CHILD DEVELOPMENT - PART I

I wish I could travel by the road that crosses the baby’s mind, and out beyond all bounds; where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms of kings of no history; where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, and Truth sets Fact free from its fetters. 

-Rabindranath Tagore

Meaning of Development:

From conception until the moment of death, we not only change physically, but we also change in the way we think, use language, and develop social relationships. Changes are not confined to any one area of a person’s life; they occur in the person in an integrated manner.

Development is the pattern of progressive, orderly, and predictable changes that begin at conception and continue throughout life. Development mostly involves changes — both growth and decline, as observed during old age.

Development is influenced by an interplay of biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional processes.

• Development due to genes inherited from parents, such as in height and weight, brain, heart, and lungs development, etc. all point towards the role of biological processes. 
• The role of cognitive processes in development relate to mental activities associated with the processes of knowing, and experiencing, such as thought, perception, attention, problem solving, etc.
• Socio-emotional processes that influence development refer to changes in an individual’s interactions with other people, changes in emotions, and in personality. A child’s hug to her/his mother, a young girl’s affectionate gesture to her/his sibling, or an adolescent’s sorrow at losing a match are all reflections of socio-emotional processes deeply involved in human development.

Biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional processes are interwoven. These processes influence changes in the development of the individual as a whole throughout the human life-span.

Life-Span Perspective on Development 

The study of development according to the Life-Span Perspective (LSP) includes the following assumptions :

1. Development is lifelong, i.e. it takes place across all age groups starting from conception to old age. It includes both gains and losses, which interact in dynamic (change in one aspect goes with changes in others) ways throughout the life-span.

2. The various processes of human development, i.e. biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional are interwoven in the development of a person throughout the life-span.

3. Development is multi-directional. Some dimensions or components of a given dimension of development may increase, while others show decrements. For example, the experiences of adults may make them wiser and guide their decisions. However, with an increase in age, one’s performance

is likely to decrease on tasks requiring speed, such as running.

4. Development is highly plastic, i.e. within person, modifiability is found in psychological development, though plasticity varies among individuals. This means skills and abilities can be improved or developed throughout the life-span.

5. Development is influenced by historical conditions. For example, The career orientation of school students today is very different from those students who were in schools 50 years ago.

6. Development is the concern of a number of disciplines. Different disciplines like psychology, anthropology, sociology, and neuro-sciences study human development, each trying to provide answers to development throughout the life-span.

7. An individual responds and acts on contexts, which include what was inherited, the physical environment, social, historical, and cultural contexts. For example, the life events in everyone’s life are not the same, such as, death of a parent, accident, earthquake, etc., affect the course of one’s life as also the positive People keep on changing with changing contexts.

Growth, Development, Maturation, and Evolution

• Growth refers to an increase in the size of body parts or of the organism as a whole. It can be measured or quantified, for example, growth in height, weight, etc. 
• Development is a process by which an individual grows and changes throughout the life cycle. The term development applies to the changes that have a direction and hold definite relationship with what precedes it, and in turn, will determine what will come after.
• A temporary change caused by a brief illness, for example, is not considered a part of development. 
• All changes which occur as a result of development are not of the same kind. Thus, changes in size (physical growth), changes in proportion (child to adult), changes in features (disappearance of baby teeth), and acquiring new features are varied in their pace and scope level.
• Development includes growth as one of its aspects. 
• Maturation refers to the changes that follow an orderly sequence and are largely dictated by the genetic blueprint which produces commonalities in our growth and development. For example, most children can sit without support by 7 months of age, stand with support by 8 months and walk by one year. 
• Evolution refers to species-specific changes. Natural selection is an evolutionary process that favours individuals or a species that are best adapted to survive and reproduce. The evolutionary changes are passed from one generation to the next within a species. 
• Evolution proceeds at a very slow pace. Emergence of human beings from great apes took about 14 million years. It has been estimated that the ‘Homo sapiens’ came into existence only about 50,000 years ago.

Factors influencing development:

Principles of heredity explain the mechanism for transmission of characteristics by every species from one generation to the next. We inherit genetic codes from our parents, which are in every cell of our body. Our genetic codes are alike in one important way; they contain the human genetic code. 

