Child development is a learning process that children go through to acquire and improve various skills in the cognitive, motor, emotional and Social.
When conquering certain abilities, the child starts to present certain behaviors and actions (as, for example, saying the first word, taking the first steps, etc.) that are expected from a given age.
Child development turns out to be a set of learning that, little by little, makes the child increasingly independent and autonomous.
Stages of child development (according to Jean Piaget)
The stages of child development were the main subject of study by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
Jean William Fritz Piaget (August 9, 1896 - September 16, 1980)
While working at a school, Piaget became interested in observing the reasoning used by children to answer their teachers' questions.
Later, she also started to observe her children and in this way, ended up subdividing the phases of childhood.
Piaget's theory considers that child development consists of four phases with regard to cognition:
sensorimotor, preoperative, concrete operative and formal operative.Sensorimotor: 0 to 2 years
At this stage of development, the child develops the ability to focus on sensation and movement.
The baby begins to become aware of movements that were previously involuntary. He realizes, for example, that by stretching his arms he can reach certain objects.
During this period, the motor coordination development.
Babies in this age group are only aware of what they can see, which is why they cry when the mother leaves their field of vision, even if she is very close.
Preoperative: 2 to 7 years
This is the period when representations of the reality of one's thoughts occur.
At this stage, sometimes the child does not have the real perception of the events, but his own interpretation.
When observing a tall, thin glass and a short, wide glass that hold the same amount, for example, the child believes that the tall glass holds a greater amount.
During this period it is also possible to notice a very marked phase of the self-centeredness and the need to bring things to life.
It is the phase of the “whys” and the exploration of the imagination, that is, the so-called “make believe”.
Concrete operative: 8 to 12 years
At this stage, the beginning of concrete logical thinking and social norms are already beginning to make sense to the child.
The child is able to understand, for example, that a tall thin glass and a short thick glass can hold the same amount of liquid.
In this age group, the child's development already includes knowledge about social rules and about the Justice sense.
Formal operative: from 12 years old
At 12 years of age, the child already has the ability to understand abstract situations and other people's experiences.
Even if the child himself has never lived a certain experience and not even anything like it, he starts to having the ability to understand through situations experienced by others, that is, to understand situations abstracts.
The pre-adolescent is also capable of creating hypothetical situations, theories and possibilities and of starting to become an autonomous being.
What are the child development milestones?
Child development milestones consist of certain behaviors or abilities that are expected of children in certain age groups.
It is important to note that these milestones can happen earlier for some children than for others, but an excessively large time variation may mean some disturbance of development.
Child development from 0 to 6 months
- right after birth: the baby sleeps most of the time, cries when he feels discomfort and has the habit of sucking his mouth;
- 1 month: moves the head, the gaze is able to follow a moving object, reacts to sounds, has the ability to focus on another person's face with the gaze;
- 6 weeks: smiles during interaction with other people, lies face down;
- 3 months: opens and closes hands, holds head steady when sitting and raises when lying face down, tries to reach suspended objects, starts babbling sounds;
- 5-6 months: rolls over when lying down, recognizes people, is able to sit (with support), emits sounds similar to small screams to express joy.
Child development from 7 months to 1 year
- 7 months: able to sit (without support), hold the bottle, pass objects from one hand to the other, recognize their own name, support part of their body weight when standing;
- 9 months: reacts when toys are taken from him, is able to stand (with support), is able to sit from the prone position, starts to say “daddy” and “mummy” (“daddy” and “mommy”), crawls;
- 12 months: is able to walk with support and take one or two steps without support, learns to clap hands and “goodbye”, speaks a few words, learns to drink liquids through a glass.
Child development from 1 year and 6 months to 3 years
- 1 year and 6 months: the child walks more safely, climbs stairs supporting himself, is able to eat certain foods alone, establishes communication through a vocabulary of about 10 words, draws lines vertical,
- 2 years - 2 years and 6 months: runs with some safety, climbs on furniture, when handling a book or a magazine can turn a page of each time, she makes small sentences, opens doors, goes up and down stairs without support, indicates when she needs to go to the Restroom.
- 3 years: can ride a tricycle, go to the bathroom alone, frequently ask questions, count to 10, know how to form the plural of some words, recognize some colors.
Child development from 4 to 6 years old
- 4 years: can jump on one foot, learn to throw balls, know how to wash hands and face, go up and down stairs alternating feet.
