Nature and nurture - Research Paper Example

Nature and Nurture Nature and nurture are the two key determinants of a child’s growth. Nature covers the factors that are natural like the child’s inborn qualities and abilities whereas the nurture pertains mostly to the conditions in which a child is brought up in. The nature or nurture debate related to the child development has been conducted for more than a century. Some people argue that it is totally the nature that develops a child while others argue that the development of a child is influenced by the nurture.

Some people also argue that both have an equal share in developing a child. Essentially, the question is, which of the two influences the children more, their biological and genetic circumstances i.e. nature, or their socioeconomic environment, peer associations and parenting skills i.e. nurture? Most experts are of the view that both the nature and nurture play a big role in the child’s cognitive, social and physical development, though there is little to no information regarding the degree to which either of the two participates in the processes of development.

This essay aims at discussing the influence of nature and nurture on babies. Nowadays, people generally understand the relationship between nature and nurture. Babies are obviously influenced by both nature and nurture. Nature and nurture play mixed roles in the development of a baby's speech. The nature part of it is that the baby is bourn with the ability to learn the skill of making speech. On the other hand, the environment in which a child grows up causes the child to start speaking within one to two years.

The reason why babies start to speak when they are as little as one year old is that their brain is not complete. For example, children who grow up in the middle class of America start to speak when they are only one year old in comparison to the children that live in San Marcos village in Guantanamo, who take quite longer to begin speaking. Many of them do not start to speak before they get 2 years old. Motor development is again influenced by both nature and nurture. ''All children go through the same sequence of motor behaviors which goes in this order: rolling over, sitting straight up without support, standing while holding on to the furniture for support, crawling, and then walking''.

It is the nature that decides all those stages that nearly all children go through. There is no doubt in that because all children go through them in the same order, though there are some children who do not go through them in the conventional order. Have people asked themselves why? Children who do not go through the aforementioned stages are largely influenced by the environment that surrounds them. Parents do their best to bring their children up. In an attempt to facilitate their children, the parents make the baby skip some stages that other babies go through in the course of learning how to walk.

That is the main reason why some children might be seen holding the furniture before they cross the stage of rolling over. Newborn babies have the natural ability to distinguish between sounds within two tones. This is, again, the nature part of the process. Environment plays a very important role here in improving the child’s listening ability. When babies grow older and older, they listen to many new factors. The factors they thus listen make new information to them which essentially increases their knowledge and they get able to distinguish between more tones.

''By six months of age, the child will have picked up enough information about language that it will have begun to ''screen out'' sounds it does not use.'' Nature and nurture have been studding with each other for a long time. Their influences on babies are obvious. Speaking ability is placed in every child by nature, but the very ability is polished by the environment in which the child grows up. The environment increases the knowledge of the babies as they listen to the sounds around them. As a result of this, the baby is able to speak much clearly after one year.

The stages of motor development that children go through are natural, but the environment may influence a child enough to make a change in the order of stages. Most of the children go through the same stages of motor development. Listening skills of newborn babies, are improved to much an extent by the environment in which they grow up, but basically it is the nature that fundamentally inculcates the skills in them. This author believes that both the nature and nurture are influencing peoples' life.

Nature and nurture also are completing each other. Nature determines the basic factors whereas the environment changes the order or the speed of occurrence of the different factors. References: 1-Capacities of the new born ''reading and writing course book'' p.164-165 2-Interaction between nature and nurture ''reading and writing course book'' p.162-163