The Development of a Child - Essay Example

The Development of a Child Introduction The development of a child is a process of becoming biologically and psychologically independent and mature. This building process is an ongoing, continuous and dynamic process. The progress is a directional step towards increasing autonomy of an individual from dependency. These transformational changes are strongly influenced by genetically determined factors like overall growth, changes in proportion of body and brain parts, and mellowing certain tasks like vision and dietary needs. The specific characteristics occur in a particular sequence and within a specific period. The developmental process can be boosted or nurtured by manipulating various events during prenatal life, and physical, social, cultural, learning and emotional areas through environmental stimuli as suggested by some theorists (Ashford et al., 2001). Holistic development of the child is the integrated approach of nurturing child’s all round developmental progress. The developmental domains should be gazed and grasped carefully to understand the overall growth of the child. This helps in unfolding abilities of each child. Then, accordingly efforts should be made so that, the child is encouraged to learn and evolve. Bringing together all the development aspects, lead to flowering of a child. Another important angle to study developmental process is to address issues such as developmental delay. The study of typical chronological ages associated with specific physical and mental capabilities help in prevention of and early intervention in developmental delay. The development studies are focused on issues related to physical and motor development, social and emotional development, cognitive development, etc. Therefore, development is a cumulative effect of all the developmental stages and domain. The growth of the child should be healthy and appropriate in each developmental sphere. Though the developmental timelines can vary greatly from child to child, it gives overall picture of growth chart (von Hahn, 2005a). Various aspects of holistic development like physical, emotional, intellectual, social, moral, cultural, and spiritual are interwoven (Meggitt, 2006). The different dimensions of the development are blended in individual’s personality and behaviour. Functions related to these domains, work as a whole coordinated system in human being. www.materialbank.co.za/uploads/ActivityList/CORE_ECDL4_US13850_Activity%201%20Holistic%20development.pdf Physical and motor development Motor skills are the abilities required in order to mobilize muscles of the body. Proficiency in other developmental domains like (speech/language, cognition, and socio-emotional) are connected to acquisition of Motor activity. The physical and motor developmental change follows age wise particular pattern. Gross motor skills are referred to the movements of the large muscles of the body like arms, legs, feet, or the entire body. Activities related to gross motor skills are easy tasks like running, jumping etc. Fine motor developmental skills are related to manipulating and controlling objects with small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue Activities related to fine motor skills are holding an object, tasting with lip and tongue. More complex skills can be acquired easily by subjecting child to result oriented environmental stimuli (von Hahn, 2005b). Social and emotional development The type of responses to circumstances is same of every normal child and is in-built behavior of every individual. But, there is a great variation in the intensity or expressiveness of emotions. If a person is in sad mood, every normal child will show concern and sympathy, but the magnitude of feelings is different. As the development progresses the child is able to understand gradually about the attachment between the people, social norms, expression of behaviour etc. Positive healthy relationships are building blocks of healthy development (Bagdi and Vacca, 2005). Cognitive development The cognitive development is the emergence and acquisition of intelligence by development of thought process. The progression of knowledge is proportional to maturity of thought process. Thought process involves perception, intuition, and reasoning. Cognitive development leads understanding of a particular concept and it increases problem solving capacity. Generally, the cognitive behavior is related to inbuilt intelligence. But it can be boosted by external stimuli. According to Piaget's cognitive development theory, the cognitive behavior is influenced by maturation of the nervous system, experience, social transmission of information and equilibration (Geary, 2004; Hurley, 2005). Language and communication development The language and communication development is a coordinated effort of the child and the surrounding stimuli. The language is not only vocabulary but the knowledge of meaning of words, structured sound for conveying linguistic meaning and use of language in different contexts (Shelov, 1998). Foundation of early childhood development is based on some of the pioneering theories of educational theorists and psychologists. All the theorists believe parents are prime important to achieve developmental cornerstones in their child’s life (Yr Adran Plant, Addysg, Dysgu Gydol Oes a Sgiliau, 2008). The prominent developmental theorists and psychologists of twentieth century are Vygotsky and Piaget who also studied child’s cognitive development scientifically. These two theorists are often compared due to different views on cognition and language development. Piaget is known as ‘individual theorist’, while Vygotsky is appreciated as ‘social theorist’ (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 405). Human intelligence is the most fiercely challenged feature in the debate between Piaget and Vygotsky. Jean Piaget (1896–1980) The Swiss biologist and epistemologist, Jean Piaget is a brilliant thinker, and founder of cognitive development theory. He believed that every child is constitutionally active, and it interacts with the world round according to the age, develop self centric theories, and adapts to it. He referred these adaptations as ‘cognitive adaptations’ (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 42). He hypothesized that lower mental functioning creates higher mental functioning, and is achieved