Factors Influencing Child Development (2)

7/27/2019 Factors Influencing Child Development (2)

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FACTORS INFLUENCING

CHILD DEVELOPMENT



INDIVIDUAL

DIFFERENCES



Individual differences

Essential whenever we wish to

explain how individuals differ in

their behaviour.



Example of individual differences

• Environment

• Genetics

• Behavior

• Personality• Intelligence

• Learning disabilities / learning disorders

• Physical factors such as body size, age and gender



CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Aspects of child development

• Physical Growth

• Motor development

• Cognitive/Intellectual development

• Social-emotional development

• Language



Physical Growth

• Individual differences in height and weight

• Influenced by family genetic factors & environmental

factors

• At some point physical development is strongly

influenced by individual differences in reproductive

maturation.



• After age 1, a baby's growth in length slows considerably, and by 2 years, growth

in height usually continues at a fairly steady rate of approximately 2½ inches (6centimeters) per year until adolescence.

• The head is proportionally large and the legs proportionally short duringchildhood. At birth the head is one quarter of the length of the body comparedwith about one sixth in the adult. The legs are about one third the length of thebody at birth and one half in the adult. Because the body proportions change this

means that not all of the body segments grow by the same amount.



GROWTH OF GIRLS AND BOYS



The characteristic differences between boys and girlsoccur at puberty in response to changes in hormones

produced by the body.

• At around 10.5 years, girls begin to grow faster and

become taller than boys by over an inch. A boy's growth

spurt occurs around 12.5 years and by 13.5 years boys

again overtake girls (who have mostly stopped growing

taller). Boys continue to grow taller past the age of 15 andaverage over 5 inches taller than girls by the time they are

18.

http://www.coachr.org/growth_and_development.htm







Motor Development

• Depends in part on the child's weight and build.

• After the infant period, normal individual differences are

strongly affected by opportunities to practice, observe,and be instructed on specific movements.



• According to dynamic systems theory, infants assemble

motor skills for perceiving and acting.

• To develop motor skills, infants must perceive something

in the environment that motivates them to act and then

use perceptions to fine-tune their movements.

• Motor skills represent solutions to the infant’s goals

(Clearfield & others, 2009)

Santrock, J. W. (2011). Child Development. United States: McGraw Hill.



For example, most infants learn to crawl before they learn to walk.Some children learn to walk earlier than their same-age peers,

while others may take a bit longer.

Child crawling

Child standing

For example



• Babies learn to walk only when maturation of the

nervous system allows them to control certain legmuscles, when their legs have grown enough to

support weight, and when they want to move.



Cognitive/Intellectual Development

• Individuals differ in the ages at which they achieve

specific cognitive abilities, but schooling for children in

industrialized countries is based on the assumption that

these differences are not large.

Definition

The capacity to learn, remember,

symbolise information, and tosolve problems



• The human brain is not fully

developed until late adolescence

or in the case of males sometimes

early adulthood.

It is important that parents know what to expect

from their child as they develop and to be sure that

the expectations they may have for their child at a

given age are realistic.



Social-emotional Development

• The intensity or expressiveness of emotions can varygreatly from one normal child to another.

• Newborn infants do not seem to experience fear or have

preferences for contact with any specific people.

• In the first few months they only experience happiness,sadness, and anger.

• Children who are active and angry as infants can beexpected to be active and angry as older children,adolescents and adults.



Atypical development of social-emotional characteristics may be mildly

unusual, or may be so extreme as to indicate mental illness.



Language• Slow Expressive Language Development (SELD) a delay in the use of words

coupled with normal understanding, is characteristic of a small proportion ofchildren who later display normal language use.

• Dyslexia is a significant topic in child development as it affects approximately 5%of the population (in the western world). Essentially it is a disorder wherebychildren fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spellingcommensurate with their intellectual abilities. Dyslexic children show a range of

differences in their language development, from subtle speech impairments tomispronunciations to word-finding difficulties.

• The most common phonological difficulties are limitations of verbal short-termmemory and phonological awareness. Such children often have difficulties withlong-term verbal learning such as months of the year or learning tables. In the late1980s the phonological deficit hypothesis has become the dominant explanation.

• The difficulties in early articulation, basic phonological skills and acquiring basic

building blocks means that dyslexics have to invest too many resources in justcoping with the basics rather than acquiring new information or skills. Earlyidentification enables children to receive help before they fail.

• Atypically delayed language development may be diagnostic of autism, andregression of language may indicate serious disabilities like Rett syndrome. Poorlanguage development also accompanies general developmental delays such asthose found in Down syndrome.



For example

• Four-month-old

- Infant's brain has not matured

enough to allow the child to talk.

• Two years old

- The brain has developed further

and with help from others, thechild will have the capacity to say

and understand words.



• Dyslexia is commonly defined as a specific difficulty in

learning to read, despite normal IQ and adequate

educational opportunity.

• It is a disorder of development that primarily affects the

acquisition of literacy and the most widely accepted view

is that it lies on the continuum of language disorder.





GENETICS

Behavior Genetics:

Predicting Individual Differences

Behavior Geneticists study our differences andweigh the relative effects of heredity and

environment.



Heritability

Heritability refers to the extent to which thedifferences among people are attributable to genes.

What percentage of thedifference among people’s height

can be attributed to their genes?

90%



Chromosomal & Gene Linked Abnormalities

Name Description Treatment Incidence

Down

syndrome

An extra chromosome causes mild to

severe retardation and physical

abnormalities

Surgery, early intervention,

infant stimulation, and

special learning programs

1 in 1,900 births

at age 20

1 in 300 births at

age 35

1 in 30 births at

age 45

Klinefelter

syndrome

(XXY)

An extra X chromosome causes

physical abnormalities

Hormone therapy can be

effective

1 in 600 male births

Fragile X

syndrome

An abnormality in the X chromosome

can cause mental retardation, learningdisabil ities, or short attention span

Special education, speech

and language therapy

More common in

males than infemales

Turner

Syndrome

(XO)

A missing X chromosome in females

can cause mental retardation and

sexual underdevelopment

Hormone therapy in

childhood and puberty

1 in 2,500 female

births

XYY Syndrome An extra Y chromosome can cause

above-average height

No special treatment

required

1 in 1,000 male

births



IQ

• Intelligent quotient, IQ, a score derived from one of several

different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence.

Individuals differ from one another in their ability

• to understand complex ideas,

• to adapt effectively to the environment,

• to learn from experience,

• to engage in various forms of reasoning,

• to overcome obstacles by taking thought.



ENVIRONMENT



LEARNING DISABILITIES / DISORDERS

• Learning disabilities are problems that affect the

brain's ability to receive, process, analyze, or

store information.

• These problems can make it difficult for a student

to learn as quickly as someone who isn't affected

by learning disabilities.



• The skills most often affected are:

• reading,

• writing,

• listening,

• speaking,

• reasoning, and

• doing math.

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Factors Influencing Child Development (2)