• Genetic transmission is very complex. Most characteristics that we observe in humans are combinations of larger number of genes.
• It is also not possible to possess all the characteristics made available to us by our genetic structure. The actual genetic material or a person’s genetic heritage is known as genotype. 
• However, not all of this genetic material is apparent or distinctly identifiable in our observable characteristics. 
• Phenotype is the way an individual’s genotype is expressed in observable and measurable characteristics. Phenotypes include physical traits, such as height, weight, eye and skin colour, and many of the psychological characteristics such as intelligence, creativity, and personality. These observable characteristics of an individual are the result of the interaction between the person’s inherited traits and the environment. 
• It is the genetic code which predisposes a child to develop in a particular way. Genes provide a distinct blueprint and timetable for the development of an individual.

What are the environmental influences? How does the environment affect development?

• Actually, genes set the limit and within that limit the environment influences development. 
• Sandra Scarr (1992) believes that the environment parents provide for their children depends to some extent on their own genetic predisposition. For example, if parents are intelligent and are good readers they would provide their children with books to read, with the likely outcome that their children would become good readers who enjoy reading.
• Besides these, children themselves choose certain environments based on their genotype. 
• Environmental influences are as complex as the genes we inherit. 

If class monitor is selected on the basis of being academically bright and a popular student, do you think it is because of her/his genes or the influence of the environment? If a child from a rural area who is very intelligent, is not able to get a job because of her/his inability to express herself/ himself fluently or handle computers, do you think - it is because of genes or environment?

Context of Development

Development does not take place in a vacuum. It is always embedded in a particular socio-cultural context. The environment can change or alter during any time of the individual’s lifespan. 

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s contextual view of development emphasises the role of environmental factors in the development of an individual. This has been depicted in below pic:

1. The microsystem is the immediate environment/setting in which the individual lives. It is in these settings where the child directly interacts with social agents – the family, peers, teachers, and neighbourhood.

2. The mesosystem consists of relations between these contexts. For instance, how a child’s parents relate to the teachers, or how the parents view the adolescent’s friends, are experiences likely to influence an individual’s relationships with others. 

3. The exosystem includes events in social settings where the child does not participate directly, but they influence the child's experiences in the immediate context. For example, the transfer of father or mother may cause tension among the parents which might affect their interactions with the child or the general amenities available to the child like quality of schooling, libraries, medical care, means of

entertainment, etc. 

4. Macrosystem includes the culture in which the individual lives. 

5. Chronosystem involves events in the individual’s life course, and socio-historical circumstances of the time such as, divorce of parents or parents’ economic setback, and their effect on the child.

In a nutshell, Bronfenbrenner’s view is that a child’s development is significantly affected by the complex world that envelops her/him – whether it be the minutiae of the conversations s/he has with her/his playmates, or the social and economic lifecircumstances into which s/he is born.

Research has shown that children in impoverished environments have unstimulating environment devoid of books, magazines, toys, etc., lack experiences such as visits to library, museum, zoo, etc., have parents who are ineffective as role models, and live in overcrowded and noisy surroundings. As a result of these conditions children are at a disadvantage and have difficulties in learning.

Durganand Sinha (1977) has presented an ecological model for understanding the development of children in Indian context. Ecology of the child could be viewed in terms of two concentric layers. The “upper and the more visible layers” consist of home, school, peer groups, and so on. 
The most important ecological factors influencing development of the child in the visible upper layer constitute the: 

(i) home, its conditions in terms of  overcrowding, space available to each member,  toys, technological devices used, etc.,

(ii) nature and quality of schooling, facilities to which the child is exposed, and 

(iii) nature of interactions and activities undertaken with peer groups from childhood onward.

These factors do not operate independently but constantly interact with one another. Since these are also embedded in a larger and a more pervasive setting, the “surrounding layers” of the child’s ecology constantly influence the “upper layer” factors. However, their influences are not always clearly visible. 
The elements of the surrounding layer of ecology constitute the:

(i) general geographical environment. It includes space and facilities for play and other activities available outside the home including general congestion of the locality and density of population, 

(ii) institutional setting provided by caste, class, and other factors, and 

(iii) general amenities available to the child like drinking water, electricity, means of entertainment and so on.

The visible and the surrounding layer factors interact with one another and may  have different consequences for development in different people. The ecological environment can change or alter during any time of the individual’s life-span. Therefore, to understand differences in the functioning of an individual, it is important to see the individual in the context of her/ his experiences.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT - Part II | Overview of Development Stages