stepwise. He felt that the adult directed behaviour does not contribute much for cognitive and emotional growth in children. He divulged the differences between animal and human being, based on biological principles of evolution and the presence of abstract symbolic reasoning. He looked cognitive development from two aspects: the way of the actual knowing process and the nature or speed of knowing the things around. While working in Binet's intelligence testing lab in Paris, he got attracted towards the children’s results where they made mistakes. Every individual is born with varied broad range of intelligence. He thought all age group children are qualitatively intelligent with varied degree, since they are able to think each question differently and as the age precedes their answers become quantitative due to experiences. He got more indulged into children’s thinking process and ability. He integrated questioning and observing strategies in the clinic to research cognitive functioning further. He came out with the fact that activity builds up knowledge and it displays their logic behind thinking. He realized the child’s manipulation of objects and ideas are important to stimulate learning ability in the child. He defined this cognition ability as age related different operation stages which can not be skipped: sensorimotor stage, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 391). He threw focus on adaptability of an organism to the surrounding and this adjustment is characteristic of intelligence. Mental organizations regulate this adaptation or behaviour of an individual towards objects, beliefs, ideas, etc. These structured mental operations are referred schemas. The youngsters apply theses schemas to understand, and depict the related actions. The schemas which are inherent in infants are named as ‘reflexes’. These reflexes help the child to fit to the surrounding situations. These schemas amplify further with the child’s age unlike animals. These reflexes, then change to constructed schemes, and become more complex with the time. Adaptation capacity increases with the age, which creates complex behaviour. These complex constructed schemes are the cognitive structures. These can be arranged in a graded series from general to specific. The child tries to maintain his/her equilibrium so that he can adjust with the surrounding through appropriate behaviour. Social transmission or adaptation is done through two strategies: assimilation and accommodation (Huitt & Hummel, 2003) and remain invariant (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 391) throughout life during the development. In the assimilation process the person tries to change the environment itself according to his/her available mental structures. The person incorporates new ideas, events or objects in preexistant thought process by correlating them with familiar activity and become habituated towards these new things, and behaves in the same manner (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 42). For example: a sucking schema which is developed at an infantile stage can also be used effectively for a new bottle as the infant grows up. In the accommodation process the person tries to change the cognition sets itself according to the circumstances. For example: a sucking schema which is developed at an infantile stage can also be used effectively for a new bottle having different shape and size. While handling new toy, the child may change his/her thinking process so that he can use or play with it effectively. The assimilation and accommodation are used in alone or in combination throughout the life span of the individual as per the requirement of the adaptability (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 43). Piaget wanted that the child should discover byherself/byhimself. Piaget believed that the children’s development can be increased by the stimulation of natural development in them without guiding actual process of the development. One of the major variant in the development process is the cognitive structure. Cognitive functioning is activity based at an early age, and as the child comes into adolescence stage thought process slowly becomes abstract. The stages of development are briefly discussed as follows: 1. Sensorimotor stage (Infancy: 0 to 2 years): This is an important stage consisting of 6 defined substages in human development where helpless neonate make nonintegrated reflex responses to outside sensory impulses. Motor activity initiates mental functioning, but still has undeveloped visual perceptions (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). These reflexes become coordinated by repetitive action in the second substage, and helps in forming coordination between different senses. By the third substage, the child develops reorganized volitional responses, followed by ‘object permanence’ in the fourth substage (when the child is around 8 months old). They slowly start developing mind related activities by the fifth substage, by which they are able to solve simple problems. The children know the object until it is displayed right in front of their eyes, and once it is out of sight they think it does not exist. Slowly their mental representation changes, and they come to know the object can not disappear, if its location changes. Then, due to interaction of the child with the object and people in the environment, they start using symbolic words at the end of sensorimotor stage (Muir & Slater, 2000, p. xix). 2. Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood: 2 to 7 years): This stage is divided into two substages (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). The kid start interacting with the world around through symbolic play, gestures, drawing, improved speech etc. (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 44), and get the things done. They are able to request what they want. This is an egocentric stage where the child has not yet developed the logical and reversible thinking, and believes in imaginary world such as faith in Santa Claus. The animism shown by the child makes him associate the inanimate objects (especially moving objects like clouds, winds etc) to live things. The child applies activities of living creatures to nonliving things. 3. Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence: 7 to 11 years): This stage is important step towards elimination of egocentrism, and appearance of logical and reversible thought process. Cognitive framework in this stage becomes systematic, and operational, which is shown through appropriate use of symbols in manipulating concrete objects (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). The child in this category is able to solve numerous problems related to physical world, but still has not developed lateral thinking to look out for diverse possibilities, and therefore depend upon few combinations (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 46). These age group children are better in solving conservation problems related to number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, volume (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). 4. Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood: from 11 year onwards): This is the last stage of cognitive development where intelligence is displayed by linking symbols to abstract and numerous variables through logical and reversible thinking (Huitt & Hummel, 2003; Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 46) so as to contemplate many hypotheses. He thought that the children develop inductive and deductive reasoning abilities (Woolfolk, 2004), due to which they can think of multifactor related to any problem or situation, and can come out with the multimodal strategies. Thus, Piaget sensed that the children belonging to these age group have broaden their thinking horizon and abilities. Thus, Piaget believed in stepwise success of each stage, which them automatically leads another stage. He emphasized the universal nature of stages irrespective of the culture (Soylent Communications, 2009). He hypothesized his theories from the case studies involving children. He took their interviews; consider their perspectives, judgments, and logical reasoning. He applied these investigations to reveal cognitive development pattern. The child should be given time and space to flourish creativity and to come up with new and creative ideas, without interference from outside world (Soylent Communications, 2009). Piaget’s views were not easily accepted initially due to his age related development view which was not based on widely accepted fact of behaviorism, his writings were too complex to grasp easily, and his publications were in French which were difficult to access and were not understood by British psychologists (Slater & Bremner, 2003, p. 46).The stages of ‘intersensory coordination’ (Muir & Slater, 2000, p. xix) and the explanation about inadequate object permanence in infants developed by Piaget were topic of controversy. Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) Russian psychologists Lev Vygotsky emphasized that the social interaction is the first step towards the development of the mental functioning of the child followed by individual progress (Carpendale & Lewis, 2006, p. 140). He believed that the social environment of the child is instrumental to child’s thinking and learning growth. Environmental inputs influence the behaviour of the child. Vygotsky believed language development as one of the aspect of learning strategy which provides fresh as well as additional views to think about the surrounding world. This indicates that language assists in a cognitive development of a child, and helps the child to control and direct his behaviour. He contemplated that the language is a tool used by a child to perceive the world around and unfold the problems with the help of others through interaction. He also stressed the language development through the interaction of the child with his/her community (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 514). This give rise to social development, and conduct himself what he has learnt at an early age (Kristinsdóttir, 2001). His sociocultural approach is based on the principle that every individual’s culture is dependent upon the happenings, ideas and events in the environment where he/she is brought up, and is inherent part of the development. Shared knowledge of the culture is gist element in the growth of the child. He also believed that there are two main aspects of cultural development first, interpsychological i.e. among the people (outside world), and intrapsychologica i.e. from within the child (inside world) (Kristinsdóttir, 2001). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of ideas. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals (Vygotsky, 1978, p.57). The centralized idea of his theory is ‘zone of proximal development’ or ZPD. This is a zone of the development between actual flowering to maximum potential capacity of the youngster. A standard IQ test gauges the actual level of development (Kristinsdóttir, 2001). But it has limitations for explanations of IQ when two different groups’ are compared. The synergistic efforts are able to solve more problems than an individual child, and are referred as ‘level of potential development’ of a child. The capacity to solve problems also depends upon the type of collaboration. The intelligence range could be exploited fully by environmental stimulating factors like socio-cultural attributes, colleagues, the family environment, and educators. ZPD can be broaden by intentional efforts. An expert intervention of more knowledgeable person fuels the lower level growth of a child through synergistically constructing the understanding about the worldly issues and events (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 497). This indicates that the seemingly difficult task which the kid could not have done alone can be achieved with joint efforts of the more capable individual. The different age groups can be brought together to capitalize on different opportunities in learning environment. The children from nongraded group pick up skills and abilities from each other to grow intellectually. Since in mixed age groups multifarious levels of maturity and competence are easily available, its benefits are numerous (Nilsen, 2004). Vygotsky asserts that competency levels of the individual are increased in the presence of easily available higher competency due to challenging mental and social operations faced by the child (Carpendale & Lewis, 2006, p. 140). He also felt that when diverse age groups come together it helps in building novel schemas and internalization of ideas (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 509). When the children