Abortion

Rifat Saba
[Link] Public Health
 OUTLINE OF CHILD
DEVELOPMENT

By
Dr. Sohail safdar
MBBS DOMS DPH MPhil MBA

Associate Professor
 Introduction:
• Development → changes in a person’s
long-term growth, feelings and pattern of
thinking and behavior.
• Some developmental changes are relatively
specific others are more general.
 Why Study Development?
Knowing about human development can help you in five
major ways:
[Link] can give you realistic expectations for children
and adolescents.
[Link] of development can help you respond
appropriately to children’s actual behavior.
[Link] of development can help you recognize
when departures from normal are truly significant.
[Link] development can help you understand
yourself.
[Link] development can make you better
advocate for the need rights of children.
 Factors Influencing Child Development
1. Genetic Influences:
 The whole process of normal brain formation and
development is under the control of genetic
mechanisms.
 However, the expression of the genetic talent will
depend on many environmental limitations.
 Physical characteristics have a clear genetic basis and
some of these may directly or indirectly affect
behavior.
 General personality dimensions may have a genetic
basis, however, individual thoughts, behavior and
interpersonal relationship develop from actual
experiences.
2. Prenatal Influences:
These refer to a wide range of factors which can
affect fetal development. They include:
 The mother’s age,
 Diet, and
 The state of mental and physical health of the
mother as well as such external factors as
 Drugs and
 Environmental toxins.
3. Neonatal Influences:
Complications during the process
of delivery can affect
 the physical and
 psychological well-being
of the baby
4. Nutrition:
- Malnutrition appears to have its greatest
effects during the later stages of pregnancy and
the 1st few months of life when a great deal of
brain development occurs.
- Poor nutrition is often associated with poor
psychosocial environment.
5. Environmental Chemicals:
Some of the chemical products of modern
industry and war consequences appear to have a
potential harmful effect on the development of
the brain mechanisms.
6. Physical handicaps and brain injury:
These can have lasting influences on
psychological development. These effects can be
direct or indirect.
7. Critical Periods:
a. Attachment:
* Attachment Theory:
- Bowlby describes attachment as a complex
two-way process in which the child becomes
emotionally linked to members of his or her
family, usually the mother, father, and close
relatives.
- It is an adaptive, biological process serving the
needs of the child for protection and
development.
 ….Attachment Theory:
- Although it is genetically determined,
the behavior of those around the child will
influence the security of the attachment.
- Failure to establish such close
relationship would result in different type
of difficulties in
 Personality,
 Relationship and
 Emotional disorders.
Attachment of family members:
As the child has been born, most of the
family members especially the mother
will show positive warm feelings
towards him. They are likely to show:
- strong protective feelings.
- a need for closeness to the child.
- segregation of other relationship.
- empathic feelings with the child.
 *….. Attachment of the Child:
It is governed by the child’s level of perceptual
and other abilities.
- Evidences for attachment include:
 Recognition of other family members as special
people.
 Expression of especially intense feelings towards
family members.
 Expectation that the family members will meet all
needs.
 Fellow feeling with the feelings of other family
members.
 *… Attachment interaction between
child and family members.

 Mutually satisfactory biological tempos.

 Bodily interplay.
 Communication interplay.
Factors affecting the development of
:attachment
1. Factors within family members, especially
parents.
- The wish for the child.
- Parental personality, physical and mental
health.
- Behavior of older brothers and sisters.
- Quality of family relationships.
- Living conditions.
2. Factors within the child.
- Developmental maturity of the child.
- Temperament.
- Presence of sensory defects.
 3. Early environment and
language.

