conflict with their parents, and lower self-esteem at puberty than those who mature later. But by the time the early matures are in high school, long post puberty and having accommodated its changes, they are more at ease, popular, and mature than are late maturers. The late maturers are still experiencing pubertal changes. If early maturity is an asset for teenage boys, it is a real liability for teenage girls. They
develops breasts. 'They have fewer changes to discuss with peers the physical and emotional
challenges they are undergoing.
Peskin's data suggest that the early mature may need more help in understanding pubertal changes, while the late maturer may need more help coping with being relatively immature and less able to compete in situations where maturity and size are important.

2.Cognitive (mental) Development:



Cognition means to perceive, comprehend, conceive or simply to know. Cognitive development would then mean the growth and capability of knowing, comprehending, or understanding over time, facilitated both by maturity and interaction with the environment. Cognition involves the ability to construct mental images involving thought, reasoning, memory and language. Mental images are constructed by an individual as the surroundings (the world around) are observed, understood and internalised as a mental process. Thus every
individual has a unique model based on a unique process of observation. This is how a leaner learns about the world around him/ her.

3.Emotional : Emotional development is about different emotions at various stages and how they grow over a period of time.
All emotions play an important role in adjustment an individual makes in life. The ability to respond emotionally is present in the newborn infant. The first sign of emotional behaviour is general excitement due to strong stimulation. In 1919 the psychologist claimed that infants are born with three major emotions-love, rage, and fear-which are natural responses to stimuli. After a decade it was suggested that emotional states are generalized in infants and not so specific as psychologists had believed.

It is believed now that newborns show only one emotion, an undifferentiated excitement (also termed distress). The general excitement of the newborn becomes differentiated into simple reactions that suggest pleasures and displeasures. Even at the age of one year, the number of emotions has increased and the child shows joy, anger, fear, jealousy, happiness, anxiety, curiosity and envy. The emotions are present at birth and their development is due to maturation and learning.

Babies’ emotions differentiate as they grow older, proceeding from general to specific. From the first week of life they cry because of hunger, cold, pain, being undressed, and having their sleep interrupted, when their feedings interrupted, when stimulated in a fussy state, and when left alone. A baby’s smile is a basic means of communication that sets in motion a beautiful cycle. At about four months babies start to laugh aloud. They laugh loudly at all sorts things in an excited manner.

In the emotional sphere, the adolescent is capable of directing his emotions at abstract ideas and not just toward people. Many adolescents feel under constant scrutiny from everyone and think that others are as admiring or as critical of them as they are of themselves. They are continually constructing, or reacting to an imaginary audience. They spend hours before the mirror imagining how they look in the eyes of others.

4. Language Development:


Children learn to understand language before they can speak it. Only a few minutes after birth, infants can determine where sounds are coming from. Neonates can also tell the difference between sounds, based on frequency, intensity, duration and tempo.
Towards the end of the first year, babies can distinguish among individual sounds of their language. They can tell the difference between pairs of words that differ only in initial sound (like cat and bat) Infants follow stages of pre linguistic speech before the first real word which involves sequentially undifferentiated crying, differentiated crying, cooing, babbling, lallation or imperfect imitation, or imitation of the sounds of others, expressive jargon, etc. However, real communication involves the ability to speak, and, the ability to understand what others say. Thus it entails four major developmental tasks comprehension, pronouncing legibly, building expressive vocabulary and meaningful sentences.

5.Moral Development:


Moral development deals with the development of ethics or ethical norms, values, the conscience and the ability to judge an act morally. Children cannot make moral judgments until they achieve a certain level of cognitive maturity . According to Piaget, children go through two stages in a rigid way, while the second stage is characterized by moral flexibility. Children’s conception of rules, intentionality, punishment and justice move from rigid to flexible thinking. This change is a sign of cognitive development.

Relation to learning


According to psychologist's view-point, the organism, from the moment of birth rather from the time of conception, is surrounded by some kind of environment. The organism does not simply live in the environment but is also acted upon by it. In turn the organism also acts upon the environment. All such action-reaction behaviours involves changes and modifications in the organism. This kind of change or modification is termed 'learning'. These changes can be intentional deliberate and controlled, or may take place without intention.

Topic 2: principles of the development of children please visit the link https://missakstudyindia.blogspot.com/p/principles-of-development-of-children.html?m=1

No comments:

Post a Comment