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Introduction Of The Human Growth And Development Assignment
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Humans undergo many changes during our overall development as an individual. There are some characteristic changes in our behavior throughout the entire journey starting from the infant stage till the stage where we reach senior adulthood. Explaining different stages of human growth will be the main objective of this module.
1.1 Identify the life stages of humans
There are different stages in the life cycle of human beings which are categorized based on the age of an individual. The first stage is called the Birth and infancy stage where the age limit ranges from 0 to 3 years, second stage is the childhood stage which ranges from 4 to 9 years (Fabrizio et al, 2020). The third stage is adolescence which ranges between 10 to 18 years, the next stage is called Adulthood where the age limit lies between 18 to 65 years, lastly, the final stage of life is termed to be Older Adulthood where the age limit exceeds 65 years and beyond till the end of our life.
1.2 Social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development within each life stage
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Social
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Emotional
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Cognitive
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Physical development
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Infant stage
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Newborn babies tend to connect with people very easily and try to imitate people around them to develop new characteristics.
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Babies at this age remain busy on building relationships. This is where they develop a sense of being loved and cared about.
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Infant babies tend to have self-developed cognitive skills which allow them to respond to their caretakers (Hagadorn, 2020). When they are a week old they can easily detect familiar voices.
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Initially, an infant can move his or her head lying on its back. Then can suck which develops before sitting as the baby has to intake of mother’s milk.
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Childhood stage
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This is the preschool stage where children are taught to explore independently and express affection openly. They also learn to cooperate with other children's
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In this stage, there are a lot of changes that occur emotionally. Generally, they have frequent mood swings and high tempers which are sort of living.
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Children of this ages are found to be very advanced in terms of identifying the working of an object without having prior experience with it.
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Physical development slows down a bit during this age when children tend to gain 5 to 7 pounds of weight and grow about 2 to 3 inches per year.
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Adolescence
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At this stage, commonly, the social circle increases and they tend to spend very less time with their families. They try to focus more on their peers who could be their mentors.
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At this age, they indicate stress, anxiety, and anger (Buehler et al.2022). Also, show changes in sleeping and eating habits.
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This is made for complex thinking where individuals can create new ideas and have different questions in their mind which are their curiosity.
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Growth increases rapidly at this stage. The bones and muscles get stronger which makes them able to do work that requires high physical stress.
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Adulthood
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At this age they tend to form long relationships. They tend to find intimate love which can eventually result in marriage.
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At this age, it is very common to make decisions regarding our careers, which can lead us to a place where we can leave independently.
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This is an age where people are able to take their own decisions more efficient. People get a better idea of what is right and what is wrong and differentiate between them.
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People at this age tend to attain maximum height weight and physical strength for the rest of their life.
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Senior adulthood
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This is a stage where there are very few social connections. As they tend to get isolated because they tend to retire from their work culture.
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Due to getting isolated from the work culture, they tend to exhibit high emotions toward their close ones (Fabrizio et al. 020). Sometimes even higher than the younger ones.
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Vocabulary and memory power tends to decrease with age. Other senses such as conceptual thinking and processing speed decrease gradually.
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Wrinkles appear to the skin, skin loses its elasticity, and as body strength decreases gradually as age increases every year.
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2.1 Describe theories of human growth and development
There are many causes of changes that occur during each life stage of a human being. Several theories have shade light on the influencing factors of changes that occur throughout the human growth and development phase. A number of different theories are briefly discussed below;
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Erikson’s Psychosocial Development
Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory emphasizes the social experience of a human being across the lifespan. He suggested 8 psychosocial life stages which are as follows;
In stage:1 (0-1year), Erikson stated that a newborn baby develops a sense of trust with its main caregiver such as its parents (Kaiser, 2020). If trust is broken at this initial stage there is a probability of developing mistrust at later stages.
In stage 2 (1-3year), children develop self-control and learn to perform their own tasks alone. Toilet training is a vital part of this stage.
In stage 3(3-5years) a child started interacting with other people. This process leads them toward growing feelings, guilt, etc.
