Define growth, development and maturation and explain the role of biological and sociological factors in the process of development.

Growth means just apparent changes one can see, like increase in height and weight etc...development refers to the changes in functional abilities of different bodily organs...development includes different phases in itself like

1.Prenatal development...further includes...stages of Embryo. Zygote and Foetus.

2. Postnatal development including Biological development, Intellectual development, Emotional development, Cognitive development, Motor development and etc...

Maturation includes development of mental processes that affects body functioning as a whole.

FACTORS
BIOLOGICAL FACTORS include
diet, heredity, illness, etc.

SOCIOLOGICAL FACTORS include
environment, parenting style, peer influence, culture, etc.
you need to add further details for sure. welcome to criticism

Aspects Of Growth:
1. Physical Growth
2. Psychological Growth
3. Social Growth
4. Mental Growth

Physical Growth:

i. Motor Skills:
• The two most studied motor abilities are walking or locomotion
o and use of hands as tool or apprehension.

• Both walking and apprehension are largely maturational in origin.

ii. Sensory and Perceptual Growth:
• Visual abilities grow rapidly after birth.

• Perceptual abilities also increase rapidly:

o infants can distinguish colour and depth after just one month.


• Infants can distinguish sounds and discriminate tastes and smells.

Psychological Growth:
i. Freud:
• Freud says that personality consists of three components or structures:
o id, ego and superego.

• The id,
o characterized as a reservoir of primitive instincts and drives,
o is present at birth;
o it is the force that presses for immediate gratification of bodily needs and wants.


• The ego is practical, rational component of personality.

• The ego begins to emerge during the first year of life,

o in response to the fact that the infant cannot always have what it wants.


• An example of the emerging ego
o is the child’s learning other strategies for coaxing adults into action
o when crying does not produce immediate results.

• Between the third and fourth years of life
o the superego or “moral agent” of personality develops
o as the child identifies with its same-sexed parent
o and begins to incorporate adult standards of right and wrong.


• Freud also proposed
o that development occurs in universal stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital) that do not vary in sequence.
o These stages are largely determined by innate tendency
o to reduce tension and achieve a pleasurable experience.

• These are known as “psycho-sexual.”


• Each stage is associated with a particular conflict
o that must be resolved before the child can move psychologically to next stage.

ii. Erikson
• Erik Eriksson revised the psychoanalytical theory and stated that
o we can view the psychological characteristics of adolescence, middle age and old age in social terms.
• According to Erikson,
o there are eight stages of psychosocial development
o which encompasses people’s changing interactions
o and understanding of themselves and others.
o During childhood there are four stages.

Social Development:

i. Attachment:
• The positive emotional bond
o that develops between a child and a particular individual
o is one of the most important forms of social development
o that occurs during infancy.

• Attachment develops by the time the child is six to eight months of age,
o in a series of social-emotional accomplishments.


• At the same time,
o infants often show discomfort or fear of strangers.

ii. Parental Interaction:
• This is partly determined by sex:
o Fathers are playful,
o whereas mothers are more concerned with childcare.

• There is also some evidence
o that parents prefer to interact with their same sex children.

iii. Social Relationship With Peers:
• Pre-schoolers derive enjoyment from their peers,
o rush to school with them,
o and spend much time playing with them.

• In fact, such friendship is crucial to a child’s social development.

iv. Early Experience:
• Infants,
o who experience lack of stimulation, poor mothering and abusive mothering,
o put the child at adverse developmental risk.

Mental Growth:

i. Linguistic Growth:
• In one sense,
o language begins with the birth cry of the newborn
o and continues to develop with such sounds as “ma-ma” and “dada”
o which are sometimes proudly interpreted to mean “mama” and “daddy”.

• In the stricter sense,
o language begins when meaning becomes attached to words.


• In this sense the baby really doesn’t speak his first word
o until he is about a year of age, often older.

• At first a single word may carry a number of meanings.


• For example, “milk”, given with varying inflections and gestures, may mean, “I want milk”, “there is milk”, “I spilled my milk”, or “I want more milk”.

• After a time the baby passes from the single word to phrases, such as “All gone”.


• Finally language develops to the age at which idea are conveyed by the whole sentence.

a) Learning To Talk:
• Children learn language largely through imitation.

• Speaking clearly and correctly to the child aids in learning good speech.

b) Understanding:
• By the time a child is three years old;
o his sensory perceptions are well organized.

• Some children can give good descriptions of what they perceive feel and understand.

c) Thinking:
• The thinking of children is not unlike the problem-solving process of the adult.
• It is natural that
o children should confuse the real with the imaginative
o and should fail to see certain cause-and-effect relationship in the manner of the adult.

ii. Cognitive Development: (see shehr Bano book)