CONTENTS
EDUP3023
CHILD DEVELOPMENT:
BASIC CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES
Dr. Mary Wong Siew Lian
Jabatan PIPK
IPG KBL
INTRODUCTION
Child development is an area of study
devoted to understanding constancy
and change from conception through to
adolescence
Child development is a part of a larger,
interdisciplinary field known as
developmental science, which includes
all changes we experience throughout
the lifespan
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Growth refers to quantitative changes
such as change in body weight and
height
Development refers to qualitative
changes which cannot be measured
quantitatively although it is obvious
that change has taken place due to the
emergence of characteristics that were
previously absent
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Introduction
Growth and Development
Concept of Child Development
Basic Principles of Development
Stages of Development
Basic Issues Concerning
Development
Application in Primary School
Researchers who study child
development have one aim in common:
to describe and identify those factors
that influence the consistencies and
changes in young people from
conception to adolescence
Differences between Growth & Development
Many changes during development are
simply matters of growth and maturation
Maturation refers to changes that occur
naturally and spontaneously and that are to
a large extent genetically programmed
Such changes emerge over time and are
relatively unaffected by environment,
except in cases of malnutrition or severe
illness; much of physical development falls
under this category
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Other changes are brought about through
learning, as individuals interact with their
environment
Such changes make up a large part of a
persons social development
However, development of thinking and
personality is influenced by both maturation
and interaction with the environment
Actually, how much emphasis is placed on
maturation and how much on interaction
with the environment remains a controversy
GROWTH
Quantitative in nature
Physical size, weight
number of teeth
Intellectual changes in
ability to think about many
things
Social start to interact with Social aware of differences in males
people outside the family
circle friends, teachers
Emotional growth in
emotions of such as love,
anger, likes, dislikes,
jealousy
DEVELOPMENT
Qualitative in nature
Physical increase in psychomotor
skills use of limbs fine motor skills
and gross motor skills such as
crawling, running, jumping
Intellectual - development in skills such
as language, numbers, thinking,
understanding concepts, memory
and females, gender roles, group
discipline, adapting to peers
Emotional Able to control emotions
control anger, jealousy, love

Definition of Growth and Development

CONCEPT OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Crow dan Crow (1980) development refers
to quantitative changes that lead to
improvement in the intellectual, spiritual,
moral and social aspects
Karl E. Garrison (1944) development is the
result of interactions between physical
development and learning
Human development can be divided into a
number of different domains of development:
physical, emotional, social, and cognitive
Physical development deals with changes in the
body
Emotional development awareness and control
of feelings and how to react to these feelings in a
given situation
Social development changes in the way an
individual relates to others
Cognitive development changes in thinking

These four domains are not distinct; they

When babies think and act more
combine in an integrated, holistic fashion to
competently, adults stimulate them more
yield the living, growing child
with games, language, and expressions of
delight at their new achievements
The domains influence one another

This raises their self-confidence and causes

For example, new motor capacities such as
them to learn more things (____________)
reaching out, sitting, crawling, and walking
(_________), contribute greatly to the
infants understanding of their
surroundings (__________)

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 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT
People develop at different rates
This is obvious in any classroom some
students are larger, some are smaller; some
reach puberty faster, others reach puberty
later
Development is relatively orderly
People develop abilities in a logical order
Infants learn to sit before they learn to stand
and walk; they babble before they learn to
talk; see the world through their own eyes
before they begin to imagine how others
see it

Some are better coordinated or more mature In school, students learn to understand
concrete things before they begin to
in their thinking and social relationships
understand abstract things
while others are much slower to mature in
these areas

Neurological development contributes

significantly to the acquisition of physical Proximodistal
skills in young children midline to extremities

Physical development proceeds in

cephalocaudal and proximodistal directions

Cephalocaudal development describes the

progression of body control from the head
to the lower parts of the body
Cephalocaudal
(head to foot)
For example, an infant will achieve head,
upper trunk, and arm control before lower
trunk and leg control

Proximodistal development describes According to this principle, each change in

progress from the central portions of the the childs development should result in an
body (i.e., the spinal cord) to the distal or increasingly refined level of skill
peripheral parts (extremities) development
In this developmental progression, gross
motor skills and competencies precede fine
motor skills

This developmental progression continues

throughout early childhood, with upper
trunk control being achieved first, then arm
control, and finally finger control

