Child Development - a Gradual Change or a Series of Stages - Research Paper Example

?Child Development, A Gradual Change or a Series of Stages? Introduction There are arguments on both sides of the debate to be considered on the subject of child development and the way in which it occurs depending upon the individual and their particular situation . Parents of more than one child will almost always tell you that one child was quicker to sit up or walk, Differences can be due to the child’s position in the family, their character or their physical makeup. Their development is affected physically and intellectually, but also emotionally. (Pearson Education 1995) A Series of Stages or Gradual Change?. There are any number of books and web sites are available which tell exactly what can be expected at birth, at 3 weeks, and so on e.g Pampers ( 2011).. Such information should however be only taken as a general guide. Being premature makes a great difference. A child born after only 28 weeks of pregnancy cannot be expected to be as advanced in size or ability as one born at full term. A chart such as that provided by Baby Development News ( 2006) tells you not ‘At 3 months babies can do this’, but such things as the percentage of babies who can sit unaided by a particular age, something most of them master by 9 months. Even if it is considered that babies develop in stages some of these can be very prolonged and others cut to the minimum. Although some physiological developments such as the ability to focus the eyes at will develop in the first few weeks in all normal infants, Harmer 1990, other developments are not so fixed in their order. Most infants will go from rolling to crawling, followed by standing with help and then walking round the furniture, and finally walking unaided. There are however some individuals who pull themselves up at an early stage. Others will be able to pull themselves upright some time before they can sit unaided. There are some children who will spend a long time trying to move on to the next stage whatever it be. Then suddenly one day they really can pick up that tiny pea or use a spoon successfully. Is this a new stage or a gradual development of a skill that is finally perfected? Some stages may be prolonged because the child is busy doing something else. At around their first birthday many children are busy learning new motor skills, and so for a while some at least will lag in other areas such as language development (Hudon, undated) . When the weaning stage is reached babies have to learn for the first time how to manipulate the food.. They may like both taste and texture, but just physically be unable to cope with moving it to the back of the mouth and then swallowing. The learning of this art is definitely something that is a gradual process. When it comes to potty training again this is a gradual awareness by the child of what is going on in his body. Many an infant is able to tell a carer that he needs to go to the toilet, for quite some time before he is actually able to wait long enough to reach such a place.. A child cannot learn before his body has physically developed enough that he has the ability to control the various muscles and nerve impulses involved. Also lots of children will be dry and clean by day, in some cases for years, before they can be sure of being dry by night. Later in life the puberty stage arrives. In girls the day comes when she has her first period and puberty has arrived. The truth is that her body has been preparing gradually for this for some time. That it is a gradual process can be seen when it is considered how her body is changing shape – the hips widening, a true waist developing and her breasts growing. In boys it is perhaps more often seen as a gradual process – the growth spurt, the appearance of wispy facial hair which only slowly becomes a true beard. They have voices which for as while at least can swoop from high to low and back again in a few seconds. But however many stages they have to go through, however short or long these are, or even what order they come in, in a normal human person development will take place over time however we choose to describe it. Conclusion It can be plausibly argued that there are definite stages, but that each one is a process, a gradual increasing of ability until the new skill is mastered. This will involve such things as the development of the nervous system and the ability to control muscle groups which must go alongside practise. It is not so much a series of steps as progression along a scale. At a particular age most infants or children should be able to do a particular thing and that there will always be the few who forge ahead and the few who tend to lag behind. Most of the new found abilities, but not all, will normally follow in a particular order, but differences are caused by any number of factors, innate, environmental, social and otherwise. If one look at adults around us, the person with natural grace and athletic ability will be very different from the one who spends their days sitting on a sofa eating takeaways. There will be tall people and short ones, academics and the semi illiterate, the chatty and the silent, as well as a whole range of people in between. Some will have lots of thick hair and in other cases it is thin and wispy – these are all variations along not one, but many spectrums. The same will apply to the children they bear. Works Cited Baby Development News, When should baby sit up? 2006, 19th July 2011 http://www.babydevelopmentnews.com/when-should-baby-sit-up.html Harmer, R. ( revised by Mirabella, G.) , What can my baby see? , Parents Press 1990, 19th July 2011 http://www.ski.org/Vision/babyvision.html Hudon, M., Do boys really talk later than girls? Babies Today, ( undated ) 19th July 2011, http://www.babiestoday.com/expertqa/general/p-do-boys-really-talk-later-than-girls-5498/ Pampers, Child Development Stages Chart – Track Kids Physical Growth, Baby New 16th July 2011, 19th July 2011, http://www.babynew.info/archives/child-development-stages-chart-track-kids-physical-growth.html Pearson Education , Early Child Development: A Multicultural Perspective, Perason Education, Chapter 1, Studying Early Child Development in a Diverse World.1995, 19th July 2011 http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_trawicksmith_earlychild_4/37/9576/2451650.cw/index.html Pearson Education, Early Childhood Development: A Multicultural Perspective, Chapter 9, Infant Social and Emotional Development, 1995, 19th July 2011, http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_trawicksmith_earlychild_4/37/9577/2451907.cw/index.html Read More