Unit 18 : Assessing children's needs
Growing in size, weight, and height is referred to as growth. When a newborn is born, for
instance, one of the first things that is checked is the baby's weight, length, and head
circumference. Development is the gradual acquisition of skills and abilities. When a baby
can hold someone's hand, that is a sign of progress. Growth and development are influenced
by a variety of factors, including genetics, environment, and other things. Due to these
circumstances, some children's growth and development may be slower than others.
The primary types of developmental milestones, such as crawling, walking, sitting up alone,
and other skills, can be learned by children from birth to age eight, which is an essential
period in their development. An infant starts to crawl between the ages of 6 and 10 months.
Additionally, it was claimed that babies often begin to walk between the ages of 12 and 18
months. People could make assumptions about the baby's development if they were aware
of this kind of information.
The process of physical development begins in infancy and lasts until late adolescence.
Puberty and gross and fine motor abilities are the main foci of physical development. The
development of fine motor skills is the capacity to manipulate small muscles using your
hands and fingers. The development of gross motor skills involves the use of your larger
muscles, which calls for whole-body motions like running, jumping, walking, and other
similar activities. When a child can move around, they are said to be locomotors. Within the
first few months, this might be accomplished via rolling or crawling. The child often performs
this utilising strong muscles. Standing on one leg is an example of how balance is crucial
while you are still and how it is linked to your larger muscles when you are moving. Because
the eye receives information from the brain so that it may guide and direct your hands to
complete activities, hand-eye coordination aids in the development of balance. Because it
aids in life skills like reading, writing, sketching, and other things of the like, hand-eye
coordination is crucial. You need good balance, a sense of rhythm, spatial awareness, audio
awareness, and visual awareness to have good coordination. Having good coordination is
helpful for activities like climbing and descending stairs, etc.
Intellectual and cognitive development refers to the process through which a kid learns to
apply their reasoning abilities to carry out activities and resolve issues. Putting together a
jigsaw puzzle or being aware of their colour are two examples of this. A child's brain cells
would expand and grow as they grew and acquired new experiences. The formation of new
connections is one of two types of processes that the brain goes through as it evolves; this
process relies on the child's developmental stage. This is an illustration of how the brain and
nervous system grow. A kid experiences tremendous growth and development in the early
years of life, which includes a variety of elements that affect the connections that are being
formed. Compared to an adult, a 3-year-old's brain is significantly more active. A child's
, cognitive and emotional development may be hampered by intense stress. Every child
develops at a distinct rate, and throughout time, their capacity for abstract thought grows.
For example, if a kid has never seen snow before, when the teacher describes how it looks
and feels, the child would understand but imagine something else that is similar to it. This is
one way in which a child's capacity for abstract thought is dependent on their prior
knowledge. The child has to have a balance between knowledge and practise for the
process to develop fully. This is an example of how abstract ideas can grow. Understanding is
another example of a process. Understanding is the ability to organise information and
develop precise concepts that aid in connecting relevant experiences. The ability to use
knowledge and insight to develop, analyse, evaluate, and make judgements is the final
example of productive thinking. As a key component of emotional and social development,
including the formation of self-image and self-esteem, memory is a crucial intellectual and
cognitive skill. There are three main stages to memory, such as encoding, which is the
process of organising information for storage.
Another illustration is storage, which is what happens when you keep the imports. Retrieval
is the last step and involves remembering the information. The development of a child's
speech, language, and communication skills is crucial. As a result of observing and hearing
adult interactions, children begin to learn language and dialogues at a young age. A child
can begin to speak and use words around the time they turn one year old because they are
beginning to generate sounds and are learning to regulate their tongue and mouth.
Language can be divided into three primary groups, including phonology. This is related to
language sounds like a, b, and m. It is crucial to be able to distinguish between various
sounds since some words, like cat and bat, had unique different meanings. Understanding
how to construct words using the sounds you create is known as phonics.A further example
is semantics, which relates to the words or linguistic units and how the meaning can be
altered by the addition of another unit, such as the addition of distinguishing to seem. Lastly
syntax is how the structure of a sentence is changed due to the placement of a word. The
phrases "the boy chased the dog" and "the dog chased the boy" are an illustration of this.
The same words are used in these sentences, but the sentence's order has been altered. The
capacity to convey information to others orally, visually, physically, musically, or visually is
referred to as communication.
Your emotional development includes how you feel and communicate. Young children's
emotional development starts early and advances favourably if solid relationships are
formed. There are various forms of emotional development, such as the growth of one's
own identity. Self-identification is significant since it refers to how a person considers oneself
in terms of their appearance, identity, and gender. Between the ages of 18 and 24 months, a
kid begins to realise themselves and realises that they are human. This is a gradual process.
Self-esteem, which is related to self-confidence, is another form of emotional growth.A
person's self-esteem can be high or poor depending on their connections, relationships,