In stage 4 (5-11years) children learn more about their own abilities and also several other things like a growing sense of pride, and an inferiority complex.
In stage 5 (12-19years) during this adolescence period, an individual tries to develop a self-identity.
In stage 6 (19-35years) Erikson suggested that people develop relationships with others and share a strong bonding with some specific people around them (Samsanovich, 2021).
In stage 7(35-65years) an urge to contribute to the world and community develops.
In stage 8 (65+ years) stagnation occurs. An individual goes through assessing their whole life.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory
On the basis of human motivation Maslow originated a theory about the hierarchy of human needs.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs includes five needs. They are as follows:
Sustenance: The first layer of human needs consists of the basic physiological needs of an individual, such as oxygen, water, food, sex.
Safety Needs: The safety needs of humans are shelter, protection, and security.
Social Needs: Social needs of an individual are feelings of belongingness, drive for love, and to be loved.
Self-Esteem: Once the lower levels of needs are fulfilled the higher level of needs come into action. This level includes the need for self-acceptance and confidence, respect, appreciation, etc.
Self Actualization: This is the top level of needs. It includes the personal growth of an individual, spiritual fulfillment, and knowledge about self-potential.
An individual must meet the lower level of needs before moving to the next level of needs. People reach this need at different stages of their life (Hale et al. 2019). Three lower levels of needs are accomplished by the maximum number of people but the top two levels of needs are achieved by very few people. The success rate of reaching the self-actualized stage is very low.
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Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Stages
Jean Piaget focuses on the cognitive development of the child. He also outlines four stages of cognitive development.
Sensorimotor (0-2 years): At this stage, an infant develops an idea of object permanence and starts to differentiate itself from the other object (Sanghvi, 2020). They make interaction with their immediate environment, get physical mobility, and start to develop memory.
Pre-operational (2-7 years): At this stage, a child learns to talk about specific subjects. They start generalizing things. They remain mainly ego-centric at this stage so they don’t even try to see others’ viewpoints.
Concrete Operational (7-11 years): At this stage, they become aware of external events. Their focus on themselves shifted to other objects (Kazi and Galanaki, 2019). A sense of logic and concrete reasoning grows among them.
Formal Operational (11+ years): In this stage, a child started thinking hypothetically and abstractly. They get an idea of probability and prediction.
3.1 Significant life events within each stage of life span
Birth: It generally spans from 0 to 1 year. A new boen instills a sense of optimism upon its caregivers. Its reason rests over emergence of something new and special to this world and thus presenting greater chances of good behavior incitement. Birth is also known as the “Parturition” processes that bringing forth a child from womb or uterus of mothers and before development of the child uterus is described as “Human embryo” inside the mother body. Caregivers in this sense transforms to someone who not only manages purview of feeding but also toddler sleep schedules.
Infant age: It generally spans from 1 to 3 year. Infants in this stage integrate and try to understand differences in commands, which basically revolves around dependence and independence. They basically represent inner dynamo of humanity wherein ever fueling psychic power is better utilized. Basic life events occur during this stage where an infant learns how to play, speak, behave, and make initial movements like crawling, walking, or jumping. During the initial years, babies try to focus on their vision, try to communicate with people around them, and try to remember their close ones (Buehler et al, 2022). Toddlerhood comprises mainly of context of autonomy wherein better both shame and doubt paradigm is better analysed over.
Childhood age: It generally spans from 4 to 9 year. They primarily learn about working of physical world, through conceptions under determination of better utilizing childhood development. This is the time were they develop personal behavior. This is the time a child tends to be very playful and can cause a lot of mischief in and around society. This stage revolves around description of autonomy versus shame and doubt. Sense of self-efficacy under indulgence of excessively hovering and encouraging dependence might as well develop better confidence over their abilities. A toddler often demonstrates fierce determination that at times might as well bring in disapproval from peers. In this life phase they started to move around the house by crawling and learn to identify their parents and loved ones.
