Intellectual development.
During the first 18 months infants have to learn to coordinate their senses and their muscle behaviour. To begin with, a baby will rely on inbuilt patterns for behaviour such as sucking, crawling and watching. A baby will adapt this behaviour to lead onto sucking fingers, toys, clothes and so on. Doing this, this helps the infant to slowly develop an understanding of objects. According to a famous psychologist Jean Piaget, the infant will remember grasping a toy. If given the toy, they may repeat the action.
Also, Piaget thought that infants could not understand that objects existed on their own. For example, if the infant’s mother left the room, the infant will assume the mother has gone forever. The infant could not understand that if he could not see, smell, hear or touch the mother, he will think that mother does not exist.
Social Development
Infants learn to recognise their mother’s voice and smell and can recognise their mother’s face by two months of age. Infants try to attract attention to adults like smiling and making noises. Infants will often respond and learn to the speech and smiles from their carers and soon both infant and carers has built a bond that ties them together.
At about 12 months of age infants often develop a fear of strangers and will protest if they are guided away from their parents. After the first year of life, the infant would have recognised well-known family members if they have formed the necessary social bond. Some psychologists believe that this process of bonding is vital for future mental health and well-being. Infants who are rejected or who fail to make relationships during the first few years of life may face great difficulty in coping with relationships in later life. It is known that that Infants who make safe and secure ties with their carers have a good foundation for future social development.
Emotional Development
At 5-6 months, Infants seem to recognise emotions in their carers. As infants grow, they start to learn that they can influence their carers. Infants then start to take notice of things such as that they are a fixed gender and how they look. For example, the infant will make note they have hair or other people have hair. Or people have necklaces and so on. So in response, the baby grabs hold of it. Also, infants are very reliant on their parents or carers.
Childhood (3-10 years)
Physical Development
Children grow steadily at this time but less rapidly than during infancy. Usually by the age of 6, a child’s head will be almost adult size, even though the child’s body will still have a lot of growing to do.
Children’s practical abilities continue to develop. At 2 years old children may be able to run and to climb stairs at one step at a time. By 4 years, the child may be able to kick and throw a large ball. By 6 or 7 years, a chid might be able to skip and ride a bicycle.
For girls, puberty often starts between the ages of 11 and 13. Some girls may start earlier or even later depending on the girl’s metabolic rate.
Intellectual Development
By the age of 2, children generally start to talk. By the age of 6 children can often use language as well as some adults. Language develops between the ages of 2 and 6 years old.
Between the age of 2 and 7 years, most children learn to count and to explain how much things weigh. Young children do not always fully understand the logic involved in counting and weighing things.
When faced with problems to solve, young children make decisions based on what things look like rather than the logic of counting; for example, they will say that there are more sweets in a long line than in a small heap, even though they can count the same number in each.
Older children do not make the mistakes that younger children do. But 7-12 year olds can often only understand the problem if they can see what is involved.
Social Development.
Young children still rely on their parents and carers to look after them. They need secure emotional ties with their family. As the children develop, they become more and more independent, but the family provide safety and a setting in which to learn social roles.
Young children use their imagination to play-act social roles. Children learn how to behave socially through the process of socialisation in the family, which helps them to make friends when they to play group, nursery or school.
Emotional Development
As children develop language skills they can understand and explain who they are in greater detail. Children develop from being aware of themselves at the age of 2 to describing their feelings at the age 12. Children need to feel valued round their families and friends, if they don’t feel valued this can lead to feeling down in their system and could lead to depression or anger.
Adolescence (11-18 years)
Physical development
Girls generally start puberty before 13, but for boys this comes between 13 and 15. Puberty is a development stage, which prepares the body for sexual reproduction. It is set off by the action of hormones that control sexual development. Both boys and girls may experience a ‘growth spurt’, where they grow taller at a faster rate than before.
