Physical growth and size
Physical growth occurs from 0 to 18 years. This is from the time the baby is born to the time the baby matures. The child will grow according to the individual child and the different parts of its body; this also depends on the rate that the child will grow at throughout the years. The child may experience a ‘growth spurt’, which is when the body tends to grow at a much faster pace than the child’s usual growth rate. Parts of the body also grow quicker than other parts at different times. For example, usually a baby’s head is larger than the rest of the body when born. As the baby grows, the head becomes smaller in proportion to the rest of the body parts.
Health professionals monitor babies’ growth using a chart called the ‘Centile Chart’. Midwives and health visitors usually measure and weigh babies and children and then plot the measurements on the centile chart. A centile chart is used to measure babies and childrens’ height and weight and compare it to the average height and weight. This is to check if they are growing at a normal rate. If they are not, then it could be because of health implications, which is then assessed by the GP. A centile chart is quite similar to the developmental milestones, as they both measure babies and children according to the average measurements. The height and weight of a child is usually recorded on two separate centile charts. There is also a separate centile chart for both boys and girls. This is because boys are usually taller and weigh more than girls, so the average height and weight will be different for both genders.
The chart has three lines marked on it and they are known as the 98th centile, the 50th centile and the 2nd centile. For the 98th centile it would be labelled as ‘98’ and this will show the children who are taller or heavier than the average child. The 50th centile would be labelled as ‘50’ and this shows the average height and weight of the child. Therefore, the 2nd centile would be labelled as ‘2’ and this shows the children who are shorter or lighter than the average child. Only 3% of children are expected to be above or below the 98th or 2nd centile.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
Here is a centile chart that I have completed for my case study, Jayden:
The template for this centile chart was from:
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It is a centile chart for boys and it is between the ages of 2-20 years old. However, because my case study is only 8 years old, I have plotted the markings up to the age of 8. The first part of the chart shows the height and the second part shows the weight of Jayden compared to the average. As you can see, Jayden’s height and weight is below average. Although if you look closely, you can see that he is not far off being the average height and weight. You can also see that Jayden’s growth spurt was between the ages of 4 to 6 from both his height and weight. This could have been because this was when he started to eat a more variety of foods, which enabled him to grow and develop much better, through height and weight.
Physical Development
Physical development is when the child starts gaining control of their movements and learning skills, these are developed with age. Physical development is when the muscle strength increases in a child. They learn to sit up by themselves, and then they learn how to crawl and eventually how to walk. This is all to do with the physical development of a child’s muscles. However, physical development also includes the maturity of the central nervous system. This means that children are more tolerant to pain as they grow older, due to the toleration levels of their central nervous system. For example, if a child is dropped at 3 months old, the amount of pain inflicted on the child would be substantially high, where as if a child at 3 years was dropped the amount of pain inflicted would be noticeably lower due to the developmental progression of the nervous system. Physical development can be divided into three main categories, these are:
- Fine motor skills
- Gross motor skills
- Sensory skills
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
Gross Motor Skills
Gross motor skills are the reflexes in a child’s body. This consists of using the larger muscles in the legs, arms, torso and feet to control their body and larger movements. When a baby is born their physical movements consist of unintentional movements known as reflexes. These reflexes help babies to survive, as they have no control over their bodies or their movements at first. Once the baby gains control over it’s body and movements, these reflexes go. This type of reflex is known as ‘primitive reflexes’. For example, anything placed in a baby’s mouth will automatically be assumed as a breast or teat. Therefore, the baby will automatically start sucking as they think they are getting fed. This is a primitive reflex, which disappears once the baby is 6 months old.
AO1/AO2
Here are the developmental milestones for my case study Jayden. The table below shows the norms of physical development: gross motor skills, compared to the age Jayden actually met the milestones:
Template from: (Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – pages 165-166)
Generally, Jayden’s gross motor skills were developed very late. Sometimes it took him a whole year to learn certain skills. I think this could have been because of his parents not encouraging him enough to attempt certain activities by himself. Instead they helped him, which slowed down his development. Between the ages of 3 to 4 especially, you can see his development being very slow.
Some children are slow at developing gross motor skills, this is not a major problem, although it shows that Jayden was probably not supported enough to attempt skills by himself. This slow development could have also been because he was premature. Another factor causing his slow development could have been because he was very clingy towards his parents (shown from his social and emotional development). This shows that he was probably not confident enough to develop skills, such as climbing the stairs, as he felt safer being close to his parents.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills is another reflex movement but involves grasping. To enable smaller movements and manipulation, this reflex involves using smaller muscles of the fingers, thumbs, toes, wrists, lips and tongue. For example, a baby will first start to curl their hands when born, therefore, if an object was placed in their hands, they would try to hold onto the object by curling their hands. This reflex disappears after 3 months.
A ‘pincer’ grip is when a baby can hold an object between their thumb and index finger. Pincer grasp is usually developed at the age of 1.
