Early Childhood Growth and Development Essay

This assignment we were asked to review chapter 2 of our text Developmental Profiles: Pre-Birth through Twelve. We were asked to write a three to four page paper which includes the following: * A description of how the concept of development differs from the concept of growth. * A summary of the domains of development identified in chapter 2 course text * An analysis of the developmental milestone examples in the text i. e. sitting, walking, talking and the purpose they serve. * Lastly, identify and explain three factors that may contribute to atypical development. Now that we have all of this discussed and what this paper entails let us get to it. Before we can even get into the meat of this paper we first must know and understand the definition and the difference between development and growth. Our text gives us a definition of both growth and development. Development according to our text refers to an increase in complexity, from simple to more complicated and detailed. Growth is defined in our text as physical changes leading to an increase in size. (Allen & Marotz, 2010) The terms growth and development refers to a dynamic process. Often used interchangeably, these terms have different meanings. Growth and development are interdependent, interrelated process. Growth generally takes place during the first 20 years of life; Development continues after that. (www. scribd. com). After reading the above lines and sitting and contemplating on them. The Human Growth and Development website stated that â€Å"Growth takes place during the first 20 years of life and development continues after that. † (www. scribd. com). I am not a board certified doctor but I do disagree with that statement because of that fact that yes growth and development are interdependent of one another but we all develop as we grow. Yes there is a difference in the concept of growth and development but one must look at the definition of each. Growth is the physical aspect of the two, example after a baby is born the birth weight, height, and head circumference is charted. The pediatrician then requests the parent(s) to bring the child back in two months. The two month check-up everything again is charted and this is done in intervals through out the life of the child. The chart shows the growth of the child from birth to present. As we grow we also develop. This means that we develop our senses, our thoughts, personality etc. According to the Human Growth and Development site development is the behavioral aspect of the two. (www. scribd. com). I tend to believe this because as we get older we tend to grow or develop into ourselves. We are not born with our personality, this has to develop. We were not born walking we had to develop the strength of our legs in order to walk. The next phase of our assignment is to summarize the developmental domains mentioned in our text. Before I do this summary I just want to point out that â€Å"the early childhood years are filled with staggering growth and development. There are four main areas of development that occur all at the same time. (www. teachpreschool. org). The domains listed in the text are as follows: * Physical Development – governs the major tasks of infancy; this domain also governs both gross motor skills (crawling, walking, running) and fine motor skills (hand-eye coordination, cutting, writing, weaving) (Allen & Marotz, 2010; www. teachpreschool. org). * Cognitive Development – addresses the expansion of a child’s intellect or mental abilities. (Allen & Marotz, 2010) * Perceptual Development – this domain addresses the complex way a child uses information received through the senses- sight, hearing, touch, smell taste and body position. This domain also enables the child to focus on what is relevant or irrelevant at any given moment. (Allen & Marotz, 2010) * Language Development – is the domain that enables the child to communicate with his/her peers. Most children tend to understand a variety of words, concepts, and relationships before they have words to describe or communicate. This ability is called receptive language. There is another term used called expressive language which is words used to verbalize thoughts and feelings. (Allen & Marotz, 2010) * Social Development- the understanding on how to communicate, share and make friends. This also covers how we feel about ourselves. (www. teachpreschool. org; Allen & Marotz, 2010) * Emotional Development- The building blocks for positive self esteem and self confidence. Most theorists place Social development and Emotional development in one because these two are interrelated as well. (www. teachpreschool. org). We are almost through walking through Early Childhood Growth and Development; now let us talk about developmental milestones. Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range. (www. med. umich. edu). In our text it talked about sitting, walking, and talking milestones, but before I get into the analysis of each one we must remember that â€Å"Babies develop at their own pace, so it is impossible to tell exactly when you child will learn a given skill. † (www. mychildwithoutlimits. org) The milestones that are talked about in our text can vary from child to child. Some babies may learn to sit up on their own as early as six months of age while others according to the Developmental Milestones Chart printed by My Child without Limits. org states that a child getting to a sitting position happens at 1 year. This is not uncommon some children develop faster than others. The purpose of the developmental milestones is to let the parents know that their child is growing up normally. As a parent you should not typically be alarmed if your child is a couple of months behind other children their age, but lets say your child is 24 months old and has not yet walked then yes there should be some concern there. Atypical growth and development is not an uncommon situation. This type of development stems from poor health and nutrition, injury, genetic errors, and many other factors. (Allen & Marotz, 2010). I have listed several factors that may contribute to atypical development and I will talk about each as follows: * Injury- A woman has to protect themselves at all costs when pregnant. If for whatever reason she falls and hurts herself it is a possibility that there can be damage to the child. A car accident can cause damage to the child * Genetic factors- these factors could come from either parent or both. Genes play a major part in development because we all get 26 chromosomes from each parent for a total of 52. If either parent’s chromosomes are genetically defective then the child could be affected. * Poor Health and Nutrition- the child feeds off of the mother in vitro and if the mother is using drugs and not eating right  or taking her pre natal pills then the child could come out deformed, with some sort of brain deficiency or some sort of health problem. Now that this is all said and done. I do hope that this paper can help you as it did me in the growth and development of the early child. REFERENCES: Developmental Profiles: Pre-birth through Twelve Allen, Eileen K and Martoz, Lynn R. 2010 Wadsworth Publishing Developmental Milestones www. med. umich. edu Developmental Milestones Chart www. mychildwithoutlimits. org Brief Look at Developmental Domains in Early Childhood Education www. teachpreschool. org Human Growth and Development www. scribd. com.