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 Development takes place gradually
Very rarely do changes take place overnight
Increase in height and weight take place
gradually over a period of time
A student learns to master a new skill
gradually over a period of time
Periods of development include: prenatal,
infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood,
middle childhood, and adolescence
Development is characterized by increasing
specificity of function (differentiation) as
well as integration of these specific
functions into a larger response pattern
A good example of this principle is the
infant startle reflex - when an infant is
startled, his entire body tenses and his
arms move out to the side; with age, this
reflex becomes integrated into more
specific behavioral patterns such that a
startled preschooler will tense only the
shoulder and neck muscles
Development is influenced by heredity and
environment
Although there has been much discussion by
experts in the field about which is more
important, there is no doubt that they both
play a role in a childs development
A childs genetic inheritance (i.e., heredity)
provides the basic foundation for many
physical and personality attributes, but the
influences of social, cultural, and familial
variables (i.e., environment) also contribute
to development
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Development progresses in a step-by-step
fashion
It is orderly, sequential, and proceeds from
the simple to the complex
Each achieved behavior forms the
foundation for more advanced behaviors
All development is interrelated
Although it is convenient to discuss
development in terms of discrete
developmental areas, such as motor skills,
development in other areas such as social-
emotional or communication functions does
not cease, nor is it necessarily separate from
other areas
The student or child practitioner must
recognize how different areas of
development are interrelated to understand
how a particular child develops
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
Prenatal (0-9 months)
Infancy & toddlerhood
(birth-2 years)
Early childhood (2-6 years)
Middle childhood (7-12 years)
Adolescence (13-19 years)
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 Period Age Changes
Prenatal 0-9 A one-celled organism (zygote) is transformed into
months a human baby with remarkable capacities for
adjusting to life in the surrounding world
Infancy & Birth Dramatic changes in the body and brain
toddler- 2 years Emergence of motor, perceptual, and intellectual
hood capacities; the beginning of language, social ties
In the second year of their life (toddlerhood),
children learn to walk and become more
independent
Adolescence 11-18 years This is a transition to adulthood
Early 2-6 years The body becomes longer and leaner, motor skills
childhood are refined, children become more self-controlled
and self-sufficient
Make-believe play blossoms, supporting
psychological development; thought and language
expands rapidly , a sense of morality becomes
evident, and children build social ties
BASIC ISSUES CONCERNING DEVELOPMENT
Is development continuous or
discontinuous?
Does one course of development
characterize all children, or are there many
possible courses?
Are genetic or environmental factors more
important in influencing development?
With each step, the child interprets and
responds to the world in a qualitatively
different way thinking, feeling, and
behaving that characterizes specific periods
of development
Stage theories of development (e.g., Piaget,
Erikson, Kohlberg, Havighurst) - children
undergo periods of rapid transformation as
they step from one stage to the next
Continuous development theorists argue that
change is gradual and ongoing and cannot be
delineated into stages
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Period Age Changes
Middle 6-11 years With the start of school children learn about
childhood the wider world, acquire new skills and
knowledge
Hallmarks of this period are: improved athletic
abilities, participation in organized games,
more logical thought emerges, mastery of
basic literacy skills, advances in self-
understanding, morality, and friendship
Puberty leads to an adult-sized body and
sexual maturity
Thought becomes abstract and idealistic
Schooling is increasingly directed towards
preparation for higher education and the
world of work
Is development continuous or
discontinuous?
Continuous a process of gradually adding
more of the same types of skills that were
there to begin with
Discontinuous a process in which new
ways of understanding and responding to
the world emerge at specific times; children
change rapidly as they step up to a new level
of development and then change very little
for a while
Does one course of development characterize
all children, or are there many possible
courses?
Children grow up in distinct and different
contexts; these unique combinations of
personal and environmental circumstances
can result in different paths of change
A shy child who fears social encounters
develops in very different contexts from those
of a sociable age-mate who readily seeks out
other people
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 Children in non-Western village societies
encounter experiences in their families and
communities that differ sharply from those
of children in Western cities
Differences in development exist due to
personal and environmental differences
(factors that influence growth and
development):
Environmental immediate settings in the
home, child-care center, school, and
neighborhood, and circumstances such as
community resources, societal values, norms
and priorities, cultural practices, and
historical time period

Personal heredity and biological makeup

APPLICATIONS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL What can teachers do to foster development

Middle childhood (6-11 years) what are
the changes that children of this age go
through?
Learn about the wider world outside the
home
Acquire new skills and knowledge inside
and outside the classroom
Advances in self-understanding, self-concept
Widening social circle
Exposure to moral issues
in children?
Provide opportunities for children to learn
so that there is development in the various
areas social, cognitive, spiritual,
emotional and physical
Guide them in acquiring new skills and
knowledge
Be aware that children come from different
backgrounds and cultures and therefore
develop at different rates

Be aware that children have different

genetic makeup and therefore may also
development at different rates due to that
dont compare and expect them all to
perform in the same way

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