A child usually performs gross motors skills before they perform fine motor skills. This is because a baby finds it easier to develop their larger muscles before they develop their smaller muscles and movements. For example, a baby will learn to wave their legs and arms around first, before wiggling their fingers and toes. This is because gross motor skills involve controlling the body; the baby needs to know how to control the body before it can perform smaller movements and manipulations.
Gross and fine motor skills are very similar however, as many activities depend on the co-ordination of both motor skills. For example, being able to pick up a ball that is placed on the floor – the child needs to be able to pick up the ball with its fingers (pincer gripping - fine motor skills) and move the ball off the floor with its arms (gross motor skills).
Although they work together most of the time, there is a difference to what each skill performs. Gross motor skills are the larger muscle movements and fine motor skills are the smaller muscle movements. They are both reflexes but involve different parts of the body. For a baby to develop properly, he or she needs to develop both skills well, as one skill performed without the other would make it extremely hard for the baby to physically develop to its full potential.
AO1/AO2
The table below shows the norms of physical development: fine motor skills, compared to the age Jayden actually met the milestones:
Template from: (Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – pages 163-164)
As you can see, Jayden developed his fine motor skills rather late, compared to the expected norms. I think this is because he was not good with pincer grasping objects.
He has never put large beads on a string or used a large needle to sew with thread. Therefore, another reason for his slow develop could be because his parents did not try to teach him enough fine motor skills. They probably did not try to encourage him enough to attempt certain activities by himself. Instead they probably helped him, which slowed down his development.
Sensory Development
Sensory development consists of using our senses, which are sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, as shown below:
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Senses are the physical processes of our nervous system. The nervous system has a sensory system dedicated to each sense (). For example, breastfed babies can sense the smell of their mothers’ breast compared to other women’s breast. This shows that the baby can use its smell sense to distinguish different smells. Therefore, the baby is developing its sense of smell. This will develop as they grow older, for example, when the baby is 5 years old, their sense of smell would have fully developed to an adults level.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
Intellectual Development
Intellectual development is the development of the mind. A child’s mind is very active from birth. As children develop their mind to think, learn, reason and explain, their intellectual development progresses. For example, at 3 months old a baby likes to explore different textures, like on a play gym or an activity mat. By the time the child is 2 years old, they have developed different textures in their mind and are now able to match different textures.
Children learn intellectually through different ways, some of them being:
- Using their senses
- Exploring
- Imitating/role play
- Curiosity
- Experiments
- Observing
- Experiences
- Making mistakes
- Activities
- Playing
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – page 168)
There are some factors such as family history that can affect intellectual development. This is because a baby’s development can be affected by inheriting genes from its parents. The inheritance could be from a family’s history of late developers. Another factor that can affect a child’s intellectual development could be encouragement from the parents to help learn and develop their child’s mind. It could also be the environment that the child lives in; if the child’s environment is cramped, this could mean that there is not a lot of space for the child to play and do certain activities that would develop his or hers skills. This could also lead to financial factors, the parents of the child not having enough money to facilitate learning aids to help their child’s development.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
AO1/AO2
The table below shows the norms of intellectual development; compared to the age Jayden actually met the milestones:
Template from: (Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – pages 169-170)
Jayden’s overall intellectual skills have developed really well. He has reached the right age for each milestone, although between the ages of 3 to 6 years old, he would seem to develop these skills a few months later than his age. I think this is due to him having problems with his retention at school, which was noticed by one of the teachers. This is mentioned in more detail in AO2. This could have caused Jayden to be slightly slower intellectually. However, as he started attending speech therapy in school to help his retention, he started to develop his skills properly again.
Cognitive development
Cognitive simply means thinking. Cognitive development is similar to intellectual development as it is the development of the mind, however it is the development of the mind through thinking and learning skills. This enables a child to understand the environment around them. The keys to successful cognitive development are:
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Concepts – Children need to learn different concepts. The child has to see and experience things to develop a range of concepts. An adult providing activities, equipment and support can also develop these concepts.
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Problem solving skills – A child learns how to solve problems through trial and error, identifying there is a problem that needs solving, working out a solution and predicting what might happen. This is also linked to the child’s ability to reason. They begin to understand that their actions will produce results such as; pushing a button on a toy will produce a result by making a noise.
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Creativity – this gives a child the ability to use their imagination to express their ideas. This can be done through painting pictures, making collages, dancing and making music, etc.
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Imagination – this is when a child sees things that do not exist or are not in front of them. Children imagine images in their head to play pretend games, make up stories or talk to an imaginary friend. This gives them comfort in knowing there is someone there with them.
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Memory – a child storing and retrieving information, ideas and things that have happened to them, learn this mentally. They remember things that have happened to them in their brain for a short time or depending on the situation, this could be a long-term memory. Sometimes a little release of information can trigger off what they stored as memory in their head.
