Child development

Stages of child development

• Prenatal to birth – conception to birth
• Infant age – birth to 2 years
• Pre-childhood age – 2 years to 7 years
• Post childhood age – 7 years to 11/12
• Adolescence – 11/12 years to 17/18

Infant stage

Pre-childhood/early childhood

   A period of rapid physical, mental, emotional, social and language development. 

Post/middle childhood

• Begins sooner for girls than for boys.
• Understands the sexual roles.
• Begins independent thinking.
• Language develops to use apt words.
• Growth gives the ability to engage in activities in new skillfulness. 

Adolescence

Cognitive Development

• Schema – mental structures
• Adaptation – adjust according to environment
• Assimilation – using existing schema to understand new experience
• Accommodation – change of schema to understand novel experience or condition
• Equilibrium – balance between accommodation and assimilation
• Organization – balance and organize schemas until a new experience occurs 

•Sensorimotor stage (infancy): 

In this period, which has six sub-stages, intelligence is demonstrated through motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge of the world is limited, but developing, because it is based on physical interactions and experiences. Children acquire object permanence at about seven months of age (memory). Physical development (mobility) allows the child to begin developing new intellectual abilities. Some symbolic (language) abilities are developed at he end of this stage.

•Concrete operational stage (elementary and early adolescence): 

In this stage, characterized by seven types of conservation (number, length, liquid, mass, weight, area, and volume), intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Operational thinking develops (mental actions that are reversible). Egocentric thought diminishes.

•

•Formal operational stage (adolescence and adulthood): 

In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Early in the period there is a return to egocentric thought. Only 35 percent of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.