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Human Growth and Development

1. There are principles that characterize typical human growth and development as an orderly process, though rates of development vary between individuals. 2. Key principles include development proceeding from head to toe, center of the body outward, and simple to more complex skills over time as maturation allows. 3. Growth depends on biological maturation and learning from experiences, building new skills on existing ones through a continuous developmental process.

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Majoe Peter
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183 views

Human Growth and Development

1. There are principles that characterize typical human growth and development as an orderly process, though rates of development vary between individuals. 2. Key principles include development proceeding from head to toe, center of the body outward, and simple to more complex skills over time as maturation allows. 3. Growth depends on biological maturation and learning from experiences, building new skills on existing ones through a continuous developmental process.

Uploaded by

Majoe Peter
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Human Growth and Development - A Matter of

Principles
There is a set of principles that characterizes the pattern and process of growth and
development. These principles or characteristics describe typical development as a predictable
and orderly process; that is, we can predict how most children will develop and that they will
develop at the same rate and at about the same time as other children. Although there are
individual differences in children's personalities, activity levels, and timing of developmental
milestones, such as ages and stages, the principles and characteristics of development are
universal patterns.

Principles of Development

1. Development proceeds from the head downward. This is called the cephalocaudle
principle. This principle describes the direction of growth and development. According to this
principle, the child gains control of the head first, then the arms, and then the legs. Infants
develop control of the head and face movements within the first two months after birth. In
the next few months, they are able to lift themselves up by using their arms. By 6 to 12
months of age, infants start to gain leg control and may be able to crawl, stand, or walk.
Coordination of arms always precedes coordination of legs.

2. Development proceeds from the center of the body outward. This is the principle
of proximodistal development that also describes the direction of development. This means
that the spinal cord develops before outer parts of the body. The child's arms develop before
the hands and the hands and feet develop before the fingers and toes. Finger and toe muscles
(used in fine motor dexterity) are the last to develop in physical development.

3. Development depends on maturation and learning. Maturation refers to the


sequential characteristic of biological growth and development. The biological changes occur
in sequential order and give children new abilities. Changes in the brain and nervous system
account largely for maturation. These changes in the brain and nervous system help children
to improve in thinking (cognitive) and motor (physical) skills. Also, children must mature to a
certain point before they can progress to new skills (Readiness). For example, a four-month-
old cannot use language because the infant's brain has not matured enough to allow the child
to talk. By two years old, the brain has developed further and with help from others, the child
will have the capacity to say and understand words. Also, a child can't write or draw until he
has developed the motor control to hold a pencil or crayon. Maturational patterns are innate,
that is, genetically programmed. The child's environment and the learning that occurs as a
result of the child's experiences largely determine whether the child will reach optimal
development. A stimulating environment and varied experiences allow a child to develop to
his or her potential.
4. Development proceeds from the simple (concrete) to the more complex.
Children use their cognitive and language skills to reason and solve problems. For example,
learning relationships between things (how things are similar), or classification, is an
important ability in cognitive development. The cognitive process of learning how an apple
and orange are alike begins with the most simplistic or concrete thought of describing the
two. Seeing no relationship, a preschool child will describe the objects according to some
property of the object, such as color. Such a response would be, "An apple is red (or green)
and an orange is orange." The first level of thinking about how objects are alike is to give a
description or functional relationship (both concrete thoughts) between the two objects. "An
apple and orange are round" and "An apple and orange are alike because you eat them" are
typical responses of three, four and five year olds. As children develop further in cognitive
skills, they are able to understand a higher and more complex relationship between objects
and things; that is, that an apple and orange exist in a class called fruit. The child cognitively
is then capable of classification.

5. Growth and development is a continuous process. As a child develops, he or she


adds to the skills already acquired and the new skills become the basis for further
achievement and mastery of skills. Most children follow a similar pattern. Also, one stage of
development lays the foundation for the next stage of development. For example, in motor
development, there is a predictable sequence of developments that occur before walking. The
infant lifts and turns the head before he or she can turn over. Infants can move their limbs
(arms and legs) before grasping an object. Mastery of climbing stairs involves increasing skills
from holding on to walking alone. By the age of four, most children can walk up and down
stairs with alternating feet. As in maturation, in order for children to write or draw, they must
have developed the manual (hand) control to hold a pencil and crayon.

6. Growth and development proceed from the general to specific. In motor


development, the infant will be able to grasp an object with the whole hand before using only
the thumb and forefinger. The infant's first motor movements are very generalized,
undirected, and reflexive, waving arms or kicking before being able to reach or creep toward
an object. Growth occurs from large muscle movements to more refined (smaller) muscle
movements.
7. There are individual rates of growth and development. Each child is different and
the rates at which individual children grow is different. Although the patterns and sequences
for growth and development are usually the same for all children, the rates at which
individual children reach developmental stages will be different. Understanding this fact of
individual differences in rates of development should cause us to be careful about using and
relying on age and stage characteristics to describe or label children. There is a range of ages
for any developmental task to take place. This dismisses the notion of the "average child".
Some children will walk at ten months while others walk a few months older at eighteen
months of age. Some children are more active while others are more passive. This does not
mean that the passive child will be less intelligent as an adult. There is no validity to
comparing one child's progress with or against another child. Rates of development also are
not uniform within an individual child. For example, a child's intellectual development may
progress faster than his emotional or social development.

An understanding of the principles of development helps us to plan appropriate activities and


stimulating and enriching experiences for children, and provides a basis for understanding
how to encourage and support young children's learning.

Virginia Cooperative Extension materials are available for public use, re-print, or citation without further permission,
provided the use includes credit to the author and to Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State
University.

Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia State
University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Alan L. Grant, Dean, College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, and Interim Director, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg;   Wondi Mersie, Interim
Administrator,1890 Extension Program, Virginia State, Petersburg.

May 1, 2009

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