Child Development

Dr Abdo Tarhini PhD

Development

• Development is to grow into a more mature or advanced status
• In Biology is the progress from earlier to later stages of organism's ontogensis
• Human Development is the progress from one-cell zygote to adult form
• Child development studies the biological and psychological changes from birth to the end of adolescence.

Two Key Questions

• The Nature-Nurture debate about the degree to which inborn tendencies and environmental factors influence development
• The continuity-discontinuity issue, whether the child having more of the same (quantity change) or change in kind (qualitative change in stages).

Development theories

• Psychoanalytic theories: Freud’s Psychosexual Theory, Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
• Cognitive Theories: Piaget’s Cognitive- Development Theory, Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory, Information-Processing Theory
• Learning Theories: Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory.

Prenatal Development

• 0-2/40 Germinal Conception and Implantation
• 3-8/40 Embryonic Organogenesis
• 9-12/40 beginning of Fetal stage, alternating physical activity and rest
• 13-16/40 responses to mother’s voice and loud voice
• 17-20/40 Fetal movements felt by mother
• 25-28/40 recognition of mother voice, regular periods of rest and activity

Birth

• 3 stages of labour:
• Stage 1 dilation and effacement,
• Stage 2 the actual delivery
• Stage 3 placenta delivery
• Father Presence
• Complications
• First Greeting
• ​

Newborn (Apgars)

0

1

2

Heart rate

Absent

<100/min

>100/min

Respiratory rate

No breathing

Weak cry and shallow breathing

Strong cry and regular breathing

Muscle tone

Flaccid

Some flexion on extremities

Well felxed

Response to stimulation

None

Some motion

Cry

Colour

Blue or Pale

Body pink, extremities blue

Completely pink

Newborn (Reflexes)

• Tonic neck (extension on turned head side): fades by 4 months
• Grasping (fist around finger): fades by 3-4 months
• Moro (extension and arching for drop or loud voice): fades by 6 months
• Walking (step-like motion): fades by 8 weeks
• Babinski (fan out toes): fades between 8 and12 months
• Rooting (turning head and sucking motion): fades after 3 weeks, develop voluntary head turning

Infancy (6 weeks)

• Gross Motor: head level with body in ventral suspension (motor development is cephalocaudal and proximodistal)
• Fine motor and vision: fixes and follow; discriminate mother’s face, some colour vision.
• Speech, Language and Hearing: crying, could cooing (vowel sounds); stills to sound, discriminate some individual voices, particularly mother’s
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: smiles to someone smiling directly at him

Infancy (3 months)

• Gross Motor: head at 90 degree in ventral
• Fine motor and vision: holds object placed in the hand; follow objects, colour vision developed.
• Speech, Language and Hearing: cooing, shows increase and decrease tone; turns to sound.
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: hand regard with eyes; laughs and squeals.

    Piaget’s Primary Circular reaction

Infancy (6 months)

• Gross Motor: no head lag, sits with support, in prone lifts up on forearms, turn on supine
• Fine motor and vision: palmar grasp, transfer objects hand to hand
• Speech, Language and Hearing: babbles (consonant and vowel), rising and falling intonation
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: works to reach a toy, may finger feed

​

    Secondary circular reaction (4-8 months-        more aware of events outside him)

Infancy (9 months)

• Gross Motor: crawls, sits unsupported and pivot around
• Fine motor and vision: pincer grasp, index finger approach, bangs 2 cups cubes together
• Speech, Language and Hearing: two syllabus babbling, shifting toward heard language.
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: waves bye-bye, plays pat a cake, indicate want

​

Toddler (12 months)

• Gross Motor: pulls to stand, cruises, stands alone briefly, can walk alone
• Fine motor and vision: put blocks in cup, casting
• Speech, Language and Hearing: one or two words for people or things
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: imitates activities, plays ball, object permanence established

​

Toddler (18 months)

• Gross Motor: walks well, runs
• Fine motor and vision: tower of 2-4 cubes, scribbles
• Speech, Language and Hearing: 6-12 words, nouns > verbs, motherese (infant direct language); learn form adult conversation
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: uses spoon, helps in house, symbolic play

​

  Tertiary circular reaction (12-18 mo-     experimentations)

​

Toddler (2 years)

• Gross Motor: kicks ball, climbs stairs 2 feet per step
• Fine motor and vision: tower of 6-7 cubes, circular scribbles
• Speech, Language and Hearing: about 300 words, joins 2-3 words, knows 5-6 body parts, identifies two pictures, telegraphic speech, adding inflection.
• Social, Emotional and Behavioural: removes a garment e.g. Sock.

​

Beginning of representational thoughts (18-24 months, the end of sensorimotor stage )

Preschool Age

• Preoperational stage of cognition
• Ability to use symbols
• Pretend in their play
• Reason about the world still poor
• Egocentrism
• Conservation of weight, quantity, length and number not still developped
• By 4-5 years distinguish between material false and reality
• ​

School Age

• Concrete operations stage 

       - Begin think logically about objects

      - Principe of reversibility by inductive

      - Reciprocal Friendship established

• Siegler’s wave theory of strategies
• Relational complexity and Transitivity
• Popular and neglected children
• Rejected children

Adolescence

• Formal operations stage
• Think logically not tide to concrete referents in the real world
• Systematic problem solving (pendulum i.e.)
• Deductive reasoning
• Peer relationships
• Personality trait and Intimation
• Clique and Crowd
• Sexual thinking
• Morality (pre- , conventional and post-)
• Problem Behaviour Syndrome

​

Thank You!