Early environmental
stimulation is important for language
development.
Child Development
a. The Newborn:
- Many important capacities are present at a very early
stage.
- Great difficulty in studying psychological processes in
babies.
- Newborns have considerable learning abilities e.g.
gestures stimulus.
- Perceptual abilities are more than imagined e.g.
turning eyes appropriately.
- Social behavior is present in the earliest days of
babyhood. e.g. copy simple facial gesture.
- Making body movement which are coordinated with
the speech pattern of adults who talk to them (non-
verbal communication).
b. Motor development.
- It starts before birth and is effectively completed
in infancy.
- Motor skills are a precondition to effective
control of the environment and result from a
complex interactions between
 Genetic potential,
 Opportunity and personal attributes such as
 Motivation and organizational skills.
- .
Tables exist which list the average age
at which contain motor skills are
obtained.
- The sequence and timing of motor
development is largely genetically
preprogrammed.
However, fine motor development is
more sensitive to social influence
and opportunities
c. Perceptual Development:
- Even in very young babies, perception is
an active process.
- Compared with adults, children tend to
cover less of the object and to fixate on
details.
- Selective attention is markedly improved
between ages of 5 and 7 years.
- There is strong preference for looking at
faces from birth but appears about the 4th
or 5th month.
d. Mental Development:
- There are 4 key concepts in Piaget’s theory and
these help describe the way children process
information and deal with the world:
1. There are secondary internal processes that the
child uses in conceptualizing experiences.
2. Assimilation; describes the way in which the child
deals with new information.
3. Accommodation; occurs when an existing schemes
modified to incorporate new information.
4. Equilibrium is existed when the two processes are
in a state of relative balance.
 Children tend to pass through 4 broad stages:
1. Sensorimotor stage – it lasts for the 1st 2 years &
infant construct sensorimotor diagrams based on his
or her interactions with the environment  object
permanence.
2. Pre-operational thought – between 2 & 7 years.
The child begins to use an internal representation of
his or her external world.  environmental friendly
problem.
3. Concrete operations – between 7 & 11 years.
Children apply logical reasoning to concrete objects
and problems.
4. Formal operations – it begins at about 11 years.
- full adults thinking ability.
- intellectual reasoning skills.
e. Language Development
- Language comprises the sum of skills necessary
for the process of communication.
- It consists of the ability to understand and utilize
communications, verbal and non-verbal and to
make such communications to others with
meaning.
- The newborn shows a remarkable ability to
distinguish among speech sound e.g. his mother’s
voice.
- Speech production delays behind the capacity for
recognizing and responding to speech.
 …..Language Development
• By 3 – 4 months early bubbling usually
occurs.
• Mother and baby can be observed to be
involved in turn-taking conversation.
• At about 12 months the 1st words with
meaning usually occur.
• By 18 months the child is usually
generating combinations of words.
• By the age of 5, the child not only
accumulates a large vocabulary but also
learns the rules for producing
grammatically correct utterances.
 Influences on normal
language development:
Genetic factors
Physical factors
Social class
Family size
Multiple births
Sex
Quality of stimulation
Bilingual households
 f. Social development
- During the 1st few months attachment will be
established.
- At age of 8 months, infants begin to show a definite
fear of strangers and not long after this, they will
show fear of separation from their caretakers.
- During the preschool years, new behaviors &
attitudes develop as children increasingly interact
with their social environment as part of a process
called socialization.
- One area of behavior during this phase is the sex
roles & is mediated through identification.
- Moral constraints on behavior is learned in part
through identification with parents.
.g. Adolescence

The period between the end of childhood and -

.beginning of adulthood (12-20 )
It is a time of great biological, psychological -
.and social changes
Puberty is established with characteristic -
.Physical changes
It is the time for establishing personal -
.identity
.Adolescence cont
Intellectual and physical changes will give -
.rise to self-awareness
.Peer influence is considerably increased -
Fighting authority control is an important -
.issue
Oversensitivity to criticism, moodiness and -
.easily provocation are common
By the end, they will establish personal -
identity, independence and workable
.relationship with peers
The Study of Human
Development
 Critical Period for
?Language Acquisition

Lennenberg’s theory (1967)

critical periods of language development --
Adult versus child’s ability to learn language --
Guide posts for Study
1. What is human development, and
how has its study evolved?
2. What do developmental scientists
study?
3. What kinds of influences make one
person different from another?
4. What are seven principles of the
life-span developmental approach ?
 Formal Study of
Human Development
The Scientific Study of How Humans Develop •

Development is systematic –
Development is adaptive –
Development is life-long (i.e. life-span –
development)
Stanford Studies of Gifted Children
Berkeley Growth & Guidance Studies
Oakland Growth Study
 Four Goals of
Developmental Psychology
Describe ● Predict •
 Example: When do  Example: Will
children say their first delayed language
?words development
?affect speech
Explain ● Modify ●
 Example: How do  Example: Can
children learn to use therapy help speech
?language ?delays
 Domains of Development
Change & Stability
Physical Development
 Body, brain, senses, motor skills, & health