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Object permanence – this describes the awareness of an object to a child. For example, if an object were no longer visible to a baby, they would think that the object no longer exists. Object permanence tries to develop the child’s mind to think that the object still exists although it is not visible to the eye. This is also known as perception. “Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information.” ()
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Concentration – this is the ability of a child to spend time and pay attention to a task. The child develops the ability to stay focused on a task for longer as they develop, where as at first, they would get distracted and lose concentration a lot quicker.
A theorist called Piaget believes that the stages of cognitive development have an affect on how a child’s thinking is developed throughout their childhood. However, this theory was understood in the late 1980s and since then, childrens stages of cognitive development have increasingly changed due to the child’s age. Nowadays, children develop much quicker than before, although the stages still work in conjunction to the cognitive development of children. (This is explained in more detail in AO3)
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
Language development
Language is how a person speaks and communicates with others, also known as verbal communication. Language development is how children express their needs and share information with others using language. A child’s language is developed depending on how much the child practices speaking. From birth a baby cannot speak, however they use other forms of language to share information. For example, they learn how to cry when they are hungry, this is using language and the baby has developed this skill by knowing that when he or she cries, they will be fed.
Speaking through the mouth does not only develop language, it also involves other physical movements. E.g. face expressions, sign language, writing, etc. It can also involve non-verbal communication such as listening to voices, practising sounds and learning what different sounds mean. Language development can be divided into two stages:
- Pre-linguistic
- Linguistic
The pre-linguistic stage occurs between birth and 12 months. At this stage, babies learn to understand what is being said to them and learn the rules of how to communicate. Although they cannot talk at this stage, they learn to communicate to gain attention by crying, smiling and using facial expressions; they may also point to what they want or nod their heads.
The linguistic stage is when babies’ speech starts to develop. Now words can be used to label objects or to share information. The child first starts off with one-word speeches and then later on their language develops into complex sentences.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
AO1/AO2
The table below shows the norms of language development; compared to the age Jayden actually met the milestones:
Template from: (Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – page 172)
Jayden’s language skills seem to have developed very well according to the expected milestone age. He is only a month under the expected development during the first few stages of his life. I think this is because he was premature, resulting to his development skill progressing once he was born. However, it is not a massive difference to the expected milestone age. Generally, he has reached the milestones very well. This could be because he is from an extended family; having people around him all the time could have helped develop his language.
Emotional Development
Emotional development is how children understand what people are feeling and what they are feeling about themselves through the things they do. Children feel a lot of emotions including fear, excitement, affection, pride, jealousy, sadness and contentment. A child develops emotionally starting from birth. For example, when a baby is feeling lonely they will cry for attention and love. This is how babies express their emotions, through crying, laughing and facial expressions.
When children grow older, they learn to control their emotions. This is another emotional development as they have learnt how to control their feelings, and their brain functions. This is learnt through the later stages of childhood. An example of this would be a child falling over and not wanting to concern others of his or her accident, therefore controlling his or her emotions. This in affect will not only control the child’s emotions, but the child has also developed that it will effect other people’s emotions and is trying to control that too.
Emotional development can affect intellectual and social development. They learn how different emotions can affect others around them. The children learn to understand that being happy is healthier than being sad, as there is a less risk of the child becoming stressed or depressed.
Emotional development can also affect social development by the child understanding that their emotions affect the relationship they have with others. For example, if they love their parents, the parents will care and love the child back. On the other hand, if a child was being rude and arrogant, other children would not want to socialize with him or her, leaving the child feeling emotionally lonely and upset. Children also learn different emotions through social experience.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
Social Development
Socializing is the process of interacting with others. They begin to socialize at first with their primary carer, e.g. parents, carers, etc. The social skills developed from a child are through the child socialising with its primary carers.
A baby’s social development follows a pattern, which is:
- Interaction with their main carer – this include making eye contact, smiling, showing facial expressions and babbling.
- Knowing that they are part of a family – they recognise whom their family are through familiar faces that they see all the time. They understand who strangers are by not recognising the faces.
- Mixing with other people in a group and co-operating – they start to follow instructions, copying and imitating actions, playing with other children and sharing toys or objects with others.
Children are not born with social skills; they have to learn how to develop this through life experiences. Usually it is the primary carers that encourage socialization between their child and others. They help them develop the skills of interacting with others. This is also helped by the physical, social, language and intellectual development, as they all play a big part on how children should socialize with others. These social skills are developed through time; depending on the age of the child, their actions will be different.
(Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006)
The table below shows the norms of social and emotional development; compared to the age Jayden actually met the milestones:
AO1/AO2
Template from: (Neil Moonie, Et Al, 2006 – pages 181-182)
As you can see, Jayden has very much met the norms for each milestone. However, he did have a lot of problems with being independent and confident, especially around the age of 4. I think this is because of his sibling that passed away when Jayden was a very young age. This is mentioned in more detail in AO2.
Losing someone close to him at a very young age has made him become very close and clingy to his parents. I think this is because he feels they may leave him too and does not want that to happen. However, his overall emotional and social development is very good and up to the expected age.