Child Development: Physical Development

Calhoun, Farley I. Kaplan University PS220: Child and Adolescent Psychology Unit 9 Assignment 17 TH January 2016 Introduction Considering human development is a lifelong process of all known psychic.

According to Piaget there are four stages of intelligence. They are as follows: the Sensorimotor stage from birth to 2 years of age. In this stage Piaget states that the child is able to objects and stimuli but lack an internal representation of the outside world. The Preoperational stage from ages two to seven in which the child is able to use language to communicate, they also have the ability to think in images and draw those images. The Concrete Operational stage from ages seven - eleven is where the child should be using logical reasoning and is able to think in multiple dimensions.

The first part of the study involved observing child K’s motor and fine motor skills in her home. First, I would observe her motor skills. To get her more excited, I decided to play with her and her sister. At 4 years of age, child K should be enjoying the movements of hopping, jumping, and running while be more adventurous than they were at 3 years of age (Santrock, pg. 158, 2012). Obviously, at age 4, she has already learned how to walk and run on her own.

• Encouragement: if children are not given the praise and encouragement they need, this will affect their relationships and friendships as they get older and they will have poor attachment this can develop into anxiety, depression and they will lack motivation. • Learning difficulties are also a factor that influences a child’s development. Children with learning difficulties will need extra support with certain areas of development and may develop low self-esteem because they get annoyed with themselves for not being able to do something, such as a simple numeracy problem or read a book. External factors affecting learning and development are likely to be limited access to services and support, but parents and carers may not be aware of this.

From the ages Age 10-12 in girls and 11- 13 in boys Specialized movements occur which is, increasing sport- specific and can be used in various competitive or recreational movement (skiing, dancing,

Language/literacy development "is often defined as a system of symbols, spoken, written, and gestural that enables us to communicate with one another" (Martoz pg. 40). There are two types of language used, receptive and expressive language. Receptive language is defined as "understanding words that are heard" (Martoz pg. 40). Although young children often understand concepts, relationships of actions and words, and words themselves doesn 't mean that the young child has the words and vocabulary to communicate those concepts and words. Expressive language is defined as "words used to verbalize thoughts and feelings" (Martoz pg. 40).

One of the important aspects is the motor development a process by which the child acquires movement patterns and skills and many factors contribute to this such as genetics, size of the child at birth, nutrition, social class ethnicity and culture. Physical development include both gross motor development which includes the use of large muscles like legs for running and arms for throwing and fine motor development like smiling ,tying school lace picking a fork , drawing with crayons and building blocks .Many studies have shown that physical activities enhance cognitive development like ability to think and problem solving skills ,which require stimulation in the environment like if you give a child a plate and a spoon the child will soon realise that hitting the plate with a spoon will produce sound similarly playing with water like filling the balloon with water will help improve hand eye coordination .activities like learning to

Physical development this can have an emotional effect on the child or children because if they do something good then they will get praised, and it will have a positive effect on them and will make them happy. Although, the child or children’s social development could also be affected because if they have got a physical disability- e.g. – wheelchair, then they will find it really hard to participate in most and certain physical activities for example- football, tennis and it will also make it harder to form friendships because if the child doesn’t take part in any new games, and which could make them really angry and frustrated because they are unable to participate in things like the other children and this could affect their self-confidence

Constrained skills are the quickest to develop and master, such as decoding, fluency, and word recognition (Kintsch, 2004; Paris & Hamilton, 2009). As children acquire and become automatic in these reading skills, these constrained skills aid the child in a smooth transition to the later stages of reading development where there is a heavy focus on unconstrained skills. Unconstrained skills such as comprehension, vocabulary, and composition, continually develop over time making them much more complex with uncertainties of when or how they become automatic (Kamhi, 2009;

First, Children can start essential physical development at a young age. In Ryan Basen’s article “Many Kids are Overdoing it When it Comes to Sports, and That’s Dangerous,” he cites Kinesiology Review, “Sport samplers, who have had the opportunity to develop essential fundamental motor skills, will have many different sports available to them across the lifespan.” The development of gross and fine motor skills are crucial for kids going through school and choosing a sport when older. The fine hold of a baseball can translate to using a pair of scissors. The swing of a bat can translate to many other sports and muscular strength.

Cognitive abilities enable children to process the sensory information that they collect from the environment. According to Wood, Smith and Grossniklaus (2012), Piaget defined cognitive development as the progressive reorganization of the mental processes that results in biological experience and maturation. As numerous researchers have explained, children normally undergo many changes from birth to adolescents, most of them being growth related. According to Cook (2005), the changes in thinking is what researchers call cognitive development. In toddlers, cognitive development is observed through the early use of tools and objects, the child’s behavior when objects are moved in front of them and their understanding when objects and when people are in their environment.

Even though all children do not physically look the same, whether it be different heights and weights all children have a set stage of specific development to each at a specific age. By the age of four many children should be developing tremendously on his/her gross motor skills, which include: • Jumping • Climbing • Running with speed • Dressing themselves • Using the toilet • Turn sharp corners After observing Ethan Beardsley in the movie Yours, mine and ours it was evident that as a four-year-old he is physically developing correctly. When the movie starts we see that he spends a lot of time with his father, he walks confidently by himself and

The young children overall developments are affected by the emotions, social and physical development. These developments will determine on how of an adult they will become. That is why as to maximize their future well-being, the understanding of child development in young children is so important. There are five main areas of development which are the cognitive development, the social and emotional development, the speech and language development, the fine motor skill development and the gross motor skill development.

Having the right knowledge, skills and experience in understanding how children or young people develop are very important tools for early years practitioners. We must put to mind that each child born to this world is unique; they are born with different characters and their personalities and behaviours are formed and influenced by variety of factors. These factors may affect their ways of interacting to the environment and community or setting in which they live in. In my experience as a child care practitioner most of the time, adults mainly focus on the physical development of a child and so quick to base their conclusion or judgement on the physical aspect.

A healthy 6-year old is capable of participating in many physical activities and possesses many abilities that allow them to do so. By the age of 6, they weigh around 46 pounds and are at a height of 46 inches on average (Feldman, 2016, LO 3.2). Now that the child is rapidly growing, it is much easier for them to participate and socialize with children in their class at school. Around this age, the distinction between boys and girls begins to become more apparent. The boys will start to become taller and heavier, compared to girls.