Adolescence age: It generally spans from 10 to 18 year. This is a time when there are a lot of changes physically as the bones and muscles tend to become stronger. Children around this age embody principle measures of innovation and transformation. This transformation often results development of single creative act that has occurred around course of civilisation (Brieant et al, 2021). They tend to feel that they need extra time to spend with themselves as they want to be independent in the way they live. Age of adolescence is often demonstrated as most turbualent phase which might lead to experience identity crisis. This phase often requires more investment in developing social connections such that consuming self discovery motions are often left out. Mood of children might change frequently, randomly and quickly. In this phase child may experience emotions and feeling they have never experienced before and it is obvious they feel confused and angry at the same time.
Adulthood age: It generally spans from 18 to 65 year. This is one of the most important phases of an individual’s life where they need to pursue a carrier that will make them settled (bbCameron and Schell, 2021). First stage of adulthood comprises of enterprise faction wherein establishment of family circle phases in developing phase determination is better observed. Contemplation forms another dynamic portfolio wherein a deeper meaning of self is better discovered. Benevolence forms to be, matured phase through which contributing towards betterment of society is framed throughout philanthropic initiatives. In this particular life stage people started to experience emotional breakdown for older people grapple with diminishing adaptive reserves, changes in cognitive, emotional functioning, patterns of social integration, financial risk and loneliness.
Older Adulthood age: Age 65 year and onwards can be referred as older adulthood age. This is the last stage of life where there are no major developments in life they tend to get isolated and also feel lonely (Bogin, 2020). This is also a stage where an individual feels a generation gap with the young ones. Wisdom forms as underlying feature through which greater determination rger of living are characterized through life teaching venues. With increasing age of people disease, diabetes, dementia and depression become more common and experienced by several people at older adulthood age.
3.2 Analyze the impact that significant life events have on individuals
If one goes through all the life stages, in childhood an individuals most important life event is to go to school. They experience social interaction and make new friends. Here at this level, their developed ego led them towards a feeling of inferiority as they were introduced to the competition.
Childhood age: Previous research helps in demonstrating childhood experiences with immense affects on individual health adulthood. As an example individual experiences numerous ACEs during their early life develop a major risk of depression, anxiety and abusive habits.
Adolescence age: In adolescence, the development of the ego causes confusion about the role in life. In young adulthood, an individual introduces to the feeling of intimacy, isolation, and affiliation (Horta et al. 2020). From the middle of adulthood, an individual urges to contribute to the community and be productive. Virtue of adolescence often depends upon fidelity network such that better deliverance of understanding is initiated. Paradigm of self discovery often depends upon forming relationship through integration of potential difference. Teenage exploration along with unleashing powerful set of changes reflects their spiritual passion. Separation from their child often happens with them. Adolescent impacts strongly on individuals that include growth spurt, changes in skin such as Acne, allergies and body odor with accumulation of body fats. Appearances of people changes with growth of pubic and axillaries hairs with facial hear in men.
Adulthood age: Change cannot be avoided by anyone, it will occur at every stage of life. People have to cope with these changes as per their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development (Domínguez et al. 2020). There are significant life events that take place during the lifespan. If an individual could not be more adaptable to the present situation of life, they find it difficult to move on to the next part of their life. It hampers the general happiness of an individual. Young adulthood forms to be under financial foundations wherein representing personal relationship foundational measures are involved over. A stage of quarterly life crisis is often build through emergence of social network wherein generatively and stagnation process is better determined over. Later adulthood depends upon paradigm of reflection and introspection through which ego-integrity as well as ego-despair characteristics is better developed. During adulthood individual reaches a physical maturity and adults reaches their peak level of physical strength full height and weight at this time. At this stage individual experiences work, education, family life, relationships and volunteering and also experiences breakdown along with emotional trauma due to death of loved ones.
Older Adulthood age: At the older adulthood stages stamina and strength gathered during adulthood started to decline. Successfully negotiating with life events includes; increasing a sense of independence, and developing feelings of general happiness and satisfaction (Chen et al. 2018). Also, they will be more adaptable to changes. There will be a reduction of emotional pain and can deal with the undesired events competently.