Intellectual Development
 Learning, memory, moral reasoning, language,
thinking, & creativity

Psychosocial Development
 Personality, emotional life, & relationships
Periods of the Life Span:
A Social Construction

Based on subjective perceptions or -

norms
Varies among cultures -
Changes over generations -
Adolescence only recently -
introduced in industrial societies
 Periods of the Life Span
Prenatal Period Conception – Birth
Infancy and
Birth – 3 years
Toddlerhood
Early Childhood 3 - 6 years
Middle Childhood 6 - 11 years
Adolescence 11 - 20 years
Young Adulthood 20 – 40 years
Middle Adulthood 40 – 65 years
Late Adulthood 65 years and Over
Influences on Development
Individuals vary in rate and timing of
:development, due to
Heredity: Inherited traits from biological
parents
Environment: Physical & social
influences
Maturation: Sequences of physical &
behavioral patterns
 Contexts of Development:
Family

!What is a family?.......Depends
Great changes -
Over time -
Place to place -
 A. Nuclear Family
Two generations, parents and children
Economic unit, history in farming -
Dominant in Western societies -
Increasing in numbers -
Working parents -
Stepchildren -
Single parents -
 B. Extended Family

A multi-generational kinship
 Includes grandparents, cousins, aunts/uncles
!and more.………
 Social roles are flexible
& , Historically, common in Asian, African
Latin American cultures
 Becoming less typical
 Contexts of Development:
Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Includes income, education & occupation

: Poor children are more likely to
 Have emotional & behavior problems
 Not reach intellectual potential
 Have poorer school performance
 Poverty Hurts Children
Outcome Risk Increase
Health
Death in Infancy 1.6 times

Premature Birth 1.8 times

Inadequate Prenatal Care 2.8 times

No regular healthcare 2.7 times

Education
Repeat a Grade 2 times

Drop Out (16 - 24 years) 3.5 times

Low SES &
Related Risk Factors
Poverty-related risks that increase chances of -
:negative outcomes includes
Living in neighborhoods with high -
unemployment
Lack of social support -
Social support less likely in high -
unemployment neighborhoods
Contexts of Development:
[Link]
Culture – A way of life
: Includes
Customs –
Traditions –
Artwork –
 Learned behavior, passed on to children
Contexts of Development:
b. Race & Ethnicity
Cultural Group – A shared identity ●
 United by ancestry, religion, or origin
 Contributes to shared attitudes & beliefs
Race – A socially-constructed term ●
 Shaped by society & politics
Ethnic Control ●
 Overgeneralization that complicates cultural
differences within a group
’ Examples: ‘Black’ or ‘Hispanic
Contexts of Development:
Historical Context

Unique time in which people live & grow up 

:Experiences tied to time and place •
Great Depression –
World War II –
COVID-19 –
Age-Graded
Norms Influences
Similar for an age group
 Maturational: Fixed in time
Puberty or menopause
 Social: Timing is flexible
 Marriage or parenthood
Norms
History-Graded Influences
Events that shape attitudes of a historical -
generation
Historical Generation: A group that
experiences an event at a influential time
e.g : WWII children have strong social bond to
each other
Cohort: Group born around the same time
A historical generation can have many partners -
Non-Normative Influences

Unusual events affecting individual lives -

 Typical events at atypical times
Puberty at age 20 -
Marriage in teens -
 Atypical events
Birth defect -
Winning the lottery-
 Timing of Influences

Establishing
Instinctively following first moving -
object seen after birth; usually mother
his ducklings &
Indicates predisposition or readiness -
to learn
 Timing of Influences:
Critical & Sensitive Periods

Critical Period
Specific time when an event (or its -
absence) has specific impact on
development
Sensitive Period
Developmental timing when child is -
particularly responsive to certain
.experiences
 Timing of Influences:
Flexibility of Development

Modifiability of performance -
Flexibility lasts through life span, -
but has limits
Example: Limits and progress of
spirit
Baltes’s Life Span Approach:
6 Key Principles

Development is lifelong -
Development is multidimensional -
Development is multidirectional -
Development involves changing resource -
allocations
Development shows flexibility -
Development is influenced by the historical and -
cultural context
We must “
become
the
change
we want
”to see