of varying levels of cognitive maturity interacts higher order cognitive functions like literacy, is positively benefited. The knowledge of letters and sounds which is an elemental part of the early education in toddlers is improved by observing and imitating older children. The child's partially developed knowledge and skills related to activities like reading, writing etc are extended to higher levels with assistance provided by their more able counterparts. The younger ones become more efficient in response to these external influences. Flexibility and competency offered in mixed group education, leads to the development of thought process (Rasmussen, 2005). This increases problem solving capacity of children. When the elder ones help younger children they try to tackle the child at his/her own level. Thus, cooperative and collaborative culture aids in intellectual progression (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 497). Vygotsky sensed that the instructions and learning tools are indispensable part of learning process. Bruner gave new dimension to learning and threw focus on the requirement of structured learning which aids in deeply understanding the subject, rather than mastering the known principles (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 509). His view matched with Marxist theory of socialism and collectivism. He believed that consciousness is at the heart of the science of mind. He argued that every person is prone to ‘dialectical interplay’ between biological and cultural attributes (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 493). He called this ‘a process of internalization’. The environment is a reservoir of knowledge. This builds up culture, which individual slowly adapts through interpersonal dialogues. Theses social relations progresses as mental functions. Therefore this process brings out intellectual transformation by positively altering mental structures and functions (Susswein, Bibok, & Carpendale, 2007). He also hypothesized that the prehension gives rise to pointing which originates at an early age for interaction with others (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 229). He felt that the grasping of an object is a difficult task for a child, and therefore pointing gestures are imperative to communicate his/her needs to the parents. Parents give intentional meaning to these gestures to reach the object. Vygotsky studied affective and cognitive aspects of development from play based angle. He found that play can explore, develop, and learn real life experiences which enhance their knowledge about the sum and substance of the world around them. They are able to build up ideas, practice them and able to feel them. Play environment has unmet positive characteristics and exceptional features which provide physical activity, freedom and movement to children. This leading source of development frees children from situational constraints and opens up the door for imagination through which they can achieve unrealized dreams (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 231). Jerome Bruner took this further, and focused that play in a trustworthy environment with educator’s supervision and support (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 231); the children are able to take risks, accept challenges. He described the instructional interaction between an adult and a child as ‘scaffolding’ (Kristinsdóttir, 2001). They make mistakes and try to correct them. They develop safety attitude and are able to take care of themselves in risky situations. Reinterpretations and Contradictions of Vygotsky The theory of the pointing gesture suggested by Vygotsky had certain limitations since it could not explain low levels of reaching gestures at an early age. It was found that these indications serves different purposes and evolved during the development of a child from protoimperative to protodeclarative application (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 230). Vygotsky’s internalization concept is reconceptualized by some researchers as the cognitive structure and functions are not direct result of social interactions, but they are contextual and are defined by selection pressures and nature and type of interactions ((Susswein, Bibok, & Carpendale, 2007). Conclusion Similarities and differences of the assumptions between the two theorists are widely discussed to develop appropriate teaching methods. The collective documentation of Piaget’s, Vygotsky’s, and Bruner’s theory fabricate the foundation of the constructivist theory of learning and instruction (Huitt, & Hummel, 2003). Piaget is known as ‘individual theorist’, while Vygotsky is appreciated as ‘social theorist’ (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 405). However, both the theorists claim the continuity-based approach for former nonlinguistic cognition and interaction in the language domain (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 405). According to them, the child plays active role in building knowledge and understanding (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 493). Piaget emphasized on the chronological age of a child playing important part for the acquisition of specific development; while Vygotsky’s development approach was revolved around child’s community, culture and language. Vygotsky considered that the heterogeneous group environment fuels development by integrating inherent characteristics of an individual to observe, emulate and initiate a wide range of competencies, and even discoveries. This is in contradiction with Piaget’s theory that the child’s growth is as per the chronological age (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2003, p. 497), and adult’s knowledge or intervention does not contribute much to achieve developmental miletones. Piaget emphasized the universal nature of stages irrespective of the culture (Soylent Communications, 2009). Piaget’s theory stresses learning of the child is through self directed and self-centric approach. Piaget defined language acquisition by linking it to representation and symbolic thought; while Vygotsky defined the early communication development as a socially shared construction (Bremner & Fogel, 2004, p. 405). References Ashford, J.B., LeCroy, C.W., & Lortie, K.L. (2001). Human behavior in the social environment (2nd ed.) 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