A. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT- Physical development includes physical growth, motor skills, and sensory development and these works hand in hand with the brain to be able to shape experiences.
A2. SENSORY DEVELOPMENT- the five senses develop at different rates. The sense of hearing is alm0st fully development at birth but a newborns vision is only 20 feet away. Visual acuity continues to improve and at the age of 3 or 4, the childs vision is similar to an adult already. New born can best able to see black and white edges or patterns.
A3. BRAIN DEVELOPMENT- The brain continues to grow throughout life span but the growth considerably slows down after the age of six and settles again after adolescence. However, there are neurons in the brain that die off because they are not strengthened by experiences. This process is called as pruning. Research findings have shown that childrens brains are more sensitive and plastic than older people.
A1. M0TOR DEVELOPMENT
* refers to changes in physical movement and body c0ntr0l.
* babies start to show intentional m0vements like turning their heads to look at their mother, lying on their tummies while lifting then heads, holding objects, sitting by themselves, moving and crawling or scooting through their bellies, standing up with a support and walking alone.
* r0oting and grasping reflexes
* it takes time before childrdn would master the fine m0t0r skills whick involves the coordination of the actions of many smaller muscles along with the information from the eyes and ears.
B. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT - As the brain growns, the cornitive development comes. This is the ability to think, reason, remember, learn and solve problems. Jean piaget extensively studied the cognitive development and proposed the well - known Theory of cognitive Development. There are for stages in his theory.
Theory of Cognitive development
B2. PREOPERATIONAL (2-5) - the second major stage of cognitive development, which begins with the emergence of symbolic thought.
** Verbal and egocentric thinking develop (Egocentrism - viewing the worlds from ones own perspective and not being capable of seeing things from another persons perspective)
** can do mentally what once could only do physically
** conservation of shape, number, liquid is n0t yet possible ( Conservation - recognition that when some properties of an object change, other properties remain constant.
B3. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(6 -11) - the child can perform mental operations - such as reversing - on real objects or events.
** conservation of shape, number, liquid are now possible
** logic and reasoning develop, but are limited to appearance and what is concretely observed
B4. FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (12 and up) - the highest stgae of cognitive development
** formal logic is possible.
B1. Sensorimotor (0-2) - the child learn about the world by sensing and moving his b0dy.
**. Object permanence develops (the ability to realize that objects still exist when they are n0t being sensed)
** infants gradually develop decentration and intentionality (decentration - the understanding that the infant is separate from the extermal world; intentionality - infants purposively act on objects in the world)