When an individual cannot perform effectively in life events, they became fixated. There will be a lack of self-confidence, and motivation, and will get anxious about their future. This can lead to several depressive disorders. Older adulthood represents phase of primary difference measures through which developing productive as well as majority development characteristics are framed over. Substantial disease measures under experiencing optimal ageing factors is also characterized throughout change implication differences. Regression is observed throughout dimensional development of uniform process measures through external cultural-sociological dimension. Navigational process would ground development of specific vision development factors under co-creation of personal goals.
Overall, significant life events can be diverse in nature and successfully dealing with these events can lead to gaining more independence, while getting most from life. Apart from that, personal satisfaction and happiness, reduction in overwhelming emotional pain are other positive consequences of this. Successful dealing with important life events can enable a person to accept unwanted outcomes as well, while gaining improved ability to adapt with situation.
Conclusion
In the given module it is seen that a human undergoes various ups and downs during the entire life cycle which can affect a person mentally and physically. It is also seen that there are different experiences a person undergoes in terms of physical development and mental development. In order to cope with such changes, a person must be able to adapt to every situation.
References
Books
- bbCameron, N. and Schell, L. eds., 2021. Human growth and development. Academic Press.
- Bogin, B., 2020. Patterns of human growth (Vol. 88). Cambridge University Press.Bogin, B., 2020. Patterns of human growth (Vol. 88). Cambridge University Press.(Cameron and Schell 2021)
- Bogin, B., 2020. Patterns of human growth (Vol. 88). Cambridge University Press.Bogin, B., 2020. Patterns of human growth (Vol. 88). Cambridge University Press.
- Journals
- Brieant, A.E., Sisk, L.M. and Gee, D.G., 2021. Associations among negative life events, changes in cortico-limbic connectivity, and psychopathology in the ABCD Study. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 52, p.101022.
- Buehler, C., Girod, S.A., Leerkes, E.M., Bailes, L., Shriver, L.H. and Wideman, L., 2022. Women's Social Well-Being During Pregnancy: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Recent Life Events. Women's Health Reports, 3(1), pp.582-592.
- Chen, Y., Zhao, X., Zhang, X., Liu, Y.N., Zhou, P., Ni, H., Ma, J. and Ming, D., 2018. Age-related early/late variations of functional connectivity across the human lifespan. Neuroradiology, 60(4), pp.403-412.
- Domínguez-López, I., Yago-Aragón, M., Salas-Huetos, A., Tresserra-Rimbau, A. and Hurtado-Barroso, S., 2020. Effects of dietary phytoestrogens on hormones throughout a human lifespan: A review. Nutrients, 12(8), p.2456.
- Fabrizio, V., Trzaski, J.M., Brownell, E.A., Esposito, P., Lainwala, S., Lussier, M.M. and Hagadorn, J.I., 2020. Individualized versus standard diet fortification for growth and development in preterm infants receiving human milk. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (11).(Fabrizio et al. 2020)
- Fabrizio, V., Trzaski, J.M., Brownell, E.A., Esposito, P., Lainwala, S., Lussier, M.M. and Hagadorn, J.I., 2020. Individualized versus standard diet fortification for growth and development in preterm infants receiving human milk. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (11).
- Hale, A.J., Ricotta, D.N., Freed, J., Smith, C.C. and Huang, G.C., 2019. Adapting Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a framework for resident wellness. Teaching and learning in medicine, 31(1), pp.109-118.
- Hopper, E., 2020. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explained. ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 24.
- Horta, M., Pehlivanoglu, D. and Ebner, N.C., 2020. The role of intranasal oxytocin on social cognition: an integrative human lifespan approach. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 7(4), pp.175-192.
- Kaiser, E., 2020. Violence on street children: Looking through Erikson’s psychosocial development theory. Journal of Health and Social Sciences, 5(1), pp.45-52.
- Kazi, S. and Galanaki, E., 2019. Piagetian theory of cognitive development. The encyclopedia of child and adolescent development, pp.1-11.
- Samsanovich, A., 2021. Theory and diversity: A descriptive study of Erikson’s psychosocial development stages.
- Sanghvi, P., 2020. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development: a review. Indian Journal of Mental Health, 7(2), pp.90-96.