Girls’ sexual development during puberty includes the enlargement of breasts, pubic hair; fat layers begin to develop under the skin and the start of menstrual periods. Boys will experience the enlargement of their testes and penis, the development of pubic and facial hair, and increased muscle strength. Boys voices also ‘break’ and become more of a deeper tone, this is when the voice box gets lower in throat, this process is so quick, it can even happen over night.
Social Development
Adolescents become increasingly independent of their family, and friendship groups can become more important than family for the development of social skills. This phase of development is call secondary socialisation. For example, teenagers go out shopping with their friends or just out and about, and gradually getting away from their families. If you notice, the majority of teenagers do not get along with some of their family members, for example younger siblings or sometimes their parents. This is normal because most adolescents don’t talk to their parents about problems, it usually to their friends because they want a younger generation’s view and a younger generation answer as well.
Adulthood (18 +)
Young adults are often at the peak of physical performance between the ages of 18 – 28. Most champion sport players like footballers and athletes are aged 16 – 30 years. Professional sport players usually have to retire and move into management roles during there 30’s. Older adults generally tend to lose some strength and speed with age, although, the fitter someone is, they tend to look a lot younger because of the muscle toning. So sometimes, the age look goes unnoticed and could go on in their sport careers a lot longer than some players.
Exercise does help develop physical fitness and athletic skills. An older adult could easily achieve a personal peak of fitness at 40 or 50 years of age if they take up exercise late in life.
There are many age related changes that happen in the adult life that come noticeable, as they get older. For example, adults may need glasses because their eyesight has got weaker. Some adults may nee hearing aids, or just can’t hear high pitched sounds. Thinner or greyer hair is common for adults when they start getting older. Loss of hair is also common for men.
Women are most able to conceive children in their late teens and 20’s. The risk of miscarriages and complications rise with age. Usually women can’t have children between the ages of 45 + because of their menopause. Its normal when women stop having periods as they get older. However some women suffer from hot swears, depression and tiredness. One of the problems can be to lack of calcium in the bones, which then weakens the bones and could lead to easily breaking or fracturing the bones. Older adults in Britain tend to gain weight because they tend to eat the same amount of food they did when they were younger and they aren’t as active as they were when they were younger.
The risk of disease and disability rises with age. Older adults are more likely to develop health problems than younger adults.
Intellectual development
Intellectual skills and abilities may increase during adulthood if they are exercised. Older adults may have slightly slower reaction times, but increased knowledge may pay off for this in many work situations.
Older adults tend to have more knowledge than younger adults and adolescence, some adults may develop increase wisdom the older they get.
Social Development
People who are in early adulthood tend to be very social with friends and start making serious relationships and partnerships. Marriage and parenthood are common when it comes to early adulthood and is very important in early social life. The pressure to obtain paid employment and hold down a job is also a major social issue for adults. Many adults tend to develop their skills while working in team in order to do their work.
Its also common for adults to experience a lot of stress while being a parent, partner and worker. Nowadays people work extra long hours or take up more than one job so they can lead a high standard of life. This can be because of Social, Emotional and sometimes even Physical needs.
Older adults may find that as well as coping with work pressures, they have to provide support for their parents and their children. When their children leave home, a lot of pressure is usually taken off the parent, however it can also make the parent feel that something out of their life is missing because their children no longer need their support.
Many people now retire from full-time paid employment in there 50’s, and most people retire in there 60’s. Retirement can have a positive and negative view to it. It can be positive because it can be a positive release from pressures and can be negative because it is seen as an end to usefulness.
After retirement, many people think this because of old age, many 65 year olds don’t seem themselves as ‘old’. When they get to 65+ its common to have physical changes such as:
- Organs becoming weaker such as the heart, lungs.
- Muscles and Skin becomes less useful, like weaker and not as ‘elastic’
- Joints and bones become less flexible and this can mean that people become less mobile.
- Many people develop arthritis
- Loss of hearing
- Reaction times and speed of thinking slows down.
Also the older the person maybe, the more they rely on people. Some of the older generation may need to live in a caring home and will not be able to provide for themselves. They will need regular visits from nurses and doctors for medicine etc.