- 5 years: she can catch a ball thrown by another person, she draws people, knows how to jump, knows how to put on her own clothes and also undress, knows a greater number of colors.
- 6 years: knows how to write his own name, walks in a straight line, speaks fluently (uses verb tenses, plurals and pronouns correctly), has ability to memorize stories, begins to truly learn to share, begins to show interest in knowing where the babies.
Types of child development
During the development process, the child evolves in different aspects of their formation. Evolution does not only occur in the child's physical growth, but also in its cognitive and social part, among others.
affective development
Affective development is related to feelings and emotions and is noticeable by the child from the baby stage.
A baby is able to understand the reception of affection and love, and also to love and bond affective with her parents and with other close people, especially those with whom she has more conviviality.
The establishment of these relationships is essential for the child to develop their emotional intelligence and not have, in the future, affective problems.
cognitive development
Cognitive development refers to the most intellectual part of the human being. It is about attention, reasoning, memory and problem solving ability.
Human cognition is developed over time. As a baby, a person does not have a very keen memory capacity. In general, people do not have, for example, memories of events that took place before they were two years old.
Child cognitive development allows children to interpret, assimilate and relate to the stimuli of the environment that surrounds them and to their own essence.
know more about cognitive and cognition.
physical development
Physical development is the one through which children develop motor skills and abilities such as sitting, walking, standing, jumping, running, etc.
In activities that require more precision, such as writing, physical development is also dependent on cognitive development.
Social development
With social development, the child learns to interact in society.
It is based on this type of development that the child establishes a kind of exchange of information with other people, which allows them to acquire culture, traditions and social norms.
THE importance of playing in child development it is directly related to this type of development, because through socialization with other children, certain interaction skills and notions of limits are developed.
What can influence child development?
Despite the definition of the concept of stages of Piaget's development, Piaget himself argues that this development can benefit from certain stimuli and an appropriate environment for kids.
The main factors that can impact child development are:
- Environment where the child lives.
- Heredity (your parents, grandparents and other ancestors).
- Food.
- Physical problems.
Child developmental psychology
Child developmental psychology is responsible for studying the changes that occur in human behavior during childhood and argues that he needs to go through some stages of learning to finally acquire a certain capacity.
This study encompasses not only the emotional/affective development (emotions and feelings), but also the cognitive (knowledge/reason), the Social (social relations) and the psychomotor (motor and psychic functions).
Developmental psychology also seeks to study the factors that promote changes in behavior that lead to a certain end.
the swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, made an analogy between child development and the development of an embryo: he considered that the course of child development consisted of phases and that the completion of a certain stage was a necessary condition to move to the next stage, that is, it advocated that development occurred sequentially, without skipping phases.
Piaget defined cognitive development as a kind of mental embryology.
The construction of the child as an individual is directly related to the surrounding environment. Environmental demand can directly influence the achievement of certain capabilities.
This condition establishes some relationships between child development and learning: a child who does not suffer stimuli, can, for example, develop certain abilities later or even not develop them.
In other words, if the environment is not demanding, the child may not “react” and not “build”.
In short, child developmental psychology argues that the construction takes place through interaction with the environment..
The importance of playing in child development
Play and games are a fundamental part of the child development process.
Through games, children are able to explore their feelings and emotions as well as their fears and anxieties.
The playful also allows children to create hypothetical situations that help in the development of reflection, analysis, reasoning, imagination and creativity skills.
Playing with other children, for example, teaches the child to share whether it is a toy or even a space. In this way, socialization helps the child to overcome the stage of self-centeredness.
Piaget's Theory versus Vygotsky's theory
In the field of psychology, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky were great scholars of child development.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (November 17, 1896 – June 11, 1934)
Both are considered constructionists and interactionists, as they argue that nothing happens without interaction and that everything needs to go through a construction process until it reaches a certain end.
The difference between Piaget's theory and Vygotsky's theory are the mediations used to approach the interaction.
Piaget considers that the interaction takes place through the child's action. In this way an exchange with the environment takes place; the child acts and learns from his own experience, there is no one person teaching.
For Vygotsky, mediation occurs through cultural tools, that is, learning occurs when children interact or cooperate with people who are part of their environment. These learning processes are later internalized and become part of the child's independent development.
In other words, for Vygotsky child development is the result of social interaction.
See also the meaning of psychopedagogy.
